Earlier there was a story claiming Christina Aguilera had banned all but the necessary few from the set of a photo shoot she was doing for a Virgin Atlantic ad campaign because she was apparently going to appear nude. A more likely reason for the ban, as reported in the Sun, is that she was faking an orgasm Meg Ryan-style for the ad and got squeamish about crew members drooling while listening to her seductive moans.
Maybe next week there will be reports of the set being cleared because she farted for some art director who thought it'd be genius to spoof Budweiser's farting horse Super Bowl commercial.
Worldwide soccer star David Becham is reportedly about to sign a multi-year deal with Gillette to be the corporate spokesperson. The deal, worth an estimated $30 to $50 million, will commence late Summer with a campaign said to support a new razor that will compete with Schick's Quattro.
Rivaling the cost of an ad in the Super Bowl, the final episode of "Friends' is commanding $2 million per 30 seconds of commercial airtime. It's the largest figure ever charged for a sitcom and is just under the $2.3 million paid for the Super Bowl. Companies that have ponied up the big bucks are Pepsi, Hewlett-Packard, Vivendi Universal, Walt Disney, Anheuser-Busch and General Electric.
Claiming Agent Provocateur lingerie to be the most provocative in the world, Kylie Minogue says she can prove it with the help of the viewer. To do so, she writhes sexually atop a mechanical bull in this ad then asks all the men in the audience to stand up. Of course, none of them do...or can without embarressment. This, of course harkens back to every guy's hot yet nightmarish memory of a time when, as a kid, he simply could not contain is "appreciation" for that young hottie, who was the daughter of his parent's friends and was over for dinner, at the same moment when his mother asked him to stand up and help clear the table, forcing him to turn red and instantly come up with all manner of excuse not to stand up and reveal the "appreciation" threatening to burst open his zipper.
Fighting the rising level of commercial avoidance among consumer today, Pontiac decided to promote its new GTO by throwing everything but the proverbial kitchen sink into this hard to categorize video-preview-trailer-adver-thingy. It's an ad for the new GTO but it's also a trailer for a supposedly new car chase movie called "The Last Ride." It includes the humorous, self-congratulatory flatulence from director Rob Cohen who gushes about his choice of car for the movie and the usual quick-cut, explosive movie scenes we've come to expect.
All that said, it is an intriguing combination that leaves you unsure of whether you are watching a commercial, a movie trailer or an Access Hollywood interview.
Other spots in this week's Ad Age TV Spots of the week include work for Doritios, Carlsberg, Universal Studios, Coke, Fuji, Nationwide Insurance and good 'ol Tony the Tiger for Kellogg's. Looks like Tony's had a major face lift, though, since I was a kid.
Click here to view the spots.
Many an advertiser have discounted the value of television viewing outside the home claiming it is not as valuable due to distractions such as those found in a bar. A recent study by Total TV Audience Monitor, underwritten by ESPN, the NFL and ABC, finds otherwise. The study found much of out of home viewing was done in what the study called locations "conducive to marketing" such as off-campus housing, hotels, etc. Aside from the debatable issue of what a "conducive to marketing" location really is, 72 percent of out of home viewing occurs in these locations. Of note, the elusive 18-34 audience comprised 59 percent of this segment whereas it represent only 22 percent of in-home viewers. Of all out of home viewing, the most is done at colleges with 29.5 percent viewing in off-campus housing and 18.6 percent in on-campus housing. Whether or not the viewers where sober or not during viewing is subject for another study.
