Back the in day when YouTube was just a twinkle in those soon to be billionaire's eyes, ad agencies used to produce professional, high quality, elegant Christmas (excuse us...Holiday) cards and videos. Kinda like the work they produced for their clients. Now, post-YouTube orgasm, every agency (we're not going to mention Agency.com) seems to think it has to go out and buy a shitty video camera, hand it to an intern, tell hem to shake the camera on purpose, edit the thing with a sledge hammer and barf up some consumer-generated crap and pass it off as some sort of uber-cool, hipsterati-laden creation...kind of like the work they now produce for their clients.
Speaking of barf, TBWA backward slash Chiat backward slash Day New York upchucked a video to YouTube full of tasty projectile chunks - an apparent highlight of their 2005 Christmas party - as an invitation to this years party where, we assume, all kinds of bile will blow. Do they want people to go to this party?
In moralizing reverie, Stop Geek points out this funeral ad posted alongside some metro rails. We have to admit it gave us the shakes considering we did get a little closer to a similarly positioned ad that probably merited it less. And we have to admit it's a wittier campaign than the calendar girls on coffins, though its tastefulness may come into as much question.
In our experience professionals in the funeral industry have a cadaverously dry but present sense of humour. (Really, how can you not?) Some people take life too seriously. Some people take death too seriously. They're two sides of the same coin; if indeed you feel the compulsion to come closer, then ... well ... we don't know what to tell you. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
If you're wondering why so many marketers are talking about word of mouth marketing it's because, according to the Word of mouth Marketing Association, it works. In fact, it, seemingly, works so well, the organization is having another conference on the topic covering word-of-mouth, viral, buzz and blog marketing. On December 12 and 13 at the organization's Word of Mouth Marketing Summit 2 held in Washington, DC, marketers can learn from other marketers who've done successful words of mouth marketing campaigns, learn why today's trend toward consumer control is ripe for word of mouth, listen to Mentos' Pete Healy talk about his company's successful leveraging of the Mentos/Diet Coke viral wave and hear AOL's Ted Leonis talk about AOL's initiatives in this area.
As Grey's Anatomy's Meredith always says, "Seriously." Seriously, if you wonder why companies are successful without spending a boatload of money on TV, word of mouth can play a significant role. Get more info here.
To support the launch of Prison Break on the Portuguese FOX channel, Portuguese agency Torke created a guerrilla-style outdoor campaign with a band of chained prisoners walking the streets, posters with images of the show's cast placed behind the bars or windows and fences and small headshot posters and cards placed in shops. Accompanying the campiagn was a press kit a hidden spoon and a prison blueprint. See it all here.
If there's one medium over any other that is, at the same time, both stodgy and inventive, it's outdoor. Extensions, cutouts, moving parts, integration with surroundings and now...a gigantic woman wearing a "real" dress that, when the wind blows, billows upward to reveal the advertisied product: Pretty Polly lingerie.
Here's some interesting eye candy in which AIDS is given a voice, and it ain't friendly. Most will remember the unpleasant Roy Cohn from the hard-as-nails Pacino depiction in 2003's Angels in America.
Unendorsed by Join Red, a movement to reinvigorate the AIDS discourse, the ad was created by Owen Plotkin, who likes making provocative ads for good causes.
Interestingly enough, tempering Join Red is growing speculation about what AIDS actually is and whether it exists at all. We look forward to watching the crossfire move into public salience. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
A new company, Coull, has launched and promises to make it possible to search for specific moments within a video and have those moments linkable to other content. One drawback. It's not automatic. For videos to be searchable, it seems tags must be placed within the video by the uploader. Most people may not take the time to do that but brands might and that's what Coull is betting on believing it has the answer to the pre-roll, post-roll debate. The answer? Brands can inject links into videos allowing people to click out and explore whatever product was linked. Agent Provocateur recently did it with its Kate Moss film.
You know that feeling you get when you watch somebody do something stupid in complete confidence? You know, that vicarious embarrassment where you wish you weren't even around to see it?
RackSpace gives us that same feeling, impressively from a distance, with its latest campaign, which carries the ironic tagline "At RackSpace, we speak your language."
Attempts to show audiences you're down with them by interpreting their brand of l33t-sp33k rarely do well, and rarely succeed in making you look like a native speaker. Oops and NBTTTP variations here. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
In an effort to remind the South why it loves Krystal, Krystal launches no-holds-barred interactive campaign "Krystal LOVERS," the webpage for which takes forever to load. Make your own commercials, share Krystal memories, get on hall of fame, go Krystal, yada yada yada. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
We love PETA's fondness for comparing the plight of animals to the imagined slaughter of humans. That's not alienating at all.
