It seems the Texas heat is causing people to get it all the time in Austin. The Austin-Statesman is running a promotional campaign with the tagline "How Do You Get It?" to promote the Austin newspaper and its online properties. One women gets it from her assistant, Ricky, on her desk. One basketball player gets it in the locker room. One student gets it from her guidance counselor. Hmm. One guy gets it from his dog. Yuck. One hottie got it her first week of college. One dude got it from his best friend's Mom. Uh, no thank you. Anyway, it's one of those campaigns that does cause you to go "hmm" and pay attention for at least a few more seconds than you normally would.
Now that Visa is in on the whole graffiti thing, graffiti artists might as well throw aways their Krylon, call it a day and move on to some new, yet to be tinged by marketers form of expression. Visa, with help from artist Trish Grantham is taking its "Life Takes Visa" to Greenwich Village in the form of of a giant wall mural with the tagline, "Life Takes Expression." Below the mural, Visa will display other artwork in the form of sculpture, furniture, fashion and more graffiti from artists Christopher Natrop, Jeff Soto, Andy Diaz Hope, Anne Faith Nicholls, AXIS, Erik Pawassar, Parvez Taj, Ron Reihel, Christopher Cuseo, Eric Joyner, Elizabeth Paige Smith, Charlotte Ronson, Dario Antonioni and Hayley Starr.
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Ever the intrepid reporter, Bucky Turco weaseled his way into the exclusive Apple store opening at 58th and 5th in New York Friday night. Apparently, a snatched press pass did the trick. While inside, Turco took a bunch of pictures of the opening and of the elite crowd allowed into the store which included James Woods, Kevin Bacon, Julianne Moore and Jobs himself. If it weren't enough to worm oneself into the event, Turco, after gaining early entry, switched the homepages of as many of the computers in the store as hew could to his publication's website, Animal. Bucky knows his guerrilla marketing.
While we can't remember which advertiser recently did this - in fact it might have been from Dodge itself with a version of this very spot - Dodge is now doing the men's bathroom "that's big" thing for its new seven inch longer Durango. With the usual "handles great" and "I love the way it looks," this spot pumps the joke for all it's worth. After all, seven inches added to even the tiniest...uh...vehicle is a very big thing. Apparently, the ad's been banned from TV but you can check it out here.
One really has to wonder what goes through the mind of a designer sometimes as indicated by some recent Tyson packaging. Brenner Thomas points out this bit of odd packaging from the food giant for its Sunset Strips chicken strips on which an image of a chicken appears to be eating itself...well...a chicken strip, that is. One might argue it looks like a french fry but we doubt it. Apparently, cannabalism is alive and well in the chicken business.
In a natural move, Nikon, as part of its Stunning campaign - the one which recently featured Kate Moss - has entered into a deal with photo site Flickr whereby any picture taken with a Nikon camera and uploaded to Flicker will display a small Nikon log next to the information section on individual photo pages. Also, photos tagged "nikonstunninggallery" will be featured on Nikon's NikonStunningGallery website and a prominent link to Nikon's site is featured on Flickr's homepage. If ever there were an appropriate campain to appear on Flickr, this would be it.
FishNChimps has detailed the story of how Nike, apparently, stole the logo from Hackney, a poor London borough for use on its World Cup line of sportswear. Hackney, whose logo has been in place for 40 years has asked Nike to share the profits of the line with the borough to fund its schools. Hopefully, this doesn't turn out to be yet another piece of stunt marketing.
Adland has an interesting interview with Draft New Zealand Creative Director Chris Hunter. Adland queries Hunter about the seeming proliferation of ambient advertising in the country, the Kiwi mentality, the power of the idea in relation to the media used to convey that idea and how much she loves "men with legs like muscle-trees run around in teeny shorts and slam into each other in big sweating piles." Give it a read.
Curbed has noticed the recent bus stop installations that IKEA has placed around the New York City area making the bus a thing someone might actually want to use to get from point A to point B. Now if they could only do the same thing for cabs.
UPDATE: Deutsch, which created the campaign, informs us, "In preparation for Design Week in NYC, IKEA teamed up with Deutsch to make 'everyday fabulous' for New Yorkers. With more than 650 different experiences during this 5-day, city-wide guerilla marketing event (including padded park benches in Union Square, oven mitts in the #6 train, bus shelters designed for comfort and flair and doggie bowls for our four-legged friends) IKEA proves that good design can make every day even better."
Check out this page for some very cool images of the effort.
In a move that could be described as both the display of good corporate behavior as well as a cheesy effort to leverage natural disaster for corporate gain, MasterCard is lending its "Priceless" campaign to the state of Florida for use in a combined campaign to persuade Floridians to make sure they're ready for hurricane season. On the good corporate behavior side of the story, MasterCard will donate the cost of a print ad campaign in four Florida markets to deliver the hurricane preparedness message. On the not so good corporate citizen side of the story are the lobbying efforts MasterCard may have implemented to get Florida Governor Jeb Bush to sign into legislation a bill creating a tax holiday from May 21 to June 1 on all purchases. Hmm. Lower taxes. Higher purchases. More charge card usage. More money for MasterCard.
We already forgot who this is for but it has something to do with soccer and it's a lot easier to play than the FIFA game.
If you like soccer (football to the rest of the world), you might like this new game from Philips which is promoting the game and providing a chance to win tickets to the FIFA World Cup Finals. While the game is supposed to be simple to play which just three clicks, we couldn't get it to work. But, don't let that stop you from tryting.
Stardust's LA design director Brad Tucker and executive producer Eileen Doherty teamed-up to co-direct an in-store video, which will be featured in international M.A.C stores through June, and is part of a Culture Bloom CD-ROM release being distributed to M.A.C event attendees. Along with directing the live action, Stardust also provided editorial, design, animation and finishing on this project. It's very floral and arty but we like it which makes us sound gay which, while, of course, there's nothing wrong with being gay, we're, clearly, not. Just to put that...uh...straight.
There's a little rumor going around that a disease called Morgellons, a creepy skin disease that involves little bugs a bug-like sensation under the skin, and the websites associated with it are just a viral marketing campaign for the upcoming movie A Scanner Darkly. Michael Shostack of The Halting Point has collected some information pointing to the likelihood the disease is, in fact his opinion, a viral campaign. Shostack, who, since one never knows when it comes to virals, may actually be part of the viral campaign, points to a Slashdot story which says "Imagine having a disease that is so controversial that doctors refuse to treat you." The Slashdot story leads to a June 2005 Popular Mechanics story about the disease which has, reportedly, been around since 2002 when websites (1, 2) about the disease began appearing.
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Anytime the subject of woman and orgasms arises, everyone jumps on the topic and goes nuts. Everyone's writing about a company called Surprise Parties which hosts parties for women to sell sexual aids and discuss means to rekindle their romance. Recently, Carr Knowledge, an agency with offices in Nashville placed a large billboard buy for Surprise Parties that contained the company's new headline, "Stop Faking It." Nashville outdoor companies CBS and Lamar have refused to accept the buy. The 41 other states Car Knowledge placed boards had no issue with the ad which features company's seven senior managers dressed in pink under the headline. The only skin showing on the board are hands and faces.
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