Shoe Polish Gets Cannon Treatment

John from random Culture points us to some work his agency, Click Here, did for Kiwi show polish. To get across the point of how "crazy fast" Kiwi's Express polish is, a Kiwi bird, in the first of a series of three videos, is shout from a cannon (Outpost anyone?) and proceeds to fly through various scenescapes until the spot ends with a voiceover and the tagline, "Look Sharp." Mundane as shoe polish is, this at least attempts to add some fun to the product.

HP, Intel Take Digital Photography to The Street

Graeme Klass points out an HP and Intel street promotion in Melbourne Australia, called "The Color Factory," which lets people inside the digital picture creation process to experience it first hand.

Absolut Spoof Bottles Crooked Politicians

Rick Bruner points us to an amusing, politically-charged Absolut ad which bottles up a bunch of politicians claiming they are "pulling a Martha Stewart, or conspiring to subvert election laws, or ripping off their kids' school board, or outing a CIA agent, or practicing cronyism turned deadly, or hiring a bagman who in turn hires Mafia hit men, or lying to get us into an unjust war that kills tens of thousands," and names them "Absolut Corruption."

The site that created the spoof, 2 Political Junkies, promises posters and T-shirts will be forthcoming. Unfortunately, it's a safe bet Absolut lawyers will be forthcoming as well.

Budget Launches Blog-Based, Sixteen City Treasure Hunt

In a first, Car rental company Budget has launched a blog-based, four-week, 16-city treasure hunt, called Up Your Budget, which offers a total of $160,000 in prizes. To win, participants must find a sticker which has been placed in a public location in each of the 16 cities, call the number on the sticker and provide photographic or video proof they've located the sticker. To find the sticker, contestants will read the Up Your Budget blog for clues and watch daily video clips (in easy to navigate Quicktime, thankfully) shot in each of the 16 cities which help identify the city and where the sticker has been placed within the city. The clues will come in the form of blog posts by the two-person crew that shot the videos as they drop identifiers such as weather, local culinary choices and geographic references. There will also be a Treasure Hunter's blog on which contestants can submit hints, clues and sightings. Each week, four of the 16 cities will be in play.

Following the blog-based approach, the contest itself will be promoted almost entirely within the blogosphere with sites like Adrants, MarketingVOX and Boing Boing breaking the story and with advertising promotion on 74 weblogs, including Buzzmachine, Metafilter, Gothamist, Jossip and Busblog, through the BlogAds blog advertising network. There will also be some minimal search engine keyword and IM buys. It will be a true test of the weblog medium's ability to propagate information and main stream media's capacity to rely on (and credit) bloggers as sources.

The campaign was created by blogger, author and marketing strategist B.L. Ochman and Impax Marketing Group's Jay Arnold. The Up Your Budget blog was designed by Design4Results' Komra Moriko and advertising was created by the famed "cartoons on the back of business cards'" Hugh Macleod. Center City Film & Video shot the clue clips. Gret stuff. Who needs mainstream media when you have the consumer-generated, conversational power of weblogs and social media? Already the thing is spreading like crazy. This is truly very cool.

Animal New York Un-Hibernates, Hosts Party

To celebrate its re-emergence from hibernation, culture mag Animal, along with the now corporation which is celebrating its thitd year, are co-hosting a party at Blvd. 199 Bowery beginning at 7PM, October 26. The Animal invite features Gawker hottie Jessica Coen and states (begs) press from the New York Post, New York Daily News, New York Times, Newsday, New York Observer, The Onion and Metro are encouraged to attend. The now corporation version of the invites are here and here.

Also promoting the party are buttons which read, "Please bring these buttons or suffer, it will entitle you to the most important aspect of being a VIP: not having to wait in line. In fact, that's about as far as our VIP thing goes (We may have a VIP room, we don't know yet, it's a little elitist for our tastes. Please feel free to give your remaining 3 buttons to celebs, powerbrokers, well paid artists, or anyone in the media." Cute.

Not missing a chance to diss the competition, the invite directs RSVP's be sent to thefadersucks@animalnewyork.com. See Animal creative here.

