This Colombian campaign for El Trago Mas Caro or "the most expensive drink" stages a gory accident along a busy roadside to promote the "drink+drive=DIE!" message for teens. Read the news story here, though it might prove challenging if you're not proficient in Colombian Spanish. It's a nice set-up but since this in-your-face approach is standard fare in many high schools we wonder whether it does the job for the young and jaded.
In any case, let's ponder over this whole fake dead people thing. Yeah. Getting kind of old. Cry wolf, anyone? - Contributed by Angela Natividad
Here's something we don't get to report every day. Massachusetts company Alt Terrain LLC unleashes an actual new media platform. We were like, is that possible?
The patent-pending 360 Degree Mobile Video Billboard delivers ad content (even 30-second moving spots) to thousands of eyeballs in a given hit. Right now it's in New York, LA, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco. You attach it to your car, truck or SUV.
Wait. Four-sided, mobile, audio/visual advertising? We'll say for the record that if we were the inventor of the dated but endearing ice cream truck, we'd be pretty pissed that somebody was trying to take our idea, attach a bunch of bells and whistles to it and pass it off as their invention. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
Now's your chance to but all kinds of celebu-shit from Tori Spelling and her husband, Dean McDemott. In non-news today, the pair are having a yard sale this weekend and were spotted placing flyers around their Studio City neighborhood. Some thinks it's a publicity stunt/joke but there's website promoting the event as well. Whatev.
Berkeley's Impact Theatre, a grassroots troupe that operates out of the basement of a pizza joint, put some heads together to work out how to raise more dosh. As these things tend to go somebody said, "Hey, wanna take pictures of the company girls half-naked and get really, really drunk?"
Unlike most stories that start out with an blur of limbs, vodka and grenadine, this one ends happily ever after: with a publication called Sinfully Delicious: The Impact Theatre Cocktail Book. A step up from the calendar idea, the book features real-live troupe girls, company costumes and off-the-cuff Impact recipes (with the exception of one). It's a nice sticky way to promote "theatre that doesn't suck," Impact's long-standing motto.
Wow. Don't you wish orgies always turned out this way? - Contributed by Angela Natividad
After we realized we weren't Taye Diggs in an episode of Day Break, we realized Agency.com just can't seem to catch a break these days. Just a week or so after Lynx releases Lynxblow, a site that lets people blow the clothes off a model by blowing into their microphone, Agency.com client BT releases The Hi Def Chamber, a site that lets people blow stuff up by blowing into their microphone. Homage paid or coincidence? You decide.
In a twisted nod to that Draft/FCB Lion ad everyone took pleasure in shitting on, this Ogilvy Amsterdam-created ad for MTV takes the whole lion fucking thing even further incorporating other species and, in an excruciatingly long 60 seconds, tells people to wear condoms because "every six seconds somebody is infected with HIV." Catchy tune though. Unfortunately, it's gonna be stuck in our head the next time we decide to go all animal on someone.
Duvall Guillaume launched a bizarre campaign for animal rights group GAIA in Belgium. It's called Pigs in Pain. From the PR guy's letter:
"In Belgium, five million piglets are castrated without anaesthetic every year. The cries of agony of these piglets are unbearable. Yet our government still pretends not to hear it. In spite of promises they made 3 years ago to ban the cruelty."
With that in mind they created a pop group called Pigs in Pain. Their single, which was actually released on the radio, consisted of pigs screaming in inexplicable agony. It made our ears bleed. Clever way to get animal angst out to the public. So read the requisite blog, watch the music video and share in the plight of Belgian pigs. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
In an intersection between the surreal story-telling band The Decemberists and Napoleon Dynamite, Microsoft uses Clearification to promote Vista. This is a subtly witty bio-site about a guy suffering from HANDTOSS, or Hyper-Achiever with No Direction and Tendency to Overcomplicate Situations Syndrome.
The campaign was created by McCann and Mekanism. The HANDTOSS victim is comedian Demetri Martin. We never thought we'd say this about any one of Microsoft's myriad attempts to de-stodge, but we dig it. Then again we'd love anybody who covertly reveals his favourite subject in school "involved karate and ... crying."
We could listen to this guy spout neuroses in his mellow little voice for hours. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
Apparently that Subservient Santa thing is part of a larger campaign by Toy, NY for OfficeMax. The idea is to get people supply-shopping for the holidays by disseminating 20 time-burning holiday sites as "gifts" into the 'net, which is already as bloated as the gift-giving Saint himself. The concept does have that idle but colourful FAO Schwarz feel to it so maybe it's ingenious and we just don't know it.
Upload your head and elf yourself. Armwrestle with a reindeer (that sounds horrifically painful, actually). Get a kid with his tongue stuck to a pole to talk. Sing conspiracy carols. You get the idea. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
Viagra works. It really does. Even for gymnasts who need to stay rock hard during their routines. Huh? WTF? Just click here if you want to see the full version of this NSFW ad Jason Kottke received as a spam email. Damn, that looks painful!
You know you're going to do something stupid at some holiday party this year so why not protect yourself from the morning after guilt by pretending to be someone else during your evening of frivolity? Now, you can with Alternate Identity Business Cards, an interesting service from, yes, an ad agency. DDB to be specific. Now this is way better (and more useful) than some Christmas card or video.
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