Can't the French think of anything besides sex? Probably not, and that's why we love them so much. Bikini's College is the self-proclaimed first interactive guide to international flirting.
Alt-Buzz is stoked about this Bikini's College thing but we're pretty confused, particularly after seeing promo video My Teacher is Sexy which could be a very effective ad for encouraging adolescent boys to stay in school. (More effective than this, anyway.) Still, we're liking this growing trend of finding universal ways to hook up. Who says globalization is a bad thing?
In a reversal of one of the most idiotic brand decisions in decades, two un-named Ford execs said the Taurus name will return and be affixed to the two year old, poorly named Five Hundred. In 1992, 410,000 vehicles were sold. The Taurus brand resurrected Ford and outsold all other cars old in America for five years straight. The name as retired last October after 21 years. New Ford Chief Executive Alan Malally has been high on the name since he joined Ford last year. Most assuredly, the ad campaign supporting this launch will be large and far-reaching. Whether or not the renamed Five Hundred will be remotely as popular as the original Taurus is an entirely different discussion.
For pseudo-scientists still toting the efficacy of subliminal advertising, we bring you Hypno Marketing, an Australia-born method for turning even the most cynical of purchasers into brand evangelists for life. All they need is a few hours with said consumer.
"Hypno-marketing is not dangerous nor is it evil," says general manager Gavin Hawke. "Hypnosis and marketing use similar techniques to motivate people into a particular behavioural pattern. We cannot remove the free will from people but through our re-programming we believe we can control the individuals' decision making process."
Well, if hypnosis can get people to stop smoking, why wouldn't it work for marketing? And we're sure consumer-wannabes will be breaking the doors down at marketing evangelist hypnosis seminars. Who wouldn't want to be further cannibalized by every ad they see?
Make the Logo Bigger points us to Dump Cupid, an Herbal Essences promotion that departs from middle-aged moaning women in favour of a younger set, just in time for Valentine's Day.
The website features a depressing pole-dancing Cupid and, perhaps still more depressing, a series of supposedly user-generated hook-up stories that, despite carefully administered typos, ring false. We have trouble believing a woman who nearly drowned was saved by a lifeguard she later married. That's way too Nicholas Sparks. Users can also send Dump Cupid e-cards to each other with a running "We don't need him!" girl power theme. Uh ... yeah. Can we bring back the moaning women?
Update: as of 2/16, over 1.1 million people have seen the campaign thus far. And we're not surprised - across the Youtube and MySpace channels we've seen Cupid's red face peering gamely out all over the place. Is this a testament to the efficacy of viral marketing, female distaste for Cupid or a sick sense of epicaricacy? We don't know, maybe all 3 make the grade. Whether they convert into brand loyalty over the long-term is a fable for another day.
Adland chides Boston in a story about budget airline FlyMe which has taken to advertising on suitcases in Miami as a means of delivering its message, writing, "My first thought was, good thing this isn't Boston, since that'll probably bring up another bomb scare." Too true.
If for nothing more than to waste a few minutes during your lunch hour or during the excruciating boring weekly traffic meeting, have a little fun with this Virgin Money game, Lose Your Lunch Hour, in which you get to wreak havoc and physical damage to a bank branch of your choice because they closed the window right when you got to it. We like getting our virtual anger out and this game made it easy for us to do which is a very good thing becasue we suck at online gaming.
Tax preparation firms aren't known for giving their own money away, but that's what H&R Block is doing with Toss Out Your Bills, a contest where entrants can win up to $10,000 toward everyday expenses.
In tangent with that campaign is the Super Sweet Refund contest, where users can send in videos in the hopes of winning $5,000. One video features a girl prepping herself for plastic surgery and another features a boy who collects paper clips. Other entries are also really strange - and here we were, thinking everybody uses their super sweet refunds to pay off credit card debt. Maybe this year we'll use our refund to have a tail surgically implanted. We always thought we'd look nice with a tail.
Shortly after a Bill Gates interview in which he discusses Vista and finally blows his top about Apple, Apple releases its latest Mac vs. PC ad. Looks like they're getting meaner: this one features a Secret-Service-looking guy standing behind the humanized Mac and PC. Every time they say something he asks, "Cancel or allow?"
The ad pokes fun at Vista's hyper-anal new security features, which, if this ad is any authority, may hamper the user experience rather than improve it.
We don't know about you but we're pretty sick of the Mac vs. PC campaign, particularly now that they're getting damn snarky. Really, how old are we, five?
Some spilled milk is worth crying over. This weird little ad from Hood Simply Smart starts out normal enough and ends in tears.
Hood is typically known for squeaky-clean happy-family ads so we're guessing some sadist in the ad department finally got his way. We're happy about it. The spot is quirky, plus we like seeing people cry.
Oh well of course we have to write about this. We wouldn't be Adrants if we didn't bring you every last morsel of sexually-related advertising news now would we? But, this time, it's a little different. Rather than this being about how sex is used to sell, this is about actual sex and better sex according to female arousal product Zestra. Hey, men have Viarga, why can't women get a boost too, right? The ad claims it's not a drug nor hormones rather botanicals "clinically proven to increase sexual arousal and pleasure in women." It's too bad, though, the company chose to go the cheesy direct-to-consumer drug route rather than the more humorous Herbal Essence approach.
- Cynopsis Reports, "CBS Sports had a super night Sunday with Super Bowl XLI averaging a fast national household rating/share of 42.6/64 from 627p-1004p. The 9-930p time period earned the highest rating/share of 45.0/65. Super Bowl XLI was the second most-watched Super Bowl ever, averaging 93.15 million viewers. Sunday's NFL championship telecast also ranks third overall as the most watched program in television history after the series finale of M*A*S*H and Super Bowl 30."
- MediaPost reports, "A total of 58% of Super Bowl advertisers, some of whom paid as much as $2.6 million for a 30-second spot, also purchased pay-per-click search ads on their brand names--up from 42% last year, according to Reprise."
- Adland has the story on a Swedish teaser poster campaign that was hijacked by a porn company who took all the glory for it leaving the originator of the advertising, SJ Train, up the creek.
In a mash up of a webcam stripper video and that news show where the anchors strip while reading the news, the authors of the book, Punk Marketing, have placed a video on YouTube in which a bespectacled, smart-looking, sexy woman, Cleo, reads an excerpt from the book while slowly removing her clothing. It's hard to pass judgment on this one since there are two ways to go with it. Close your eyes and listen leading you to believe you are present at a fancy book reading event or open your eyes, turn down the sound leading yo to believe you are just enjoying yourself watching many of the thousands of webcam stripper video floating about the web. So, as a dutiful reporter, we think we're going to have to watch this again...and again...and again to properly assess the effort and offer you a fair and balanced report. Pardon us while we click the Play button again.
Apparently, the backlash over the Snickers Super Bowl commercial in which two men end up kissing after eating a Snickers bar from opposite ends was too much for the company to take and, as a result, the candy maker has taken down the commercial's accompanying website, afterthekiss.com. Typing in the URL simply redirects to the Snickers site.
While we liked this spot purely for its shock value, there's a faintly high probability this will have a very real negative affect on sales. Can you imagine the looks one will now receive from the checkout clerk when they buy a Snickers bar? That's just way too much snickering for most people to take and there's plenty of other perfectly good candy choices with far less embarrassment attached to them.
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