Absolut Bottles Form Holiday Singing Quartet

Promoting some kind of special plastic holiday packaging, Stockholm agency Great Works has created a microsite for Absolut featuring a quartet of singing Absolut bottles sharing drink recipes (which, as one commenter points out, is misspelled on the site) and singing about where Absolut, and the quartet's songs, can be bought. There's even a singing send to a friend feature.

Holiday Fruitcake and Cheesy Music Kick Off 'Fruitcake Cash'

On November 21, Borders Perrin Norrander will unveil a new advertising campaign for the Oregon State Lottery, promoting the new holiday scratch-it ticket, Fruitcake Cash. Yes, Fruitcake cash. The campaign will consist of television, radio and online. The spots spoof those cheesy, late night music compilation infomercials by highlighting mockeries like "The Spirit of Fruitcake Volume Four," "The Holidays Ain't Nuttin' Without My Fruitcake," and the 80s ballad, "What's That Fruitcake Doin' Under My Tree." Before the hokiness gets too much to take, the announcer interrupts the infomercial suggesting, "for a fruitcake gift they'll really love, give fruitcake cash."

We're told the fruitcake parody songs, composed and produced by Asche & Spencer, were so well received by the client, BPN created a complete CD including full-length versions of the songs featured in the commercials. So there you have it. The first of what will, surely, be a long line of spoofy, holiday-themed ad campaigns.

'Sporting News' Gets 'Maxim' Cover Treatment

Next week's Sporting News sure looks interesting as indicated by this front cover image sent to us with a note speculating its roots: "Perhaps it has something to do with Sporting News general manager Jim Borth formerly being the head of circulation at Dennis Publishing." Perhaps, indeed.

42 Below Swipes Numa Numa For Holiday Promotion

Highjacking the Numa Numa video and its various incarnations, New Zealand's 42 Below Vodka has set up a special call center in India to cope with apparent Holiday demand for its vodka and is promoting it with yet another version of Gary Brolsma's Numa Numa. Because we're only "almost sorta hip" and not entirely hip like the rest of you, this Numa Numa thing amuses us every time. In fact, one day...at band camp... (see how unhip we are using five year old cultural references?)... we spent an entire hour on GaryBrolsma.Net watching the endless collection of knock offs. Now 42 Below can add itself the the list.

Napster Proves Thirty Second Music Previews Aren't Enough

To illustrate just how much better its all you can eat package is as compared to iTune's and other's 30 second song preview approach to selling online music, Napster shows just how frustrating that 30th second can be. There's really not anything else to say about this other than point made, point taken...perfectly.

Chalk Drawings Promote Sony PSP

Street art site Wooster Collective spotted some chalk drawings in New York, and received similar images from a reader in Philadelphia, that are ads for Sony's PSP. The images contain no words, no logos and no product references. It's just a bunch of kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, puppet, paddle or ice cream bar. The images are intriguing enough to cause attention, at least in our opinion, causing the viewer to realize the thing in the ad is, in fact, a PSP. Good stuff.

Seventies Porn Fashion Returns

Wipe that smirk off your face, dude. This is a photoshoot for an ad, not a porn flick. Oh, and speaking of porn, those 70's pornographer sunglasses have got to go. No self-respecting hipster, metrosexual would be caught dead wearing those things so go back to your pad, turn on the lava lamp, push aside the multicolored, vertical beads in the doorway to your bedroom, turn on some Donna Summer and throw your women down on the red velvet sheets of your love nest and get vertical.

Watermark Ads The New Pop Up

Computer Associates is sponsoring the stock pages of The New York Times with a watermark ad. These ad placements are on the rise as yet another method of getting ads seen by readers. Perhaps we should label these watermark ad "news-pops." After all, just like the dreaded online pop up, these ads appear over edit without user consent. OK, so watermark ads are nowhere near the annoyance level of horrific pop ups but there is a bit of similarity here.

Legislation to Crack Down on Adware, Spyware Companies

Not that it will necessarily curtail or make it any easier to find scumware peddlers but the Senate Commerce Committee is doing its best with its introduction of the SPY BLOCK act. The act, called the Software Principles Yielding Better Levels of Consumer Knowledge Act, was introduced yesterday to the Committee by Montana Republican Senator Conrad Burns and aims to make illegal the less than honest practices of adware and spyware companies. Practices such as endlessly looping pop ups, identity theft, changing browser settings, fake uninstalls and unclear installation information. Hopefully, this bill will less toothless than the recently signed California Spyware bill.

Hyundai Reclining Seats Save Marriage

Now here's a Hyundai commercial that's just funny enough it doesn't matter whether or not you can understand what language it's in. The idea is clear: reclining seats are a very important feature and one that can save a marriage. Painfully, it's in Real Video. Thanks, Rick.