A new campaign for Nike, originating from Melbourne agency, Publicis Mojo, is designed to pay tribute to the larger-than-life heroics of Nike personality, Lance Armstrong. The press and poster work, entitled, "Conqueror," features a close-up glimpse of a classic-style map of Europe, only if we look carefully, France has become Lance.
The creative team of writer, Paul Bootlis and art director, Tim Forte used an actual cartographer (from Philips Maps in the UK) to make the ad look more authentic and un-ad-like in the tradition of elementary school Atlases. The ad will be featured in cycling magazines, outdoor and point-of-sale.
To promote its soccer gear, Nike has launched a new website created by Odopod and ourcommon.
The site asks, "What do the Brazilians know that allows them to win world championships?" The site then digs deep into the Brazilian culture all while selling Nike stuff. The site also lets visitors register to receive information about soccer all over the world, enter contests and to be notified when new content is added to the site.
A Chinese looking ad campaign which ran in the December issue of Next Magazine for clothing store Bauhaus shows a man being hanged "for not giving up his HIV+ friend," a woman being shot "for voicing money is not everything to 53 people," and a couple being burned "for having each other as the only partner for the past five years." This odd societal flip on norms is, apparently, the latest twist on selling jeans. It makes those old Diesel Jeans ad campaigns look downright tame. View the ads here.
As a result of all those yahoos who think they can step into an SUV and become instantly impregnable, comes this website and campaign from states attorneys general and consumer protection agencies explaining otherwise. Along the lines of coffee is hot and too much food makes you fat, this site explains the steps which should be taken when getting behind the wheel on an SUV. We have to admit, the beast is very interesting looking and the spot hosted at Ad Age is quite amusing in that "we're trying really hard not to laugh, dry humor, fake serious, you're an idiot" sort of tone. On the site, the creature is really the only thing of interest. Once you get past watching him a few times growl like he hasn't visited the bathroom in a few days, there's just the usual common sense for idiots content such as, "SUV's are not cars. They are typically bigger and heavier."
After realizing its campaigns were being scheduled based on the whims of broadcast traffic managers, Time-Warner Chairman/CEO and Ad Council Board Member Philip Kent decided to bring some order to the millions of dollars of free inventory granted to Ad Council campaigns. The Ad Council hired Carat to handle the account on a pro bono basis. Carat is approaching the placement of Ad Council campaigns as it does paid campaigns attempting to procure fairer placement.
With geek-like highschool doofiness, a boy, hot for a girl, makes a sculpture of her out of Starburst candies then proceeds to molest the statue in front of the poor, freaked out girl. That's how we sell candy these days.
This weeks's Ad Age TV Spots of the Week is also chock full of long, tease and reveal style spots. First, Renault gives us "paper man," a cartoon character who's left his strip to illustrate the wide open spaces of the car maker's minivan. Then, Fat Tire beer forces us to sit through an agonizingly long commercial just to realize we're watching a beer commercial. Pedigree pours on the man's best friend "ah, gee" cuteness only to reveal it's just a dog food commercial. It almost makes one wish for more of those car dealer ads that just can't seem to mention their name enough in thirty seconds. Either way, this squishy, feel good tease and reveal thing just doesn't work in today's ADD society.
A new national print campaign, created by Hanft Raboy, introduces the theme line "Love is complicated. Match.com is simple."
The work, which launches today, uses photographic images from Elliot Erwitt and others to "capture love's mystery and complexity" as the releases explains. The ads will appear in People, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker and other publications. Soon to follow is a multi-million dollar national television campaign that is slated to break in March. Larger images of the campaign can be seen here and here.
A current Sprite campaign running in Hong Kong gleefully aligns itself with individual lifestyles in a campaign that is oddly similar to a campaign proposed a few months ago to Coke called " A Cool American."
Both campaigns celebrate individual traits and lifestyles and align that with the choice to drink a particular beverage. Sprite, of course, is a Coke company and we wonder if the "A Cool American" layouts somehow found their way to Sprite's Hong Kong ad agency. The "A Cool American" campaign can be seen here. The Sprite campaign can be seen here. You decide.
Indicating increased validation of the weblog medium by major marketers, Sony Electronics has signed a deal with Gawker Media to become the exclusive launch sponsor of Lifehacker, a software version of Gizmodo, Gawker Media's gadget review weblog. It is the electronic giant's first foray into weblog sponsorship and, to date, the largest consumer electronics company to make a weblog media buy. Audi, Nike, GE, AT&T, Disney, Viacom and Hewlett Packard have all, previously, used the weblog medium.
Sony's site integration sponsorship of Lifehacker will include the integration of the Sony logo with the Lifehacker masthead, as well as standard IAB ad units. The buy also includes Gizmodo, Gawker Media's gadget title. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Edited by Gina Trapani, a blogger best known for Scribbling.net, a personal journal with the occasional foray into technology, Lifehacker reviews software downloads, spam filters, virus killers, spyware, cleaners, search engines, email applications, internet phones and general productivity tips.
In addition to the launch of Lifehacker, Gawker Media, today, also launches urban chic travel weblog, Gridskipper, with Cheaptickets as its site integration launch sponsor. Gridskipper is edited by Andrew Krucoff, a former guest writer on both Gawker and Fleshbot, two other Gawker Media titles. Both deals were put together by interactive business development agency BlackInc Ventures.
Gawker Media consists of Gawker, Gizmodo, Wonkette, Defamer, Fleshbot, Jalopnik, Kotaku, Screenhead and weblog aggregator Kinja.
With the addition of Lifehacker and Gridskipper, the group now has 11 titles which, according to Gawker Media, serve up more than 30 million page impressions per month. Published by Nick Denton, the group last week received seven nominations for Bloggies, a sort of weblog equivalent of the Oscars, including two for best weblog.
Adland points to a website called TracjectileDysfunction containing a hilarious spoof of those ridiculous drug company commercials from Viagra and Levitra. Promising "longer, stronger drives that go all day" and using every possible double entendre, the spot, for Cleveland Golf, works. It's funny and, at the same time, explains product benefit.
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