We love getting tips from our readers and this one especially caught our attention. Submitting a new Apple iPod commercial, the sender wrote, "I'm not sure if this is worthy of publishing... it doesn't involve boobs, sex, or smarmy ad execs, but it is interesting." We pondered for a moment over whether that was a compliment or insightful commentary into our questionable editorial morals. We thought for a moment and accept both gleefully as fair comment.
That said, Apple has partnered with U2 to promote its new single, Vertigo by creating a iPod silhouette ad with Bono and the silhouettes doing their usual gyrations to the tune of U2's new creation.
Ford is using imagery of Steve McQueen, who died in 1980, in a new television commercial for its Mustang and other new vehicles. In one version of the spot, McQueen is seen stepping out of a cornfield as he did in the movie "Bullitt" and into the Mustang. The commercial is part of a third quarter, $200 million effort to promote the new Ford Five Hundred, the Freestyle and the Mustang.
The campaign will break this Sunday with the Steve McQueen ad airing in November.
SEGA has launched a viral campaign for the European launch of its Football manager 2005. The video shows a gentleman farmer on the English countryside watching his dog herd sheep. Suddenly, it turns into a game where the gentleman farmer turns into a coach and begins screaming at the dog for his poor herding performance. Predictably, its raised the ire of animal lovers. Viral agency ASABAILEY is seeding the launch, its first for SEGA. The ad was produced by Maverick Media and directed by Seamus Masterson, for SEGA Europe.
Seeded in two versions, the first comes complete with language befitting a football couch and is being seeded as "The Banned Country Sports Video" and targeted to the 18 - 30 online gaming crowd. A second, softer, yet still funny version has also been seeded to a younger, more "morally conservative" audience.
This past weekend, Hilary Duff's new movie Raise Your Voice tanked leaving Hollywood scratching its head figuring it had a sure thing.
"The young female movies are almost impossible to figure out right now," one studio marketing executive said. "The girls are just rejecting the young female movies. They are a fickle segment of the audience, and it's pretty hard to figure out who is going to go to these movies."
Trying to identify tween trends is not an easy task. In fact, it's almost pointless. Trends move quickly enough in older demos but with tweens, trends last for periods of time far too short to capitalize on, especially for a Hollywood movie that takes a year start to finish.
Hollywood's worst enemy is a successful movie. It creates an imperfect definition of what consumers want and is then beaten dead with sequels and copycats that are far behind a trend before the camera even roles.
A better strategy would be an original idea. Yes, we know they're in short supply and hard to create but go on, give it a try.
ANIMAX has created a series of webisodes and a website for the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation. The "Coping with Chemo" shorts are aimed at helping teens cope with the physical, emotional and social impact of cancer and chemo treatment. Mixing storytelling and humor to communicate serious messages, the animated shorts reach out to teens using their language. Having survived Cancer, we're a fan of this sort of thing.
