In the clearest example the advertising industry has gone insane, Athens Olympic "clean venue" guidelines are said to warn against attendees wearing or consuming any brand that is not a sponsor of the event. In what certainly has to be either a joke or the manifestation of a marketing team gone mad, any attendee found with or trying to enter with a non-sponsor brand will be asked to leave or barred from entry. Has our business gone absolutely mad?
Yea, yea, the sponsors are all paying big bucks and they don't want another brand ambushing their sponsorships but this is positively ridiculous. Maybe they should strip search women, removing non-sponsor brand panties, out of fear the tag might be seen when they bend over and are gawked at by male spectators. Insane. Thanks to Charley Brough for pointing out this idiocy.
We've all gone through that ridiculous routine of making a wish before blowing out the candle's on our birthday cake only to have it never come true. This girl's does. Carvel ain't running this spot.
From TheSpecSpot comes this ad you won't see on TV but can view right here. We all love our beer but sometimes we just get a bit overexcited about it. This man's wife has dealt with the problem.
By far, this is the best metaphor used in an ad in recent memory. It doesn't even need a headline but if it had one, it would be, "Trouble getting in the box? Box too small? Member too big? KY Will Get You In." Oh, and for the female targeted version, "Fear of dryness? Shocked by his size? KY will open you up." OK, those headlines are a mile long and they suck. Then again, this ad needs no headline nor is it likely to be an ad actually endorsed by tight-space-problem-solver Johnson & Johnson. Quite brilliant though, actually.
In a refreshing nod to the barely there threshold we have for windbag politicians spouting irrelevant nonsense, Indiana Democratic Governor Joe Kernan is running five second television ads (adlets?) giving quick, bite sized blips of information on the economy and his bid for re-election. Of course, Republican challenger Mitch Daniels is complaining claiming the spots don't paint an accurate picture of Indiana's struggling economy. Hello? One would think the opposition would be happy his opponent was buying less airtime.
Soon, not only will consumers be able to watch their favorite movie or TV show whenever they want, they will also be able to select their favorite ads to view as well. That's the way Comcast sees it and is in talks with GM to see what pans out. Comcast produced a spec spot which it took to GM and asked if it would like to have it appear on the cable companies Marketplace shopping channel. BMW, who has already mastered the art of the long form ad, is also said to be developing plans for VOD ads as well. The dream is to mirror cable subscriber demographics to viewing rates hopefully providing a clearer picture of the customer demographic.
Pic: Hoag Levins, Ad Age
Perhaps too cheap to do it the right way on the back of dollar bills as USA Networks did in January, San Diego based Boodle, an online coupon service, is pasting stickers on the backs of $4,000 worth of quarters to be distributed in Minneapolis. According to Boodle parent company Consumer Networks CEO Leslie Howe the quarters will be dropped in areas where "employed people" go. Though, in a strange, sort of anti-nice guy statement, Howe says she hopes homeless people are not the ones that pick up the quarters. Unsuprisingly, the campaign is from those witty, uber-pop marketers Crispin Porter + Bogusky, creators of the Subservient Chicken, Mini Cooper Robot Car, Ugoff, and Dr. Angus.
