Toyota Canada will unveil a, two-minute feature commercial during this Sunday's telecast of The Academy Awards on Canada's CTV. The ad will run only in Canada and only once inside the Academy Awards telecast during the first commercial break. The long-form spot, entitled "What You Want Is What You Need" will introduce Canadians to the new, restyled 2007 Toyota Camry. The two minute commercial will be followed up with :60 and :30 versions to be aired on CTV through May.
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Staedtler writing implement company has launched a campaign in Australia to increase use of its products. The only domestic manufacturer of pens and pencils in the country, Staedtler faces competition from the all mighty keyboard, those pesky imports and the death of the handwritten letter. Acknowledging this, Staedtler, with help from Host, have created a campaign that leverages dependence on the keyboard for correspondence. The campaign consists of a site on which visitors can craft a handwritten message and have it mailed to a friend (in Australia) but the return address will be that of the website from which the note originated. Host hopes this spirals and causes recipients to visit the site, create their own notes and spread the campaign exponentially.
The site will also be promoted with print ads and handwritten notes placed in public places throughout Melbourne and Sydney. We're not quite sure how continually driving people to a website to create digital notes will increase sales of physical pens and pencils but, like, whatever. It'll be fun to watch the whole country pen-pal'ing itself.
Hoping to stand up as a model against software-install spyware, Santa-Barbara-based onCommercials has introduced a formalize revenue share model with aims to "official-ize" software-install advertising. Software developers can use onCommercials code to display commercials during the loading process of their software. Each time the application is started a commercial will be shown, dynamically chosen by onCommercials serving technology.
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Nike, in conjunction with AKQA, has launched RouteFinder, a Google Maps-powered tool that helps runners plan a route around London. RouteFinder let's runners create, measure, save and share their running routes along with other runners in London. AKQA combined the Run London and Google Maps interfaces to provide a range of functions and features that have more in common with a standalone application than a web page.
Using Run London graphical elements, users can search the city by postcode, distance, or type of run for routes other runners have created. Or they can begin creating a run of their own simply by clicking points on the map. They can even save a list of favorite routes, send them on to friends and browse the top-five routes of the season. Ducky.
Cheeky New Zealand vodka marketer 42 Below is at it again. This time the company is highlighting its Stil vodka with a "Win A Russian Bride" competition complete with video and print ads. Geoff Ross, chief executive of the 42 Below company, explains the promotion thusly, telling the Sunday Star-Times, "For the single Kiwi bloke who might not be an All Black or very good looking, this is a chance to get hooked up with somebody pretty hot. The ideal woman for the Kiwi bloke is one who keeps him fed and looked after all day and meets all his needs."
Of course it's all a tongue in cheek joke but, predictably, not everyone is taking it that way. View the video/ad here.
Screw Andrew Fisher and CI Host. Homer Simpson's taking all the fame now. In a recent episode of The Simpsons in which Homer, faced with losing his cherished blue trousers because the factory that makes them is going out of business, applies "Buy Blue Pants" to his head to create demand. In the episode when asked by Marge to define headvertising, Homer replies, "Headvetising, it provides brand awareness without relying on traditional media." During the episode Homer also applies brand logos to his chest and arms. Thanks to the ever vigilant Bucky Turco for spotting this one.
It's All Advertising caught a glimpse of the gigantic foosball table Adidas erected at Venice beach in association with a World Cup promotion. The game is actually playable with giant steering wheels at the end of each rod. The table accompanied an event at which junior soccer games were played on small fields. Not a bad way to grab attention.
If you can't get publicity with a great product, create a crappy one and get lots of publicity. This has been Jones Soda's tactic for quite some time. Bt creating flavors such as Brussel Sprout, Broccoli Casserole and Turkey soda, Jones Soda found itself featured on Good Morning America and Jay Leno. Jones Soda Founder Peter Van Stolk thinks he has the key to publicity saying, "I've been in business 10 years and launched 80 flavors, and none of the great-tasting ones ever got on Jay Leno." While it may be stunt marketing, it's paid off handsomely with revenue jumping 18 percent to $24.7 million in the first nine months of 2005. Perhaps Hanes should sell underwear with celebrity skid marks. That's get them on Stern and the likes of Fark in no time.
We think there's a great point behind this new Truth campaign commercial in which the notion of changing a corporate name to avoid negative connotations is debunked but the execution just seems, well, not so compelling. Maybe it's just us. Maybe we're stuck one of the campaign's earlier spots in which the "Marlboro Man" rides a farting cow. Who knows. The spot is a follow up to orange arrow-themed campaign launched last year which was created by Arnold Worldwide of Boston and Crispin Porter + Bogusky of Miami. See the spot here.
Dallas-based Moroch Partners has launched a bilingual, interactive gaming site, called Shark Bait, for McDonald's centering on the Filet-O-Fish and Double Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. In the first level of the game, the player has to keep the sandwich away from attacking sharks and the walls of the tank. There are two additional levels for which unlock codes can be obtained by forwarding the game to a friend viral-bribe style.
The effort aligns well with the rise in online gaming and players who interact with a fish sandwich for a while just might succumb to the power of suggestion and go buy a deep fat fried slab of fish between a bun slathered with some kind of special sauce. Mmm. I'm lovin' it!
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