The Presidential Office of Colombia, known for its heavy-handedness in rumour if not in actuality, turns to humour to explain why people should avoid cocaine. The 15 second ad says "Cocaine is addictive. Very addictive." We suspect this may not be true as we've been snorting at least 7 years and can quit anytime. To drive the point home, a man on a bus leans forward and snorts the dandruff off the shoulder of the man in front of him.
The ad generated a grade school reaction. We all went "EWWWWW!" and jerked our knees up. Then we watched it again. And again. And again.
500,000 watches later, we are still going "EWWWW!" and showing all our friends, who don't seem deeply impressed, then we all snorted cocaine and laughed over the thought of psychos snorting dandruff. Doesn't the Presidential Office know anything? You need a credit card and a flat surface to snort cocaine. Coke capital of the world indeed.
When you think about it, what did grades really say about you anyway? Allens Arthur Robinson pairs up with agency Westgate & Friends for a doodle campaign to demonstrate creativity is better gauged in idle scribble than on a transcript sheet. Text speaks to a demo of somewhat self-entitled Echo Boomers who just want somebody that understands them.
About friggin' time somebody cared about how awesome we just happen to be, though upon visiting the website we're still warmly invited to fill out the standard app with resume and do the interview rounds. We're not sure how compelling your earnest doodles will look to the irked paralegal whose job it is to take notes on you. Still, we dig the intention.
Check out the campaign file, sniped from our buddies at Best Ads on TV.
We've all had those moments of frustration when that Kiss track doesn't make blood curdle in our living rooms the way it would live. Hi-Fi Klubben illustrates the quiet angst musical elitists - er, purists - feel when their synthesized sound of choice just ain't jiving right.
The print reads, "Something wrong with your favourites? Change your stereo! Hi-Fi Klubben." AdPunch has more including a depressing Like a Virgin throwback that may be closer to the truth behind the scenes than we'd like to think.
The Consumerist is hosting a survey to determine the best fake marketing blog for 2006. Contestants include McDonald's for its 4Railroads and Mcdmillionwinner flogs, Wal-mart for Walmarting Across America and Sony for All I Want For Xmas Is A PSP. Currently, Sony has the most votes for worst fake blog of 2006. Check out the survey and share your thoughts.
I wrote this exactly one year ago and it's as relevant today as it was one year ago so with he usual holiday week laziness in full force, I'm reprinting an edited version of this for your enjoyment with relevent numbers and facts updated:
Not that there's really any news this week nor any real reason to actually be working this week in the advertising industry, typically the time when upper management leaves the grunts behind to play pool and download music...uh...perform minuscule tasks referred to as work, but there are plenty of the usual 2005 wrap ups and 2006 pontification stories you can find floating about, some of which will be here on Adrants.
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Oh we're sure Hollywood will screw this one up too but...oh...wait...maybe not. In the movie Perfect Stanger with Halle Berry, Bruce Willis play a high powered ad exec who's apparently power-hungry, ruthless, a jerk and a guy who cheats on his wife. Nah, that couldn't even remotely resemble an ad exec. Anyway, Reverse Cowgirl points us to this trailer for the movie so we can, once again, revel in Hollywood's depiction of the ad industry as a slimed-filled pit of immorality.
Post eggnog haze, it's come to our attention the holidays are fast winding down. So we're cranking out the last of the jingle bells-oriented marketing efforts of 2006:
- Do New Years with Hard Rock and help save the music. Because somebody has to. Soon. Help. Please.
- This Santa Session from Dailey makes you pity the extra work Santa has to put in for perfectionist consumer culture. At what other point in time could you viably tell your favourite mythological character, I'm sorry but I don't think you're hitting the alliteration right?
- Santa + fleet of Porsches + wreath-bearing bull = happy holidays to the plush-ass execs feeling fresh post-bonus. Brought to you by the big ballers at Jack Morton Worldwide.
It seemed like such a good idea in theory.
For client Borders, design studio Firstborn created the Gift Squad, a site that aims to make gift-choosing easier but feels more like a horrifying attack by the characters adults find soothing for children but that actually populated our nightmares.
We dug the idea of an elf-chat. That could work. But Gift Squad asks a bunch of confusing and seeming unrelated questions generated by nothing that appears to be human. And along the way you're bounced across five other vapidly-happy "experts" (the nutcracker, the teddy bear, etc) on this quest that's starting to feel like the search for the holy grail - and all you want is for some human being playing elf to say "I know what to get your mom! She'll love a box of truffles from Borders! Would you like to order now?" or something similarly simple.
Do we ask so much?
RBLM's holiday card not only greeted us personally but also cleverly showcased their new creative effectiveness tool: the Scooter Challenge.
Find out how your work holds up streetside by uploading your own ads, then getting a view of how it looks from a scooter's perspective. RBLM admonishes detail-happy ad-heads to keep it simple. We agree, we like the idea and we dig how they got it out to us. Boy are those guys smart.
For Sportlife, a chewing gum that's big in Holland, Netherlands-based Fresh Creation orchestrates a stunning promotion called "Can You Make it to the Pack?" in which a skater is beamed doing tricks across billboards, buildings and other cityscapes.
For those who lament street peace jarred by deviant boarders the beamvertised, totally heedless skater must have been especially distracting, along the lines of "Goddamnit, now they move through walls." Must have been frustrating.
We dig the campaign and envision a world in which beamvertising becomes as much a part of city life as the lights on Times Square. Can you see it now? It would be next to impossible to drive. We'd all just walk around with that deer-in-headlights look on our faces all the time.
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