Protect Your Penis, shout an otherwise boring-looking set of banner ads.
How do you not click? The following page hit us with massive text reading, "I'm not a real doctor, but I still care about your genitals." The message is flanked by a studious guy in a deceptively doctorish coat, smirking at us.
An elderly stranger expressing interest in our genitals is generally cause for alarm (we are modest, after all) but somehow these ads for Descente bicycle shorts just rub us the right way.
Like Mike at BRILF, we think Descente should take the campaign to the big leagues: virals, podcasts, medical information, what-have-you. If much ado can be made about male cramps, then by gad this too can join the ranks of the mushrooming pseudo-pharma community of advertising! Factory Design Labs is the proud penis presenter of this campaign.
It's not often you see an airline ad that goes the route of the bikini. Its also not often you see an ad of any kind that gives a bikini-clad girl a suitcase and has her walk down the sidewalk in the middle of winter with a big smile on her face while intrigued passersby watch curiously. Then again, this is Japan and they do all kinds of interesting stuff there. It's an ad for Jetstar airlines.
Because for some strange reason we'd all prefer incestuous think tanks to trolling malls and listening to people chat about which AirMaxes are hype, the same cat who brought us Swivel Media brings us the Experiential Marketing Forum, a global indy forum of marketers and students who'd like to dissect Experiential Marketing (XM).
Here we find a sedate wiki-style space where brilliant minds can discuss the "burgeoning experiential marketing industry," possibly the precursor to a policy-pumping spin-off a la WOMMA. Word of mouth, apparently just one tentacle on the XM octopus, is so yesterday compared to this zany interactive (cough-cough-consumer-generated) brand thing.
Can't wait to see what kind of pop philosophy and patchwork policy rolls out of this bad-boy.
The Number 23, a New Line Cinemas movie having to do with obsession and paranoia, spreads the disease with this interesting would-be viral.
How it works: fill out information about a friend, then enter his e-mail. Friend receives relatively innocuous e-mail asking him to play a game. He's asked for his birthdate and favourite number.
The information you entered about him is then revealed to him in a creepy and intimate manner, along with applicable tie-ins to the number 23.
We dig the idea but considering the Adrants-specific demo was probably made for Adrants Steve and not Adrants Angela, we were more bewildered than scared.
We have no wife to kiss. Unless the game predicts the future, in which case we're super weirded out. We didn't think we swung that way.
Shalmor Avnon Amichay / Y&R has created a new campaign for the Israeli AIDS Task Force which seeks to remind us AIDS is still out there doing its thing killing, to date, 25 million people. After seeing one of the spots in the campaign, Oh My God, the next time you say "Oh my God" during a certain activity, you might be reminded of a less than desirable association between that exclamation and the orgiastic intensity you meant to associate with it.
The second spot, Fantasy, asks you to envision your favorite sexual fantasy; a threesome, by candle light, a quickie in the morning, with a virgin, as part of an orgy, from behind...all while assaulting you with images of death in the form of gravestones. Hmm. Another association we'd rather leave behind. But, we won't because we know the message is important.
We don't know if PETA 2 is actually PETA-funded or an independent group seeking to affiliate itself closely and confusingly with the pro-animal-rights giant, but we visited their site after seeing a Gmail text ad that said "Shut Down Bonsai Kitten. You can help shut them down by signing the petition now!"
This amused us because we haven't thought of Bonsai Kitten in years. But upon hitting the PETA 2 link, we found no Bonsai Kitten references anywhere. And we seriously trolled the site.
This is when we realized we were cleverly tricked. And while they were busy hyping the merits of Facebooking PETA allegiance and asking what Jesus would do for the chickens, they were not going to give us Bonsai Kitten.
While we're actually really bummed about that, kudos to them for getting us to click-and-dig. And the use of a Bonsai Kitten reference, of all things? Pure genius.
We only wish there was actually something Bonsai Kitten-related on the site so we wouldn't feel so jipped. If you happen to find something, do link. This might affect the quality of our day.
Sinless, who by now we suspect spends an unusual amount of time trolling The Fame Game, shares a very white rendition of 50 Cent's In Da Club. Bad rapping and emo glasses aside, we couldn't stop staring at the tassle swinging helplessly from one side of the headliner's hoodie. We are easily mesmerized by little details like that.
"White men can't rap..." our Fame Game-loving friend observes almost wistfully, and even if that's so, they can sure trumpet and clap hands in a cramped space quite decently. When we do our song-and-dance, we normally need a wide berth.