It's a good jarring piece and we get the point, yes very clever ha-ha, but hell, PETA, do you really think vegetables don't get harmed or traumatized just because they don't scream or bleed red? Who will fight for the plight of vegetables?! - Contributed by Angela Natividad
We do hate pushing an old joke but in this case we can't help it (just look at this and this). What is going on up there? Is it really nonstop games and big hair?
Anyway, Yahoo just released a thumb-wrestling game for its Canada Mail offering. It's actually more fun than it deserves to be. We spent the greater part of the morning creating thumb wrestlers and destroying each other. Very clever way to ensare us in the whole "E-mail choice for champions" thing which we pointedly burned here because of its staggering potential to be lame.
Check out more images from the campaign. We dig the casual playfulness of the images; the campaign is appropriation-friendly and we like that. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
The Silly Girl points us to some fun Sony is having in a newish VAIO laptop campiagn. Calling the line "the non-pc pc," Sony has made a threesome of the PC Guy/Mac Guy Apple ads and added an "I'm a VAIO" hipster chick to the equation. As engadget correctly ponders, the message is a bit confusing since, after all, the VAIO is, in fact, a PC whether it wants to be or not. Details aside, a little flash ad lets you choose who you want to "play with." Choose the girl, she giggles. Choose the Mac, he says "hey." Choose the PC and, well, he farts. Go figure.
A detail-rich image, coupled with a story almost everybody knows from childhood, do heavy-handed justice to the usual "don't litter" message. We can just hear the chosen ones complaining about the litter as they trot across, kicking debris out of the way with their sandals, as Moses clutches his temples in consternation.
Brentter points us to this ad by Young and Rubicam, Paris for social-minded and trendy Surfrider. We think it's clever and a touch risque, especially in this political climate, but for an Echo Boomer grassroots organization it's an interesting break from the "let's ignite the young/zealous/psychotic!" guerilla campaigns and cut-outs of dead people. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
In early October we wrote an open letter to GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons suggesting he "retire breasts that don't bounce" meaning it's time for plastic-breasted Candice Michelle to go. Of the long-running campaign, we wrote, "It was mildly funny when she rubbed her boobs against the window while on that window washing scaffolding. But it's hardly funny at all to watch her run through sprinklers across a golf course while an old dude gawks 'Oh, the GoDaddy Girl!'"
While it's not clear whether Michelle is gone for good, a deal, in the works for a long time, with Andretti Green Racing IndyCar racing star Danica Patrick will become official tomorrow when Patrick is officially introduced as the new GoDaddy spokesperson at Victory Lane in Avondale Arizona. As part of the deal, GoDaddy is a sponsor of Andretti Green Racing.
During the event tomorrow, Parsons will interview the sleeker, highly-unlikely-to-bust-a-shirt-strap Patrick and it's expected he'll make his Super Bowl advertising plans known. With Patrick in the GoDaddy house, breasts will, apparently, take a back seat for a while.
- Publicis Groupe wants to be advertising's God. Yes, it want full reign over the industry and is on it's way to accomplishing that goal by having acquisition discussions with Interpublic Group. George Parker thinks it's all a "giant fuck up."
_ Maine doesn't want to look at Santa's Butt while drinking beer. Yes, we know. It's strange.
- Here's a little holiday time-waster from Signature Marketing Solutions: Subservient Santa.
In general gym ads tend to be pretty weird and there's a good reason why - inviting your target to do a bit of self-demeaning self-reflection can be tricky and requires a light touch, like a pickpocket or a safe-cracker.
Crunch ads are no different. They feature a series of conversations between unstudly spuds whose punchline is the campaign slogan: "Don't be a potato." Catch another variation here.
It made us laugh but needless to say we didn't extract our asses from these chairs. And really, who needs to when there's Wii in the world? - Contributed by Angela Natividad
Here's a gift for the vixen in your life. Invite her to discover her Aura, a new line Benjamin Moore calls "the finest paint we've ever made." According to the copy Aura is deeper, richer and more enticing than normal.
The campaign features the usual gimmicks intended to appeal to the senses of the yoga mama: soft nude graphics, colours that look like writhing bodies under satin, and flowers.
We've seen the ad in the train station for weeks without actually knowing what it was for. In fact, we had to kneel over the tracks and really look at it, thus risking our lives, before we worked it out. From a distance it looks like it's for tomato soup, maybe with a breast cancer awareness thing going on. A sexy soup. A sexy paint. Does there really a difference make? - Contributed by Angela Natividad
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