Advertising's most lovable curmudgeon, George Parker of AdHurl and AdScam fame has finished his book, MadScam: Kick-Ass Advertising Without the Madison Avenue Price Tag which is sure to ruffle a few feathers as it Parker reveals the inner working of the ad agency business, it's over reliance on the cool and its seeming inability to focus on what's important: The Idea. If you've read either of Parker's sites, you know this book will be like a bad burrito that's decided to set up house in your intestines while it turns the innards of the agency business inside out. if you dare, you can pre-order it on Amazon here. It's not out until December. You can read the book's preface, written by Ogilvy & Mather VP and Global Creative Director Steve Hayden here.
A promise was made never again to write about a million dollar homepage but when Jim Kukral sent us his version, it had just the right amount of whack job appeal, we felt we couldn't pass. You, of course, can call us names and send us spam for wasting your time with this if you want. Anyway, here's the deal. Pay Jim and his partner one dollar and you get a domain name "(fill this in).isreally awesome.com. Yea, yea, it's dumb but hundreds of people are parting with one dollar bills to buy URLs like MyThong.isreallyawesome.com, MyDog.isreallyawesome.com and MySpace.isreallyawesome.com.
OK, feel free to lob all manner of "meh," "yawn" and "you just wasted three minutes of my life" in Comments.
One Adrants reader - and Apple employee - sent us this link to the Czech Apple Store and wonders why the American Apple store can't be as racy and alluring. Well, we have the answer. It's this thing called political correctness. Heaven forbid the American Association of Woman Against Bikinis Blatantly Plastered on Websites As Eye Candy group sees this and gives Apple a call.
Here's a collection of human rights ads from Youth For Human Rights International which teamed with the Church of Scientology to create 30 PSAs, each of which focuses on a specific "human rights rule." Human rights aside, these ads just remind us how it's just much better to be nice to other people than to be mean.
Copyranter thinks Gwyneth Paltrow is far too white for this Keep A Child Alive ad in which she dons African apparel above the headline "I Am African." And just so we're sure we understand his opinion, he writes, "Cheers to you that you support a very worthy cause. BUT, allow someone else to do the ads. You'd survive about 10 minutes in African bush. And, you just look completely and utterly ridiculous."
Hmm. In New Zealand, they call a Hyundai a hyoonday. Interesting. Anyway. Brent found this ha-yoon-day commercial in which two babies hook up and drive to beach and surf. It's just weird enough to be good. Well, at least we think so. You watch it and let us know.
- The New England Patriots are launching a branded line of hotdogs, Bratwurst and sausages supported by an ad campaign this September.
- Scott G weighs in on the whole Agency.com debacle.
- The EA Sports Madden NFL game is getting some love over at Maddenoliday. Hmm. And we didn't even know John Madden was still alive.
- From the Brawny Guy to the Mentos Kids to The King, YesButNoButYes has collected a list of the top ten creepiest icons in advertising history.
- Mad Musings is celebrating the August Moon-sized appearance of Mars with a MasterCard Priceless riff.
Watching these new spots for Starz just reminds us there must be a lot of people in this business with an apparent inferiority complex. That's the only conclusion we can make after seeing so many ads that feature blithering idiots for the sole purpose of making the rest of us feel better/cooler/smarter/hotter. Does is really require an idiot to sell everything? Are we so insecure we need to see dumb people just to make us feel better? Please. Enlighten us. See yet another dufus in action here and here for Starz.
To promote ESPN's Fantasy Football and to smack down Yahoo and CBS Sportsline, Boston's Arnold has created ESPN Fantasy Smack Cards which you can use to send your friends some smack talk. Who knows if it'll do anything for ESPN but it sure will be therapeutic for some who need to get their aggressions out.
We're a week behind on this but Supermodel Heidi Klum has signed a deal with Victoria's Secret to lend her nickname, "The Body," to a new bra the retailer is introducing which will be called, yes, "The Body." Klum tells us "this is probably one bra that every woman wants to have because it is so comfortable. It comes in eight different colors, it has no seams, no stitches. It is not the super sexy, lacy bra, but this is something functional that you want to have every day that is super comfortable and just great." The ad began airing nationally last week.
While we don't know for certain if this ad was served using contextual technology, Animal's Bucky Turco informs us of an odd ad placement for the upcoming Oliver Stone movie, World Trade Center. It appeared smack in the middle of a Yahoo story about the thwarting of a major UK aircraft bomb plot. Not to belittle the freakishly horrific nightmare this could have become, we still feel it's our duty to point out contextual fuckery at its finest.
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