At this rate, there will be approximately 116 Volkswagen commercials floating around by next year if Crispin keeps up its current pace. In this next outing, Volkswagen has partnered with guitar maker First Act in a promotion called V-dubs rock to give everyone who purchases a particular model with a guitar that features a seat belt as the strap and a plug that lets you tap into the vehicle's audio system. To show it all in action, former Guns N Roses guitarist Slash - now with Velvet Revolver - rocks out. Not that everyone wants a guitar but it's still a nice promotion all the same.
Trendhunter tells us Nashville nightclub, On the Rocks, has established a dress code that bars entry to those wearing clothing from brands which appears on its list of unacceptable attire. The list includes ECKO, Southpole, ENYCE, Sean John, Phat Farm, FUBU and several others which some say suggests racial profiling because of the genesis of some of those brands. Well, at least it will keep people from showing up in cheap, Berkley & Jensen discount jeans because, after all, style is way more important than race, creed, color and economic status, right?
In an apparent first, we have an anti-smoking campaign that speaks to an audience that doesn't live on the left or right coast and have "whiny little brat" tattooed to their upper middle class, teenage forehead. Set in somewhere in middle America, this "don't smoke while pregnant" commercial comes from American Legacy and Ad Council and was created by Austin's GSD&M. It very simply illustrates a thought that goes through a young, pregnant mother's head and the resolves she makes to change her lifestyle for the betterment of her baby.
The campaign, which includes print, is tied to a website called Great Start where tips and help are offered for those interested in quitting.
- OTO Trimax weight loss product demonstrates its slimming capabilities by wrapping a bus with a very creative, DDB Worldwide-created bus-squeezing wrap.
- The new Ubisoft video game is getting infomercial-style promotion in the form of John Badsky's Fifth Freedom.
- Blogging under the name "Corn Mash Whisky," this "27 year old southern born woman who fled nawth to New Yawk City in search of something new" shares with us a recent RFP she received from a cola brand which, more than most, takes itself way too seriously.
- Pamela Anderson has signed with Virgin Mobile to appear in a RKCR/Y&R-created commercial for the company's mobile TV service.
Contextual ad buffoonery isn't limited to the online world as clearly illustrated by the placement of this ad, sent to us by FishNChimps, for online supermarket Sainsbury's on the page opposite a story in yesterday's edition of the UK's The Independent about the Amish killings. What's even more buffoonish about this particular instance of buffoonery is that the ad appeared on page three of a printed newspaper which, one would assume, gets seen by human editors before it goes to print. We're guessing there was a big, collective "oops" heard 'round The Independent offices once that issue hit the streets.
Here's a pretty funny ad in which a jogger becomes food for the Loch Ness Monster after wandering transfixed over to what looks like a deserted Toyota Vios. Everytime we see Nessie's head snap back after swallowing we can't help but smile a little. Hey, you didn't think monsters ate? Somebody's got to pay for all those free photo opps. Our favourite part is when it pokes its head back out of the water to neatly set the decoy back up. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
Like a clumsy butcher trying to trim the fat off a mouse, this virally-intended hack job is supposed to promote the new Nokia E-Series Smartphone by enabling one to create a personalized message from an overbearing company CEO and send it to a friend. Trouble is, like that annoying "Head On. Apply directly to the forehead" commercial, this creation is so bad...uh...oh wait...we didn't finish reading the release. OK. There it is. "The jerkiness of the clip transitions add nicely to the impersonal irony of the message." There. That explains the hack editing job. Irony.
The clip is being seeded by Rubber Republic which tells us there's an NDA that prevents them from telling us who created the piece. Hmm. A smart move. Wait until if and when it becomes popular, then take all the glory. If it fails, face saved.
If tobacco marketers thought France was a safe haven, they may be in for an attitude adjustment. A parliamentary panel in France is considering a ban on public smoking as soon as next year as well as considering "hermetically sealed" partitioned rooms for smokers complete with smoke-extraction systems and health rules.
This is a big deal considering the longtime French love affair with cigarettes, plus everyone knows that if the existentialist black-clad intelligentsia can't smoke in public venues then they stop being intelligentsia and start being, well, whiny kids. And apparently if you dig far enough into the French President's website, you'll find a photo of a younger Jacques Chirac with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth, channeling James Dean with all his might. We don't know why that's relevant to the story, but somehow it just is.
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