As a follow up to a couple of viral videos, one of which shows a car crashing, which made their way around the web a while back, Mazda has launched a weblog, HolloweenM3, that includes yet another video purportered by the blogger to have been found on public access TV. In the video, called Phantasmagoria, a bunch of 20-somethings ride with ghouls doing the usual Holloween mischief while bangin' their heads to some metal. Not so oddly, the Mazda logo finds its way prominently into most shots. Next.
Thanks to Jon Hurwitz for the tip.
Hopping on the anti-555 number trend and in need of promotion for an upcoming art project, Marc Horowitz, while working as a photo assistant during the creation of the latest Crate and Barrel catalog, wrote his cell-phone number on a white board in a shot that made its way into the catalog to solicit calls for his project, The National Dinner Tour whereby he travels the country and has dinner dates with strangers to create a "social sculpture. Page 89 of the catalog features the "Hideaway Home Office" armoire whose open doors displayed the white board on which Horowitz's number appears. In an interview with New York Observer's Gabriel Sherman, Horowitz explained, "It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing. When I was on the shoot, I saw that I could post my number and thought, 'Hey, this is free advertising!' So I jumped on it. The day the catalog came out, my phone started ringing.
It hasn't stopped since. I have more than 75 dinners set up on this tour; last time, I only did 15."
Crate and Barrel Director of Marketing and Advertising Kathy Paddor had not heard of the stunt until told by The New York Observer. "This was the first time we heard about this," she said. "Are we going forward with this kind of marketing initiative? No. This is not something we would go forward with."
Steering clear of Lohan breast-obsession and breast milk jokes, starlet of the minute Lindsay Lohan has achieved another rite of passage and joined the milk mustache ad campaign.
Lohan is the latest in a long line of celebrities who have lent their support to the award-winning campaign, which was launched in 1995 by the nation's milk processors to help educate Americans about the health benefits of milk and increase milk consumption. Over the past decade, the milk mustache has become a part of pop culture and has helped slow the country's calcium deficit and raise awareness of the many reasons to drink milk.
Of her appearance in the campaign, Lohan says, "I've always loved milk so it's really fun for me to be a part of the campaign. It's not only an honor, but I feel like it's such an important message to be getting out to other teenagers. I want my fans to know that I drink milk and they should too!" Perhaps this is just a PR ploy to pull attention from that other sort of drinking she does that isn't so wholesome.
An ad campaign for the St, John's International Film Festival in Canada has caused several complaints for its use of a woman and her "set of boobs" accompanied with the headline, "films with broad appeal." High school student and festival goer Joanne Harris says the ad objectifies women and has no place at the festival. Mary Lewis, award-winning Newfoundland-raised short film director and the woman featured in the ads sees no problem. "The term 'broad' refers to a woman with smarts and chutzpah and personality," she said. "I'm just surprised because it strikes me as such first-wave feminism...that an image is too sensual to represent the Women's Film Festival seems to me to be very backward and prudish." I guess we can't really complain if the objectified doesn't object. Thanks to Adrants reader Charley Brough for the tip.
 Pregnant? Who Cares. Writing in the New York Observer, Gabriel Sherman points out an ad in the current issue of Glamour for Ontario based publisher Harlequin who is promoting the new Vicki Hinze Silhouette Bombshell book Body Double. The ad shows a woman from the back sitting on a toilet with a pregnancy test in her right hand and the book Body Double in her left. The ad's tagline reads, "Silhouette Bombshell. No suspense like it." The woman is so entranced by the book she finds the results of her pregnancy unimportant. This is certainly a unique approach to selling a book as most publisher ads feature boring, angled cover shots of the book along with a collection of adoring quotes.
Harliquin Marketing Director Anita Sultmanis explains the strategy. "We wanted to launch a new line of books and, as we were doing that, we wanted to leverage the most appealing aspects of the series, which is suspense. That's what the ads do. The [pregnancy-test] ads tap into the most suspenseful moment of women's life. To show Silhouette Bombshell is suspenseful, we stacked it up to a suspenseful moment women can identify with."
Other ads in the campaign depict equally suspensful moments such as a woman sitting in front of her television holding a lottery ticket in one hand, the book in the other as the results display on the screen.
As in the toilet ad, she can't take her eys off the book to see if she has won the $26 million prize. The campaign was created by Toronto based Zig and will include a $2 million media spend in magazines such as Lucky, Cosmopolitan and People. Click the image to see the full sized ad.
Some might call this offensive to the weight-challenged, but this new trade ad for National Geographic that appeared in Ad Age does a nice job of melding imagery with copy. Referring to exploding sales and fatter issues brought on by a 35 percent increase in sales over last year, the ad is laced language that relates magazine growth to body size. In some instances, fatness is a good thing - Vogue's September issues - and in some cases it's not - 500 pound people who can't lose weight even though they starve themselves trying. Whether offensive or not, it's a daring use of imagery in our ridiculously politically correct culture.
Click the image to view the full sized ad.
Continuing the niche-ification of all things media, a UK group on October 20 has launched egay, an eBay-like site design for the gay and lesbian community. For the first two month of the launch, placement of auction items will be free.
Following that fees are said to be 30 percent lower than eBay fees.
egay Founder and Managing Partner Craig Busst described the site as one that "aims to provide not only a great service, but a distinctive and credible website that serves the requirements of the gay, lesbian, bi-Sexual, transsexual and transvestite communities." He added, We plan to develop the site, introducing egay chat and egay dating, but our main focus will continue to be the quality of service."
Portions of egay profit will be donated to the HIV and AIDS charity Terrence Higgins Trust.
In response to an article in Adweek in which ALLTEL said they were looking for ideas, Harry Webber and his DoubleThink group have put together a humorous campaign for the Midwestern telecom provider featuring Bill Clinton.
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