Apparently, there are many people who feel the new Sony campaign promoting its new white PSP is racist because it features a white woman in a position of power over a black woman. Bells and whistles are going off over at Joystiq but there's also another image that's part of the campaign that shows the black woman getting her vengeance over the white woman. Can we all just relax? Sony and TBWA, of course, intended the ad to be controversial otherwise it'd sit there like all the other boring ads wasting our time every day. Racist or not, it's got us talking and that's half the battle any campaign faces.
From AdArena, a blog with the tagline "sex sells" comes a couple of ads for Legends condoms which does pretty good job unselling sex. That is, sex without a condom. Using the fear of children many people have before actually realizing children can actually be a good thing, Legends has captured a few kids behind its condom material horror movie poster style.
For years, Keta Keta has been creating great virals for various causes such as two videos promoting peace in the Middle East, one for an anti-spam company and one promoting Israel as a Holy Land of a different sort. Now, due to the success of Keta Keta's Holyland video which achieved 15 million views in the first three months, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism has hired Keta Keta to create an "official" web video to promote Israeli tourism.
Riffing off the first video which twisted biblical connotations on their head, this first official video dabbles with football themes, the power of physical beauty and illustrates why the country didn't make it to this year's World Cup.
Sort of like the T-Mobile speed talking cheerleader, these two spots for Canada's Solo Mobile promoting its walkie talkie feature just reinforce the idiocy and pointlessness of the need to be connected at all times. OK, so they're kinda funny but that doesn't make up for the rampant display of mindless blather the cell phone has perpetuated. Oops. Credit where credit is due. Vancouver-based Rethink created the spot which was directed by Reginald Pike's Brian Lee Hughes.
Ashlee Simpson who sings like...oh...we're just not going to go there this time...will reportedly and instead of baring it all for Playboy become the face of a new line of Victoria's Secret clothing aimed at the younger, sluttier, high school...oh sorry...we're not going to go their either...the younger generation. Apparently, Kelly Clarkson was in the running as well but curves talk when it comes to Victoria's Secret and Ashlee has more of those than Kelly does. The new line of clothing may be called "Pink" and likely the marketing will, predictably, contain all the connotation-disguised-as-innocence that word implies. Oddly, this all just sounds like a rehash of the 2004 launch of a line of college hottie-wear fronted by Alessandra Ambrosio and "Team Pink."
Here's a PC flavored campaign that uses geese to promote Denninger's Goose Flavored Pate. At least it's not one of those commercials that uses a talking tuna to sell a product that makes a lot of tuna stop talking. Heaven's to Betsy. Now that would really be politically incorrect.
Girls. If you're going to get mad at your boyfriend for satisfying his urges without you, make sure you know what urges he's satisfying before you storm out of the room. And for those who like to stare into the windows of shoe stores because the sales woman is performing some sort of grinding activity atop a shoe, make sure you know what sort of activity is going on before you begin creating a sexual fantasy in your mind about what you just saw. FishNChimps points us to yet another campaign that tricks the mind into believing everything is about sex.
Anytime a bunch of advertising art directors latch onto the wackiness of Terry Gilliam, the outcome is bound to be a creative explosion of exponential proportion and that's just what we get in this Wieden + Kennedy-created spot, Happiness Factory, which kicks off the brand's new Coke Side of Life campaign. It truly is an over indulgence of happiness and it all happens inside a lowly Coke machine between the time the coin is dropped in and the bottle pops out. Whether you think soda rots your teeth or not, you've got to hand it to WK and Coke for creating this make believe world of happiness that, given enough imagination, could be quite real if one wanted it to be. After all, wouldn't it be nice if a place like that really existed?
Anytime a press release comes in and claims it's schilling the next great viral, prior to its release, mind you, we always wince a bit and try to refrain from opening the window and screaming "a viral can't fucking be a viral until it's actually gone viral!" OK. Now that we have that out of our system, we're pleased to announce the release of Inspiration, the latest Wieden + Kennedy/Amsterdam created Bottle Films...um...viral from Coke. It carries the "Coke Side of Life" tag and is all hippy dippy with...hold your breath..."cutting edge new bands and music to soundtrack the films and re-enforce Coke as a relevant brand to teens."
OK, then. Enjoy. Because Coke adds life and gives you a feeling you can't beat which makes you smile and look up while you realize life is good which makes you feel the difference so much that you want buy the world a Coke because you know things go better with a Coke especially when catching the wave as you play during the red hot summer, relaxing with your Coke and the realization that life is good and that Coke is most definitely it.
Fed up with seeing advertising everywhere, Dutch design student Raoul Balai set up a fake agency which offers advertising on animals, in churches, in the middle of songs, on beaches and, yes, on the bodies of hookers. Using images of animals at the Amsterdam Soo, Balai photoshopped ads onto the animals as well as onto the horizon of a beach, the windows of churches and onto the bodies of random lingerie-clad women. Balai explained his effort saying, "I was getting sick and tired of advertising everywhere. But I don't want to preach, and I thought satire would work better." It did until the Amsterdam Zoo caught wing of Balai's work and had its lawyers slap Balai with a defamation suit. Yes, it's official again. No one in the entire world has has even the smallest sense of humor anymore.
You guys over at celebu-obsessive BBDO might want to read up on a bit of new research from college marketing experts Alloy Media + Marketing which just released a study that found adults age 18-30 place far more emphasis on a brand's social responsibility than its use of celebrity endorsers. Of course any survey that queries people on the importance of not-for-profit causes, community activism and environmental friendliness as compared to the importance of celebrity endorsement is bound to skew results in favor of the "right" answer.
The trouble with this survey is that it measured perception and intent, not actual behavior and the opening of a wallet. A better and more valuable test of what influences a person's actions after being exposed to a brand's message would be to compare purchase behavior of various brands with said brand's use of celebrity endorsers, socially conscious practices and the brands reliance on it's "image." Of course, these sorts of studies have been done many times before but are usually proprietary in nature because it involves a brand divulging sales figures, etc. Point being, studies that measure action versus intent and far more relevant.
MediaPost reports Clear Channel is testing a new outdoor technology, previously mentioned here in 2003, from Magink that will replace vinyl with molecular coated plastic tiles which will react to an electrical current to form an image making changing billboard copy changes a matter of pushing a few buttons in a remote office. The technology will allow for multiple ads to appear on a single board and, with the ability to change images 70 times per second, potentially allow for video. While the cost to install these boards is five times that of vinyl, it will allow advertisers more flexibility, make more money for Clear Channel and eliminates the need for paper, vinyl, printing and labor costs. All you production and vinyl people better find something else to do.
|
|