MySpace phenomenon Tila Tequila is about to find out whether or not having 1.7 million friends is as powerful as having a multi-million dollar marketing budget. Rather than sign with a label, Tequila, who's single I Love U was produced by Lil Jon, will be released on iTunes tomorrow.
Oh wow. Just listened. She might be hot but that song sucks. Trying WAY too hard.
Because our lives won't be complete without that next filet-o-fish, and because pesky dolphins always seem to be snatching them away from us right before our consummate bite, McDonald's brings us Dolphin vs. Man.
Dallas-based Moroch Partners are to blame for this follow-up to last year's "Sharkbait" game. This campaign features two new games that we actually kind of like: "Ocean Commotion" and "Aquatic Tennis."
It never occurred to us that the zany hijinks of dolphins may get in the way of our one goal: ongoing consumption of an undersized, occasionally stiff filet, the lukewarm bun that falls apart in our hands, delightfully soggy lettuce, and - lest we forget - that tartar-ish sauce.
Heaven help. If we weren't so busy suiting up to destroy dolphins at tennis, we'd serenade.
If somehow the filet-o-fish just ain't intense enough, we'll fast remind you that there's also a limited-edition double filet-o-fish available, which this promo also highlights. Try not to cream yourself at this very moment.
Departing from trendy but faceless consumer lifestyle ads (Mac vs. PC campaign aside), Apple airs a nostalgic montage of scenes featuring familiar actors saying "Hello?" to the tune of Inside Your Head by Eberg - a good choice considering Steve Jobs' magnetic personality, cultish popularity and fondness for black turtlenecks does smack of creeptastic mind-control juju. Really. We dream about him whispering "Apple" to us at night.
The soul-thawing ad is Apple's first for the miraculous iPhone. It probably won't be the last of efforts to build the shiny do-all device into the grand culture before its appearance this summer. The spot appeared during last night's Oscars and played several times.
Thanks to Mac Rumors for the handy-dandy info.
- Now here's an ad that really reaches out and touches you.
- Oh God. All we need is another meaningless marketing buzzword that capitalizes on yet another new trend.
- Just in time to comment of CareerBuilder's idiotic "firing" of its agency comes this Forrester report which claims marketers love to place blame on agencies but can't back it up with any sort of "failure metrics."
- Heineken has $70 million to spend but it's unclear who they'll spend it with.
- Starbucks' CEO laments some of the streamlining changes he's made and ponders its affect on the brand.
- What? Again? Starcom nabs Advertsing Age's Media Agency of the Year nod.
- Joe Jaffe is finishing his follow-up to "Life after the 30-second spot", titled "Join the Conversation: How to engage marketing-weary consumers with the power of community, dialogue and partnership and he needs your input for a survey he's doing on Conversational Marketing that will be a topic in the upcoming book. He's looking for brand marketers to complete the survey. Lend him a hand.
- Furniture retailer Levitz has signed on as a major sponsor of HomeTeam, the nationally syndicated weekly TV show that helps people become homeowners.
Here's a refreshingly new approach to online poker advertising. Rather than strangely dressed booth babes, sex-laced silliness, strippers with surprise endings, politically stylized bootie, potentially removed fingers, branded streakers (1, 2), lingerie-clad pillow fighters and painted cows, we have serious poker players actually playing serious poker. Who knew? Full Tilt Poker knows and, in a new campaign created by WongDoody, it leaves all the silliness behind.
Rather than treat poker as some sort of game for retards (can't wait to see who emails me on that slur), the campaign elevates the game to what it is: a game of strategy, intelligence, intensity and skill. The eight television spots in the campaign were directed by filmmaker Errol Morris who helmed The Thin Blue Line and Fog of War. A supporting print campaign accompanies the television effort.
Proof positive people have way too much time on their hands, last week, the virtual stores of American Apparel and Reebok has suffered a terrorist attack inside Second Life. Yes, you heard right. Some people actually went to the trouble of "bombing" the two stores. The group behind the attack (we can barely write we are laughing so hard right now) calls themselves Second Life Liberation Army and the purpose of their actions is said to be a call for democratic decision-making inside the virtual world (oh for fuck's sake, it's a game!).
The bombing follows several "attacks" made by the group over the past six months and follows the famed flying penis attack (video here) made by another group during an in-world CNET interview with wealthy Second Life Resident Anshe Chung. Seriously, people. Grow up and get a real life.
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