OK, it's a slow news day around here so forgive us if we report the stunning news Playboy is going to set up shop in Second Life. Set to occur in June, details are scarce and Second Life Herald has a lot of questions such as will there be a virtual Mansion? Will the real world bunnies have anything to do with the virtual bunnies? Will there even be virtual bunnies? How many Playboy Bunny avatars will actually be fat, balding, middle aged gamer geeks getting their rocks off while staring at their virtual Bunny? Do tell, Hugh. Inquiring geeks want to know.
Today's knitting circle is the Tupperware party, and Brooke Shields is an integral part of said party, at least for the Chain of Confidence campaign.
This is a new social media effort geared toward connecting women and celebrating friendship, because that's what you call it when bored chicks get together for a long period of time and gossip about one another while painting their toenails and fussing with plastic containers of varying shapes, sizes and colours.
WHITTMANHART Interactive designed the campaign to "[challenge] women to tell their own inspirational stories of how friendship increases their confidence." Does it really?
First there was the website. Then there was the email newsletter. Then there was the RSS feed. And then came the Adrants Twitter Feed. Yes, for all you Twitter addicts, we now have a Twitter feed. And since we have a Twitter feed, you can now get Adrants news via IM or on your mobile phone because that's all part of the beauty of Twitter. So go nuts. You know you love it.
As a follow up to their Livin' Large in Aveo, Chevy is doing the "this car's so awesome you could live in it" thing again. Chevy is sending Eric Schackne and Filup Molina on a cross-country quest for so-called stardom. The two will travel from Gainesville, Florida to Hollywood, California continue to to see if they can make it big in movie land. Along the way they'll document the people they meet, the experiences they have and the "performances" they deliver in comedy clubs and with improv troupes in cities along their route. Eesh. That oughtta be good. If you aren't lucky enough to be one of their stops on their week-long road trip, the whole thing's being chronicled with videos and a blog.
No one really wants to live in a car but a road trip is a right of passage and we're liking Chevy a lot for helping these two dudes fulfill this important life chapter. We think more automakers should get in on the game too. After all, there ain't much money in the pockets immediately after college.
While one member of the Adrants team thinks it's just "some retro oddity," the rest of us (meaning me) are pretty infatuated with this sultry Peep campaign which marks its 21st annual Fashion Cares AIDS benefit in Toronto.
Check out the video, a veritable voyeur's fairy tale in BDSM costume. Sort of reminds us of that PSP white-on-black (and vice-versa! Don't kill us) effort except without the console tacked on.
Via's a little late with its 2006 year in review (here's 2005) but they took pains to assure us they didn't scrap the idea. Instead they were working hard to cram in every last inside joke they could.
There's even a background song that gives the whole thing a high school yearbook vibe.
The 2006 review is super-long and more than a little sentimental. It reeks of a nostalgia that's confusing because, after all, these aren't our memories.
We did remember this, though.
We are suckers for a good puppet show, and Crest puts this weakness to good use with a sentimental display of affection.
We once knew a guy who demonstrated his love for a woman by sharing his toothbrush. We thought that was icky. Somehow, though, when the Crest puppets share teeth it's just sort of cute.
Here's all the details from the production company, Hornet, Inc.
Thank you, 7 Eleven! Finally, we can feature an ad campaign that objectifies men. Rather than scantily clad women, we have scantily clad men vamping for 7 Eleven in Australia to promote the chain's frozen Slurpee. With gleeful abandon, the men in the ads are given the full beefcake treatment and portrayed as poolboy, pole dancer and maid. Contrary to what one might assume, this reverse double standard-ish campaign was not created by a bunch of giggling female creatives sitting around the conference room table but by five guys at Leo Burnett Melbourne...who probably also giggled madly while sitting around the conference room table. This ought to keep us editorially balance for at least another year, don'tcha think?
If DVR users ever lament the disparity of ads made just for their kind, rest assured that prayers do get heard.
Dubbed by Audi as the world's fastest commercials, these :15 spots by Venables & Partners push the zippy new TT Roadster in a manner most trippy. The ads are blink-of-an-eye quick and according to the usual zealous PR guy, "[this is] the first time that DVR technology will be used as media - they're so quick that they can only be understood by being rewound and slowed."
Confident in their ability to mystify, the spots encourage users to rewind, then guides them back to TT-Truth.com.
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Don't you love big research studies that nicely categorize the entire world's population into five, easy to define behavioral patterns? We do too. After all, it's too much work to create ads that address everyone's individual behavior. It's much easier to point to a big study that bases itself on the fact every human on the planet earth goes through the same ritualistic periods each day. So we give big props to BBDO who's now made every planner, media planner and creative's lives easier...or not with a recently released study examining the world's daily rituals..
OK, so there were some actual finding's in this study that could be deemed usable such as the fact 84 percent of Polish people shower at night versus 92 percent of Mexicans who do so in the morning. Clearly, different approaches to the marketing of bath products between these two countries we appear to be a no brainer. O the fact women in Columbia, Brazil and Japan love to apply makeup while driving at twice the rate of women in the rest of the world. Perhaps that's indicative of the need for an entirely new line of car-based cosmetics products. Close to 41 percent of Chinese schedule sex as compared to seven percent of Americans. Perhaps condom makers cold go the route of "for that special 9:36PM moment."
Come on BBDO, this was supposed to make our lives easier! We liked when we could just create one ad and run it the world over.
Riding the vertical social network trend, TitleRound, a new social networking site for men hopes to offer guys what they can't find on MySpace, Facebook and other broadly focused networks. We're told the site will provide "a centralized area where guys in their twenties, thirties and forties can communicate on a public and personal level about the topics and interests that matter to them, including sports, gear, entertainment, activism, business, sex and health." Probably a good thing. There's only so much time a guy can spend looking at and fantasizing about things he'll never get his hands on. At least with TitleRound a guy can win stuff through the site's Triple Crown baseball promotion.
Not completely ignoring a guy's primary needs, TitleRound also features a baseball hottie contest in which guys can leer at women dressed in baseball uniforms. Some things will never change.
Trendhunter points us to a law firm ad that reads, "Life's short. Get a divorce." The words are sandwiched between two yummy slabs of flesh that convey in no uncertain terms what awaits beyond the marital bed.
The ad comes courtesy of Chicago attorney Corri Fetman, who angelically admonishes that you "Be honest with yourself and with your spouse."
Politically-correct statement aside, we can't fault an attorney for cutting to the chase. How long can we play the Puritan and pretend we don't have an astronomical divorce rate? If we were lawyers we too would be snapping fingers at hesitant divorcees-to-be.
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