W + K's Pompous Flashturbation Boggles the Mind

Oh this is priceless. So we're trying to check the Wieden + Kennedy site to see if they have a particular client and we get lost in a bunch of Flashturbation in the agency's "work we've done" section (thanks for making it so easy to find a client by name, guys) so we bail and check into the html site figuring we'd leave all the puffery behind but no, we get this egoistic blather:

"You will need to install a couple of plug-ins to fully experience our site. That is not because this is another one of those mindlessly flashy Web sites that give you a headache and make you wonder how you could ever sit through a meeting with those people; it's just that there are a couple of cool things we'd like to share with you, and you won't be able to enjoy them without having Flash and QuickTime on your computer. No big deal. Click here to get Flash. Click here to get QuickTime. And if you know you already have them, then click here to enter. Have a nice visit."

What a load of pompous bullshit. If you are going to provide separate Flash and HTML sites then make each fully functional on their own. So yes, W + K, we do wonder why you have a "mindlessly flashy Web site that gives you a headache and makes you wonder how you could ever sit through a meeting with those people."

Sun Server Poses As Playboy Centerfold

Sanj send us pictures of a unique for Sun Computer which places its computer server on a velvet couch in front of a roaring fire reminiscent of your typical Playboy centerfold spread. The ad even includes the Playboy like interview with statements such as, "I Love - naughty ROI talk, multiple platforms, dimly lit data centers." We like it. After all, how excited can you get about a server?

Blue Man Pulls Stunt Marketing On Chicago Train

While riding to work this morning on a train in Chicago, CTA Tattler reader, Robin, saw a man, with his face painted blue and a cell phone to his ear, get on the train and blather on annoyingly so all could hear. Robin noticed the man's hoodie had a logo on the front but couldn't quite make it out. After a bit, he moves closer to her, turns around and reveals the back of is hoodie which read, "Talk Until You're Blue in the Face with U.S. Cellular." Once the man had the attention of Robin and a few others, he began to tell whomever he was on the phone with "Naw, don't worry about it, brah, I've got free incoming calls with this thing. Yeah, and they gave me a sweet phone, too. Yeah, we could walkie-talkie. Even takes pictures." Now there's some nasty ass guerrilla marketing.

Robin didn't take kindly to the stunt and said, because of the stunt, she'd never spend money with U.S. Cellular and would tell all her friends and family not to as well. Not quite the reaction U.S. Cellular was hoping for. Robin also mentions the Chicago Transit Authority's daily announcements, "Solicitation on CTA trains is prohibited; violators will be arrested," and wonders whether this man, and U.S Cellular, were breaking the law or whether the Transit Authority was breaking its own rule by taking money from U.S. Cellular and allowing this stunt. Gotta love guerrilla marketing.

eBay Delivers It

BBDO has created and outstanding campaign for eBay called What is it. The campaign tells the story of two guys who invent "it" and how it became the world's most famous, hippest thing to own. Of course, the message in all of this is that "what ever it is, you can get it on ebay." Really brilliant. Really. Check it out.

'Blender' Rolls Out "Rock & Roll Hollywood" With Bash

Blender magazine and Cadillac will hosting an event, October 27th at a private Hollywood Hills mansion to celebrate Blender's inaugural "Rock & Roll Hollywood" November issue. Sponsored by Cadillac, Aldo, Absolut Vodka and St. Pauli Girl Beer, Blender's "Rock & Roll Hollywood" bash will combine entertainment's two most decadent lifestyles, music and film, into one memorable event.

Reportedly, 500 actors, musicians, entertainment insiders and tastemakers will attend to frolic in luxury suites, drink specialty cocktails, enjoy deluxe gift scwag bags and listen to a soundtrack provided by DJs Samantha Ronson and Brent Bolthouse. Live music will be supplied by The Shins, who, as the Rock & Roll Hollywood cover star Natalie Portman observed in Garden State will "change your life." We'll see. Also performing will be LA three-piece, The Like, recently covered in Blender's Almost Famous" feature.

Cadillac will have on hand its latest models including the Escalade ESV which will take guests from Sunset Boulevard to the secret party location, as well as be displayed outside whoever's fancy mansion the party is at. Guests will also be swarmed with advertising campaigns displayed by Absolut and Aldo while lowly St. Pauli Girl beer is served. Someone please invite us!