ad:tech San Francisco 2007 Party Map Published

If you're heading to ad:tech in San Francisco next week and need an easy guide around town to find all the parties, check out our customized ad:tech Party Map with all the party locations and details, You can also check our ad:tech Party Schedule which lists the dates, times and all relevant details regarding the parties as well. Be sure to check out the recent editions and plan your evening accordingly.

Adrants' Future of Online Advertising Pass Winners Announced

Last Wednesday, we put a call out to the readers of Adrants who were interested in winning a free pass to the upcoming Future of Online Advertising Conference to be held June 7-8 at New York's Gotham Hall. Well, a week has passed and after tremendous interest, we're ready to announce the winners of the five free passes.

And, the winners are: Healthy Web Design's Dawud Miracle, iwebinvester.com's Darryl Newton, Intercept Interactive's Josh Kaner, Sullivan Higdon & Sink's Seth Gunderson and Burns Marketing Communication's Patrick Hunt. We will contact each of the winners individually to award them their free passes and we thank the organizers of the Future of Online Advertising conference for offering us the passes to give away to our readers. We hope to see you all at the conference.

Chanel's Writhing Beneath the Sheets Hottie Too Hot For Canadian TV

The Television Bureau of Canada isn't too pleased with a recent commercial from Chanel and has refused to air the ad. The spot, featuring semi-naked female perfection rolling about seductively in bed while asking her man if he loves her lips has been deemed too risque for Canadian television. The TVB says portions of the ad must be pixelated before they will approve it for broadcast. Predictablely, Chanel is balking. Chanel Canada's Public Relations Executive Director Anny Kazanjian told Marketing Daily, "When you tamper with the original product, it doesn't really leave much. Once you begin changing it, you really move light years away from what it's intended to be, and that defeats the purpose."

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What Nappy Headed Ho? Advertisers Want Imus Back

How soon we forget...but just one week? Yup. Advertiser are already talking about hooking up with Imus just a week after he was fired from CBS for his "nappy headed ho" remark. GM spokeswoman Ryndee Carney said, "We obviously don't condone his statements, but we have found value advertising on Imus in the past. Up to this point, the good has outweighed the bad. If an opportunity is presented to us, we would assess it just like we do all the other opportunities that come our way." Ah yes, corporate drooling for eyeballs continues to outweigh taking a stand on an issue. It's just too alluring to ignore the wallets of those who might still listen to Imus if and when he ever were to reappear.

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Iceland Respects Women, Likes Vodka Tasting Vodka, Doesn't Wear Sandals

Celebrating its status as the first country to have a female president (because they don't think women are good for only one thing), its preference for vodka flavored vodka (as opposed to banana...which you could just eat if you wanted banana flavor) and its similarity to Jesus who turned water into wine (as opposed to turning water into vodka without wearing sandals because it's too cold), Reyka Vodka trots out some understated dry humor to promote its spirits. The result oddly transfixing in a "wow, this doesn't look like an alcohol ad" sort of way.

Dents Promote Cars That Don't Get Dents...We Think

We're inclined to agree with Autoblog on this one. We're not sure we'd like large magnetic stickers that look like dents placed on our cars to somehow illustrate how tough the VW Polo is. Not to mention the questionable strategy behind the move as questioned by Autoblog which wrote, "Besides, what message does this bone-headed marketing campaign really send for the Polo? Is it: 'Polo: the steering is so bad, you'll have little control when you try to park.' Or could it be: 'Polo: the car everybody else will hate because it reminds them of the stupid magnet that got stuck on their car.'" Indeed. We don't really get it either.

Crashed Hood Blimp Garners Agency Top Print Award

Last September the famed (in New England, at least) Hood blimp crash landed in the appropriately named Massachusetts town Manchester-by-the-sea. After the crash the dairy company placed an ad thanking the residents of the town for their patience and cooperation during the blimp's clean up. Either out of sentiment or true adoration, the ad, created by VIA, was handed The International Dairy Foods Association's "Best Overall" award in the print ad category at the organization's Smart Marketing 2007 conference held last month in Las Vegas. Did that blimp really crash or was that planned all along? OK. Just kidding.

VIA also won a Best Radio Ad for their Hood holiday eggnog spots and a Best Public Relations Campaign award or its press conference with Boston Red Sox star Coco Crisp as well as an award in the "Best Promotion" category for their Sox Tops for Kids program.

Play Land Campaign Turns Everyday Objects into Flights of Fancy

Rethink, Canada put together these clever little ads on behalf of Play Land. In addition to lending new perspective on mundane everyday stuff, the series reminds us of what it was like to be so small that you actually crawl into household items and pretend you were airborne.

Sally Spend-a-Lot Nets New Clientele with Silly Song, Credit Tips

Apparently animation is a wildly effective means of chaining co-eds to debt.

For the credit card peddlers at Chase, Superfad puts together a new spot called Sally Spends-a-Lot. It would be cute if it weren't so garish.

The promotion is running heavily on Facebook instead of MySpace. Le gasp.

Volvo Turns Opinions Into Ads

For its Free Will campaign Volvo takes a bunch of user opinions about the C30 and turns them into ads. Check out a few. The last one, entitled "Mother," was wildly jiggly.

Hoyt Says Don't Gamble to Promote Gambling

Wow, people are getting way into this reverse psychology thing. We have faith that the method is likely to work for gamblers if it works for anybody, considering they have lots of practice playing the contrarian with irate bill-paying spouses.

Former gambler Hoyt Monroe gets tapped by Pala Casino, Spa and Resort in Southern California to serve as manchild - er, poster boy for a counterintuitive series of casino ads.

The campaign site is called How Not to Win and when you click on casino games you get an earful of Hoyt suggesting what you should do instead, like hitting the supper table instead of the blackjack table, woo-hoo!, that kind of stuff.

If for some reason you're inclined, catch more Hoyt on Youtube. M&C Saatchi, Los Angeles are guilty for this one.