'Transformers' Budget Depleted, Studio Resorts to Stickers

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Defamer notes Dreamworks has had to scale back its marketing budget following the millions it's spent on building wraps and customized Lamborghini-bots to the point where the only thing it can afford are a few stickers placed on a random vehicle seen in a Burbank Staples parking lot.

by Steve Hall    Jun-12-07    
Topic: Guerilla, Outdoor



Guerrilla Gardening Gets Major Press For Music Festival

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Just how do you promote an environmentally-focused music festival in Budapest on a shoestring budget? You create gardens overnight and plant 800 flowers in unused and run down public areas, of course. That's exactly what Budapest agency RayGun did for the Hegyalja music festival and Hungary's participation in the celebration of World Day of Environment Protection. The agency trecked to four Hungarian cities; Budapest, Miskolc, Debrecen and Nyireghaza to create the gardens and plant the flowers mostly near bridges and overpasses.

The effort, at not much more than the cost of the flowers, garnered major news coverage on television news programming and within major national newspapers. While it's difficult to argue against the planting of flowers, the Budapest Council did threaten legal action against the agency but Creative Director Alex Poulson tells us the agency is now working with the governing body to discuss further means of beautifying the city.

View additional images of the plantings here.

by Steve Hall    Jun- 7-07    
Topic: Good, Guerilla



Free Ice Cream For Everyone! As Long As You're Black

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As part of a promotional campaign to introduce the new TBS show Tyler Perry's House of Payne, ice cream trucks branded with the show's characters made stops in various neighborhoods, malls and events in Atlanta, Birmingham, Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte and Memphis in an effort to draw African-Americans to the show which debuts June 6. Free "POPScicles" in honor of LaVan Davis' character, Curtis "Pops" Payne were freely distributed to all. Yes all. Pay no attention to our nasty headline writer.

by Steve Hall    Jun- 6-07    
Topic: Guerilla, Promotions



Audi to Fly Kite With Two A5s in Munich

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In Munich this weekend, Audi will perform a stunt during which two Audi A5's will be tethered to and control a large stunt kite. Apparently, it's to break some kind of world record. The event is being promoted with a large billboard, placed in Berlin, with a kite extension attached. Get that A5 over here guys. The A4 is too small and the A6 is too expensive. In fact, just let the wind take control and fly those two babies to New York. We'll take it from there.

by Steve Hall    Jun- 6-07    
Topic: Guerilla, Outdoor



Hardee's Celebrates Booty-Less Women With FlatBuns

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Not to be left out of the whole Angus Burger thing, Hardee's has crafted FlatBuns, a cheesy, Geocities-style site that worships Flat-Bun Bettys or, girls with no ass. Celebrating pancake butts, miss six o'clocks, and boney bottoms, FlatBuns makes it known every female isn't born with a Jennifer Lopez or Hayden Panettiere-like butt. It's all part of their promotion the the chain's Patty Melt Thick Burger...with grilled, flat rye bread.

by Steve Hall    Jun- 1-07    
Topic: Good, Guerilla, Online



Manholes Mingle With Man Holes

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Is it just us or does the visual in this Chinese open manhole awareness campaign connote something relating to an entirely different sort of man hole? Apparently, the Chinese like to steal manhole covers. Why we know not but it seems the plight is so severe, an ad campaign is needed to urge caution to those who find themselves near manholes of a certain size. Not that caution should be thrown to the wind when entering much smaller versions of the man hole.

by Steve Hall    May-31-07    
Topic: Guerilla, Outdoor, Strange



Bom Chicka Wah Wah Invades Outside World

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No better way to start a revolution than with stickers. Just ask Shepard Fairey. Or in this case, Axe. Observe slap-on improvements on mundane street signage here and here.

The effort was launched by Lowe, Belgium via Ads of the World, so we're more or less sure somebody's going to snarl, "Hey, that's fake."

In a less subtle effort to demonstrate how completely irresistible the common man could be with a more persuasive spritz, Axe recently also had really hot cops spray and siege at random on the streets of Poland.

Oh, Axe-scented man, let us at him, we can't resist. Except, oh, that we can.

by Angela Natividad    May-29-07    
Topic: Guerilla



Mini Skirted Policewomen Spray, Attack AXE-Wearing Men

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Just like our imagined world peace courtesy of the Svedka Vodka Fembots, a world with police officers dressed like these Axe Body Spray police women just might be a far less violent place. For the pure visual shock value alone, potential crooks would be stopped dead in their tracks.

So AXE went out and hired a bunch of nice looking women in Crakow Poland, dressed them in police hottie wear complete with Body Spray belt and miniskirt, picked men out of the crowd to spray them with AXE and then thrust themselves all over the guy in uncontrollable reaction to the "stench" of AXE Body Spray. Onlookers wished they were so lucky. Bom Chica Wah Wah!

by Steve Hall    May-24-07    
Topic: Good, Guerilla



Trafalgar Square Gets Turfed

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Hmm. It would be nice if, perhaps, someone would do this to Times Square. In an effort to promote London's open green space movement, Cake, last night, turfed the entire surface of London's Trafalgar Square. You can watch a time-lapsed video of the project here and a visit the Facebook (take that, MySpace!) page here. See other images and the "before" picture here.

by Steve Hall    May-24-07    
Topic: Good, Guerilla



Virgin Atlantic Airways Does Barf Bags in a Big Way

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We were shamefully unaware of Virgin's preoccupation with barf bags until this entry by AdFreak, though one can probably argue it goes hand-in-hand with the drugs > food lifestyle of their other obsession.

Anywho, the barf ... bag ... theme is something they're clearly committed to. With Crispin Porter + Bogusky holding the staple gun, Virgin's proceeded to affix three-foot-tall barf bags onto temporary walls around construction sites and scaffoldings in major cities like New York, San Francisco, Boston, DC and Chicago, the airline's biggest hub cities.

Each bag has a long tome across the front about the retch-worthy penny-pinching going down in the airline business today.

"What better expression of the current state of air travel than an air sickness bag?" a Virgin spokesperson dryly notes.

Under the tsk-tsky tagline "How did air travel become so bloody awful?", expect to see the campaign through mid-July.

by Angela Natividad    May-22-07    
Topic: Brands, Guerilla, Strange