Pepsi's Mountain Dew and Plum TV are getting together during the Winter X Games in Aspen January 26-30 to promote Mountain Dew MDX. During the games, Mountain Dew will sponsor nightly shuttles outfitted with cameras to capture nocturnal reveler's escapades to be broadcast on Plum TV in Aspen, Vail and on the Mountain Dew MDX Be Noctural site. Also, a party hosted by Mountain Dew MDX will be held at the Sun Deck on Ajax Mountain where antics will also be captured for Plum TV broadcast.
Stay tuned for videos from the event. We'll post them as we receive them.
Extending the tease we pointed out a couple weeks ago, Agent Provocateur has released yet a bit more of its soon to be eight minute long film, Tied Up At The Office, by Mike Figgis starring models Lara Jones and Amanda Grace. The film goes well beyond the previous Kylie Minogue lingerie video she did a couple years ago for the retailer and focuses heavily on self-gratification, lesbianism and S&M. This clip is 50 seconds long with the full film due to be released February 9. While this clip has no nudity, the subject matter and the particularly tantalizing female vocal emanations suggests it be viewed in the comfort of your own private hideaway.
If this video pans out the way it teases us to belive it will, we've got to hand it to Agenct Provocateur for being this daring and for brining some serious cinematic power to this this we call advertising. No doubt, this will rank up there as one of the most viewed virals of the year.
Those radical exaggerators over at PETA are up to their old sensationalism again with the launch of Milk Gone Wild, a spoof on the Girls Gone Wild series which uses titillation and human udders to call attention to the apparent health hazards of drinking milk. While we have a decidedly different viewpoint than PETA does on the whole milk thing owing to our attachment, through marriage, to the realities versus fiction of dairy farming, PETA has, again, done what it does best; use sex and controversy to bring attention to its causes. With all the anti-everything campaigns PETA produces, it would be intriguing to watch a video of PETA employees deciding what to choose from the organization's cafeteria menu: lettuce, lettuce or lettuce topped with lettuce.
This year, there seems to be a fascination with the flushing of toilets during halftime. Like the obsession with national toilet flush stats following M*A*S*H, Scott tissue will leverage the notion that all 90 million Super Bowl viewers will collectively go to the bathroom at the same time with the launch of Halftime Flush, a site touting the dissolvability of Scott toilet paper. On the site, Mike Ditka lends his intense convicibility to Scott's superior toilet tissue and a game allows visitors to match toilets to their flushing sounds. OK, so bathroom humor is always a good standby but we like VIA's simpler approach to the whole halftime flush thing.
Heineken, the official beer sponsor of The 48th Annual GRAMMY Awards, is launching their second nationwide advertising campaign on Internet jukeboxes throughout the United States on Ecast's interactive jukebox network. The campaign will run on 4400 broadband-enabled jukeboxes in bars and taverns throughout the country. The campaign features a Heineken micro-site, downloadable collections of music from Grammy-winning artists, and a Heineken-branded trivia game.
Clinging for it its own life at the expense of the lives of others whom it feels should perceive smoking as a glamorous activity rather than the killer it is, R.J. Reynolds in launching a fancy new brand of cigarettes called Marshall McGearty and supporting the brand with a hipster lounge in Chicago. As if completely oblivious to the past 20 years worth of research highlighting the killing qualities of cancer sticks, Larry McGearty, CD at RJR agency Gyro Worldwide told Ad Age, "No one has done this before. Nobody has tried to create romance in the industry and take it to the next level." McGearty and the other pompous soul who's name is on the brand, RJR stench guru Jerry Marshal cooked up the idea several years ago realizing many other categories of social vices had high end brands that were successful and figured why should cigarettes be left out of that game.
Oh sure, everyone should be free to choose their on manner of death but at least in American society, the whole smoking thing is over. It had it's day. It's done. Clearly, it's not a healthy thing to engage in and eradicating it from the earth wouldn't be such a bad thing. Oh wait, then everyone will want to ban alcohol, coffee and all those other pleasantly mood-altering but health challenged substances we all enjoy from time to time. That said, we just don't think this one's going to go very far. You can see two of the ads here and here.
Using the home shopping network approach to selling an AK-47, the Amnesty International Protect the Human cause has released a humorous but convincing video that claims the world's arms trade is out of control and calls for governments to sign the Arms Trade Agreement. The video was created by Mother London.
All one has to do is watch a bit of late night TV, walk through a mall during the Holiday season or listen to an Amway rep to experience the hard sell but the "buy our shit or you will die" approach isn't usually found on billboards unless you are Zambia-based roofer Harvey Tile. On the board, Harvey Tiles proclaims, "A roof without Harvey Tiles is like being Burnt in Hell without a savior." OK, but dammit, at least put your phone number on the board so we can keep ourselves out of hell not to mention make it a bit easier for you to get some business. They do have phones in Zambia, right?
OK, this one's been making the rounds for a couple days and we think it's brilliant execution of an idea. Lots of people bite their nails out of nervousness, habit or lack of anything better to do. Berlin agency Jung von Matt has created a convincing poster/bag campaign for Stop 'n Grow, a cream that must, apparently, taste so awful, no nail biter would ever again consider sticking their fingers in their mouths.
In the minds of television execs, it seems the little 'ol Internet still gets the shaft from the corner office as indicated by UPN and The WB neglecting to secure a viable URL for their new network, The CW. As Lost Remote points out, TheCW.com is not available nor is any other remotely close URL other than theonlinethecw.biz which we're sure they're not going to like. Looks like TheCW is going to be out a pretty penny buying domains from squatters, settle on a domain name that makes no sense or rename the company.
Yesterday we shared our opinion on the Ad-Free Blog movement commenting "until aliens land and introduce an entirely new economic system, advertising will continue to make the world go 'round." Today, the inimitably more adamant Bucky Turco has weighed in on the topic, sending a letter to the folks over at Ad-Free Blog writing, in part, "The whole reason a lot of brands are going online is because they like the openness and frankness which the blogs bring. I mean look at Gawker for Christ sake. Huge blog, lots of advertisers, and their editorial wall is thick like the Great Wall of China. Not to mention it forces brands to come up with quality stuff or they will get slammed, whether they are paying customers or not."
While the effort was not well received within the ad community, there's no doubt the two people behind Ad-Free Blog, Keri Smith and Jeff Pitcher are fine human beings. After all, Smith is an accomplished author and Pitcher is a devoted musician and artist but, as Turco points out, they aren't marketers, "Again it [Ad-Free Blogs] is a good idea for someone who knows nothing about the subject, but the bloggers will definitely call you on your bullshit. Key is keeping up a strict editorial wall and attracting and selecting only cool advertisers that get it. And trust me, plenty of them "get it."
While we might all be uppity over the effort these two have launched, everyone, after all, is entitled to their opinion.
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