Apple New York Store Opening Crashed By Animal Magazine

Ever the intrepid reporter, Bucky Turco weaseled his way into the exclusive Apple store opening at 58th and 5th in New York Friday night. Apparently, a snatched press pass did the trick. While inside, Turco took a bunch of pictures of the opening and of the elite crowd allowed into the store which included James Woods, Kevin Bacon, Julianne Moore and Jobs himself. If it weren't enough to worm oneself into the event, Turco, after gaining early entry, switched the homepages of as many of the computers in the store as hew could to his publication's website, Animal. Bucky knows his guerrilla marketing.

Cosmetics Retailer Goes Floral For In-Store Video

Stardust's LA design director Brad Tucker and executive producer Eileen Doherty teamed-up to co-direct an in-store video, which will be featured in international M.A.C stores through June, and is part of a Culture Bloom CD-ROM release being distributed to M.A.C event attendees. Along with directing the live action, Stardust also provided editorial, design, animation and finishing on this project. It's very floral and arty but we like it which makes us sound gay which, while, of course, there's nothing wrong with being gay, we're, clearly, not. Just to put that...uh...straight.

Mayor Dislikes French Connection's Fighting Females

Boston's Mayor Menino is upset over French Connection's recent Fashion v. Style ad campaign which centers on women fighting each other and says the campaign "promotes negative images of women and violence."Earlier, we took a look at a video ad that was part of the campaign here that pits two women against each other karate-style. Menino wants French Connection to pull the ads from Boston's Newbury Street and Copley Place French Connection retail stores.

Krystal Restaurant Puts Customers Faces on Packaging

Apparently, there's this really popular restaurant in the South called Krystal. Who knew? We sure didn't and we also didn't know the chain's website has a very attractive spokesperson named Krystal to guide visitors around the company's website. Aside from that, Krystal has this thing called Krystal Lovers Hall of Fame, an area that features Krystal lovers from around the restaurant's six state area.

Their big thing is the Krystal Hamburger box or the Cheese Krystal box, boxes full of small, square burgers. Hmm, sounds a lot like White Castle. That's because, as a commenter points out, it's the southern cousin of White Castle. Krystal will now feature its Hall of Famers on these boxes as a promotion.

McDonalds' McMornings A Let Down

We were optimistic, though we're not sure why, the the McDonald's McMornings might be something special but the first thing we were greeted with was The Excuse Generator 3000, one of those lame, so five years ago, excuse letter generators for people without enough spine to stand up for themselves when their boss asks them why they were late to work. Of course that could all be due to some ingenious use of cookies automatically landing anyone coming to the site after, say, after 9A in a given time zone on that page.

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MSN Music Teams With House of Blues For Branded Experience

In an effort to lend some cool factor to MSN Music, The Wexley School for Girls and General Public have, in partnership with the House of Blues, created a branded experience for venue's MSN Music Nights. Elements include a special drink, temp tattoos, drink glasses, projections, in-house tv films, branded instrument installations, bathroom mirror stencils, t-shirts, bar shirts, collectible download cards, posters and silk screened drum heads. The work looks great and appears to blend nicely with the House of Blues decor. See two more images here and here and a video here.

Yummi-Land Soda Pop Girls Are, Like, Really Cool

To give its pre-Bratz Doll crowd something to do, MGA Entertainment has launch Yummi-Land, a cartoony site featuring the company's Soda Pop Girls Amanda Appletina, Belinda Banana Ana, Gaby Grapelina and Susie Strawbella. Are you overcome yet by the sicky sweetness of it all? Well, wait, there's more. Each girl has a little pet; Paris Peaches Pug, Kimi Kiwi Calico, Mimi Mango Calico and Cha-Cha Chocolate Chihuahua. Oh, and there's games and downloads and ecards and videos and shopping and contests and product and gumball machines and, OMG, secret messages! And, like, that music!! There's gotta be a Saturday morning cartoon hiding somewhere too.

Giant Chair Used to Sell Disney Classic DVD Series

It's the over sized furniture strategy again. this time Disney is trying to make parents feel like kids again so they'll buy the company's Classic DVD series.

Baseball Greats Featured in Sports Memorabilia Shop Campaign

For its client Heroes of the Game, an Avon, CT sports memorabilia shop, Adam $ Knight Adveetising created a series of posters focusing on baseball greats such as Ted Williams, Don Zimmer, Willie Mays, Earl Torgenson and Mickey Mantle, The posters will be placed in-store as well as at card shoes. A series of print ads is planned as well. Take a look at the campaign here.

Apple iPod Hi-Fi Busts A Window

Pastor Scott Hodge was walking down Chicago's Michigan Avenue yesterday and spotted this unique window dressing promoting Apple's new iPod Hi-Fi. Aside from the fact, the whole things just a really fancy speaker, the execution is most certainly attention getting and speaks well to the proverbial window-breaking qualities of proverbially kick ass sound systems. Check out the full sized images here.