LA based agency Zugara has launched another engaging website for its client Reebok. The site, Rbk Streets, is a virtual cityscape where you can visit the Recording Studio and submit a demo to 50 Cent who will review it and choose a winner, visit the 40/40 Club and spin a scratch challenge, visit The Crib and view musicians rap about Rbk shoes, pit Allen Iverson and Steve Francis against each other on The Court, check out House of Rbk for the shoe collections and visit the Barbershop to get the 411 on the whole block.
All of the areas in the cityscape let you earn Street Creds which count towards prizes. Dope.
It's as if a company's marketing department has a big L stamped on its forehead if it doesn't have some sort of viral ad thingy going on.
Borders Books' marketers decided not to be branded losers so they've gone all hip and launched a viral ditty, called GiftMixer 3000, that provides shoppers gift suggestions based on the settings of five equalization sliders. John Keehler points to this viral of the minute where shoppers can move the sliders from one to ten for these categories: Romantic, Adventurous, Brainy, Imaginative and Funny. Once a setting is made, a drugged up, wise-ass, Hal 9000-like voice gives a running commentary on the selection.
Whether it sells books, we don't know but it did keep us amused for a while.
Earlier, we reported The Sopranos star James Gandolfini lending his image to the Kobold watch company website to promote its new Soarway Diver SEAL diving watch. Now the company has extended the campaign to print, again, using Gandolfini's likeness, albeit with an interesting use of Gandolfini's hand to represent the company's spot as number one in...well, that really isn't clear. The ad will appear in The Economist. Larger image here if above link dies.
Chicago-based agency Blue Ant, in a backdoor effort to show the importance of well written ad copy, has launched adHacks, a site much like stock photography sites yet with stock copy. At the site, those who don't wish to pay the high fees associated with good copy can obtain basic stock copy by navigating through categories. Upon finding relevant copy, users can buy the full text for $199.
Of course the whole thing is a joke to gain publicity for Blue Ant. No fault in that but upon reviewing Blue Ant's own site, some tweaking is in order. Blue Ant commits one of the most egregious agency website crimes. In its portfolio section, which provides links to case studies, half or more of the links are blank. That's not very reassuring to a potential client looking for a solid body of work. Also the agency's positioning statement, "Meet Blue Ant, a new kind or marketing agency.
Or ad agency. Or whatever kind of agency you want to call us," doesn't quite adhere to another very important rule in advertising: clear messaging. Perhaps Blue Ant should spend more time properly developing its positioning and building out its portfolio before building spoof sites. Then again, any publicity is almost always good publicity.
Here's one of those brilliantly executed spots whose sole purpose is to be brilliantly executed. It's for some cool new phone from Motorola. Oh wait. I get it. The phone is so cool that your house full of electronics can all fit in the phone. Like so totally cool. Now if only I knew what it was called so I could buy it.
Howard Stern sidekick Robin Quivers has signed a deal with Sony Pictures to create a pilot episode for a one hour daily talk show to air as soon as next year. While specifics are not available, the show will, reportedly, not to adhere to traditional talk show formats.
To promote its CDs, DVDs and videogames, Circuit City, in a deal with Regal Entertainment, today, launched a pre-movie campaign with an ad featuring Santa Claus dancing to the tune "Just What I Needed" by the Cars. The ad will appear within Regal Entertainment's pre-show program as well as on the Jumbotron in Time's Square.
Accompanying the spot will be box office flyers, signage and soft drink lid mini DVD's.
Displaying all the pomousity of a Hollywood agent, a publicist for Baz Luhrmann says the $12 million spot Luhrmann directed for Chanel featuring Nicole Kidman is not an ad but a film. Excuse us, but anything that sells a product most assuredly falls into the ad/spot/commercial category. The publicists continues with this nonsense calling the ad "a creative first. The film to revolutionize advertising." Oh, it's surely an extravaganza but trying to pass it off as something other than an ad just insults consumers.
The advertising industry is projected to drive $5.2 trillion into the U.S. economy next year, a major new economic study has found. The total economic activity generated by advertising -- which includes direct spending, supplier spending and inter-industry activity - will account for a projected 20.5 percent of the United States' economic activity.
Advertising will also generate an estimated 21 million jobs, or 15.2 percent of the national workforce of 139 million. The findings, released today, come from a new study entitled the "Comprehensive Economic Impact of Advertising Expenditures." It was conducted by Michael J. Raimondi of Global Insight, under the direction of Nobel Laureate in Economics Dr. Lawrence R. Klein for The Advertising Coalition. The Coalition is comprised of nine national media and advertising trade associations. Total advertising spending by businesses in the U.S. for 2005 is estimated to reach approximately $278 billion, according to the study. These expenditures are projected to create a total revenue impact of $5.2 trillion. The total estimated impact includes the spending on advertising, the direct impact on sales of $2.3 trillion, the impact on supplier economic activity of $1.2 trillion and the impact on inter-industry economic activity of $1.4 trillion.
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