Stooke to Stroke Hummer Marketing

Just one letter away from becoming the ad industry's most hilarious brand management hire, Megan Stooke has been chosen to handle Hummer's marketing. Stooke replaces Liz Vanzura and will work with Hummer agency Modernista in Boston. Hopefully, there won't be too many jokes circulating around the uber-cool, hardwood floored warehouse offices of the agency when Stroke...uh...Stook shows up to massage the agency's Hummer work.

Idea Grove Re-Writes Nike Kobe Bryant Ad

On its Media Orchard weblog, communications agency Idea Grove has re-written Nike's new Kobe Bryant ad replacing airy, superfluous puffery such as "Love me of hate me, it's one or the other. Always has been. Hate my game, my swagger. Hate my fadeaway, my hunger" etc." with more realistic verse such as "Hate my lies, my infidelity" etc. Check out the complete re-write here. It's pretty good.

Knob Creek Campaign Says 'Drink Life Deeply'

Knob Creek has launched a new print campaign, its first since 2001, for the distiller's super-premium bourbon. Three ads were created by energy BBDO and will appear in men's magazines including Esquire, Fast Company, Men's Journal, Spin, Wired and The New Yorker. With the tagline, "Drink Life Deeply" and collage imagery that features the bottle, the campaign wallows in the self importance a high end brand is supposed to instill among its audience.

more »

MasterCard Asks People to Write Its Priceless Ads

Fully embracing the notion and value of consumer generated content, MasterCard, during the Oscars, will air two commercial which say basically nothing. The ads, Sailboat and Typewriter, will follow the customary format of listing prices for various items and closing with the final item labeled "priceless." However, the item lines in these ads will be left blank. The ads will close encouraging people to go to priceless.com, click on "Write a Priceless Ad Contest" and complete the commercial by filling in the blanks using their own words.

more »

New Celebrity-Powered Aids One Campaign Makes Online Debut

Today, the celebrity-fueled Aids One campaign launched a new :30 video online on the AOL properties AIM Today, AOL.com/Television and TMZ. Tomorrow, the campaign will spread to AOL.com and the AOL service. All ad space has been donated by AOL. Celebrities appearing in the campaign include Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, Brad Pitt, Gwen Stefani, Dave Matthews, Coldplay, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, 50 Cent and Bono.

P & G Launches $500 Watch And Win Soap Opera Promotion

Beginning March 13 and continuing for six and one half months during episodes of Procter & Gamble Productions' Guiding Light and As The World Turns on CBS, a multi-digit numerical code will appear on screen which viewers can match with the code they obtained off DaytimeDollars.com to win $500. It's a win-win straight forward strategy to increase viewership and ratings providing increased visibility of Procter & Gamble's and other advertisers' products as well as potentially increased ad revenue for CBS.

H&R Blocks Holds Agency Review On Heels Of $32 Million Tax Error

Perhaps anticipating the needs to distance itself from its own $32 million tax mistake, tax preparation firm H & R Block, according to AdWeek, will this week brief five agencies on its $100 million account. In the loop will be Deutsch/LA, Arnold, DDB/Chicago, Campbell Mithun and Mullen. Currently, most H & R Block work is handled by Campbell Mithun. Played properly, there's a great inside joke to be leveraged in future campaigns.

Canadian Agency Turns On, Plugs In With Self Promotional Boards

Because we've seen these images at least 3,000 times on Flickr in the last two days along with many people having sent them to us, we figure, hell, there must be something to them. While we're inclined to pass them off as a typical, ego-driven agency self-promotional effort, they are getting notice so there must be something good about these boards placed outside the offices of Brown Communications Group based out of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Brown describes its Light Switch board by saying, "Every corner of our building is supercharged with high energy strategy, advertising, interactive and public relations professionals. Stop by. Our lights are always on." Hasn't some wise-ass, eager to have a bit of fun, tried to turn off that light switch yet? Or try to plug something into the Wall Plug version of the board? Come on people. Get inventive.

Marketing Tips Offered to Movie Studios

Chris Thilk who writes the Movie Marketing Madness weblog has compiled a list of five tips movie marketers should heed when launching a movie marketing campaign. Chief among the tips is the recognition that the studio is not nor should be the sole source of information and content about a given movie. Thilk suggests studios should acknowledge and link to other sources of information about a movie rather than pretend the studio's website is the only place for movie info. He also says studios should make use of RSS to push out updates and deliver added information rather than require a movie's fans to remember to return to the site. Thilk also says studios should take an active role in joining the ongoing online conversation about a movie by searching Technorati for mentions and responding to what's being said about the movie.

Pre-Photoshopped Nicole Richie Jimmy Chew Ad Revealed

Waifish Nicole Richie can be seen in the new Jimmy Choo footwear ads being voraciously swallowed up by paparazzi. Gallery of the Absurd has done some investigative research behind the Brett Ratner shoot, unearthed the original photo and revealed the extensive Photoshop work which was done prior to the ad making its way into fashion mags. Check out the before and after here along with analysis.