Oh, the horror! Here we go again. It seems the blogosphere - that square, internally mirrored box in which opinionated blowhards spew forth mindless drivel, their commentary ricocheting off the inner wails of the enclosed box for every other blogger to see and respond to while everyone else outside the box ignores it like children in a sandbox at a backyard cookout - is up in arms...up in arms, we say, over...over...wait for it...comments bloggers have made about - and as part of - Microsoft's new "people-ready" slogan.
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Since we, rightfully so, in our opinion, chose to heap praise on Arnold's Cannes't video coverage of the festival and somehow recklessly neglected to mention the just as equally interesting Cannes Fringe coverage, we finally had to go to Cannes to find out what all this Cannes Fringe stuff is all about. Though we made in name only - and were rightfully dissed - with a mention in the latest Cannes Fringe coverage of the Shots party, we still feel like we were right there with the rest of the world's drunken ad industry.
OK, so Asa and Alphabet Soup, yes, I did get that:-)
For it's fourth outing, Arnold's Cannes't team found Ogilvey's Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin who spoke about their work on Grand Prix contender Dove Evolution and how it has affected their work for other clients. In a nutshell, many clients eye's were opened by the work and have become more willing to explore similar, non-traditional approaches to their advertising.
Also explored in the video is Cannes night life. mostly a montage of joyful advertising bodies happy to be away from the office for a week, the segment does a nice job encapsulating the non-awards portion of Cannes. We still don't know about the tattoo or where Meredeth went.
Alas, it was R/GA's Nike + iPod which won the coveted Cyber Lion.
- All those predictions about the death of the upfront? Still wrong. It's looking healthy and on it's way to 9 billion, up three percent from last year. Death of the :30? not this year.
- PricewaterhouseCooper says global web ad spending will hit $80 billion by 2011.
- Even more Cannes idiocy: Wrath of Cannes
- Howard Stern may be sued by weight loss company JEC for disparaging comments he made about Stern regular, Cabbie who is using the product.
- Johnson & Johnson has pulled creative duties for all but one account, Acuvue, from IPG's McCann Erikson, a loss of $90 million for the agency.
While it's no big deal to be inundated with press releases on a daily basis, Kaitlyn over at Catch Up Lady was pleased to receive one from Heinz the other day promoting its Heinz 57th Anniversary Wedding Bell promotion in which the company gives away a commemorative Heinz 57 porcelain bell and hosts. Because the company is approaching its 5,700th giveaway, the company will choose one lucky couple who's been married for 57 years and throw a $5,700 party for the couple and 57 of their friends in their home town. To enter, couples send in a copy of their marriage license.
Census Bureau information indicates there's a pool of 1,667,000 people who were married in 1950 to draw from. Pretty good odds considering many won't even hear about this promotion.
MindComet is behind this What Good is Your Old Phone effort which encourages people to submit videos of them trashing their old cell phones because, of course, on June 29, everyone is going to run out and buy the iPhone making all existing cell phones useless.
Hmm. Now here's something that's never been done before; highlight and make fun of a bunch of idiots in order to make the viewer feel superior. Oh but wait. In the case of this BMW Driving School promotion, this approach works perfectly. After all, most drivers are a bunch of idiots who think their way of driving is the only way to drive.
BMW wants us to know that, unfortunately, most, if not all, we've been taught about driving is wrong and that their way, above all others, is the best way. No doubt you'll find someone you know quite well among the nine idiots in this video promotion if not someone closely resembling yourself.
Arnold's Cannes't team has published its video take on the third day of Cannes in which they ask attendees why they travel to Cannes, what they expect to see, what they have seen and what value the festival offers. Lost purses, bicycle short, Arnold tattoos and a lengthy interview with Barbarian Group Founder Benjamin Palmer completes the video.
If the Cannes't team keeps producing quality work like this, we may never have to go to Cannes ourselves to see what it's all about.
We suppose you can fault a clean energy organization turning to the general public for creativity. After all, non-profits don't a have a lot of money. So with that notion, SmartPower held a video competition on YouTube and recently chose its winner, 19 year old dan Shepard who took home the $10,000 prize for this creation. Be nice.
Expedia UK with help from Cake Group celebrated the longest day of the year (in some parts of the world) by hosting Blue Sky Day painting events in Edinburgh, Cornwall, Brighton, Liverpool and London. In London, the event was in partnership with The National Gallery and London's Trafalgar Square and was set up with 200 easels for aspiring artists, with three pieces being selected for the organization's gallery. All of the work can be seen here.
Miraculously, there was actually quite a bit of blue sky in London today.
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