To appeal to men, many soft drink makers have dropped the word "diet" from the name of their products or introduced newly named products. In Coke's case, there's Coke Zero. A clandestine element of the campaign urging men to consume Coke Zero is a weblog, with no mention of Coke's involvement (Note: apparently in reaction to negativity about this effort, the page is now clearly branded with a Coke Zero bottle), named The Zero Movement on which a guy rants about why life is so full of stuff to do and how it would be so much nicer if there was, well, zero to do. It's written in typical character blog prose, devoid of personality and full of whiny banter which comes off like it's a product of a creative brief. There's even fake, supportive comments to go along with it.
While the blog's archives indicate the site's been up since June, 2005, Whois information tells a very different story. Not only does the information reveal the site is a product of Coke, it clearly states the domain for the site was registered November 21, 2005, a full five months after the site, according to its archives, launched. On top of this, blog monitoring service BlogPulse has little to no information on the blog. Had The Zero Movement blog been pumping out posts since June 2005, BlogPulse would have had a sizeable profile for the site. Blog search engine Technorati, aside from some recent referrals, doesn't have much either. In creating The Zero Movement, Coke has lied, misled and misrepresented. Some would call this reprehensible and irresponsible. We'll just call it stupid.
more »
Perhaps unable to afford overpriced super models or, as the company chooses to explain it, handbag maker SAK along artist Sloane Tanen will borrow from Tannen's work and use chicks (the bird kind, you lech!) in its upcoming ad campaign. Beginning in March, ads will appear in Lucky, InStyle, Marie Claire, Glamour and Teen Vogue.
Jason Kottke, New York blogger extraordinaire, purchased a new Apple Powerbook three weeks ago and,according to Kottke, three weeks too soon. When he watched Steve Jobs reveal the new MacBook at CES MacWorld last week, tears rolled down his eyes, onto the keyboard of his Powerbook as he wrote Apple a disheartening letter wondering, humorously, if his Powerbook, victim of his grief, was covered under warranty.
For brands looking to extend their awareness to the ad-averse generation, Adland points us to user bars, graphic images which people can add to their forum signature or other online presence. User bars, which have been around for some time and are available all over the place, and are grouped into categories such as hobbies, cars, games, TV, movies, sports and, yes, brands. Adidas, Coke, Converse, Corona, Nokia, Nike, Snickers, Sony, Playboy, Pepsi, Reebok, and yes, cigarette makes such as lucky Strike and Marlboro since its about the last place they can advertise. Many users create their own user bars along with those that have been created by forum owners. User bars are a great way to reinforce a brand to those who are forum addicted and advertising averse.
Over at Maxim TV, a video is pushing Penex, a nifty little drug for those of you suffering from Perpetual Penile Distention or Hyper Erectile Bloat. While some might enjoy flaunting their manhood, Penex is there for those who find it more convenient if it's tucked away until needed. The video, filmed like that freaky instructional video on Lost, was created by Night Agency.
Taking over for Nicole Ritchie and DJ AM, the cast of MTV's Laguna Beach will be featured in the Spring 2006 ad campaign for fashion label Bongo. Cast members Alex Murrel, Jason Wahler, Lauren Conrad, Stephan Colletti, Kristin Cavallari and Tallan Torriero will begin appearing in print ads in Seventeen, Teen People, Us Weekly, Star and Teen Vogue among others. Online will accompany print.
Dari Marder, Creative Director, BONGO, explains the campaign, "The Bongo demographic is the MTV viewer, so we could not think of a better way to reach our consumer. The concept behind the campaign is a party. So we rented an amazing mansion on PCH in Santa Monica, hired an Orange County band, 'The Colour' and let the gang do what came naturally. Alex, Jason, Lauren, Stephan, Kristin and Tallan had a blast on set and it comes through in the campaign. Alex who has an album coming out this spring got on stage with the band and sang, while the boys got a little carried away by pushing each other in the pool."
We know Lynx. You know Lynx. Oh, maybe you don't. In the U.K., it's Lynx. It's Axe here in the States. But you know their deal. Hotness sells. Now, we guess dirty women do too.
Perhaps we should consider being a bit less jaded around the Adrants offices since it seems to be causing us to ignore what, at times, turns out to be a pretty good story. A day or two ago, like many other people, we received some strange images of Brooke Burke with the Burger King king and we figured...screw it...just another one of the hundreds of pieces of crap passing through the bloated Adrants Inbox so we, religiously, deleted them and went on with our day. Now, we see AdFreak put one of the pix up and has pointed to some sites that have combined the images to hokey music. Well, once you have more than one offbeat image it simply has to be...yup...yet another Burger King viral effort from the beloved Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
Because of our overly jaded viewpoint, we apologize for bringing you sloppy seconds but, even Adrants has to suck once in a while, right? So enjoy. There's are image/music collages here and here. And here's a collection of the images over at Buzznet. We promise to check our jaded pompousity at the door each morning now and be sure to look twice when we receive these witty viral teasers. Of course, we could have been right all along and this really is just a bunch of random Burger King, Brooke Burke pix.
According to American Demographics Founder Peter Francese, Americans out pace the rest of the world, by far, in weekly spending on the consumption of goods. He says Americans, each week, spend more than the gross domestic product of Finland. Francese wonders just how necessary it is for many Americans to "need two homes, three vehicles and four TVs" but he's not complaining acknowledging that world-beating consumption keeps the ad industry afloat. In fact, if consumer spending, over the past ten years, rose at a rate equal to the increase of households (14 percent) rather than 23 percent, people would have spent $640 billion less altering the current American economy orders of considerable magnitude.
more »
We make no claims as the the recency of this little clip promoting Village Voice classifieds with a bunch of hipster wannabes but we were a little freaked out by the masked, dancing fat guy at the end. The "Click Right. Think Left" tagline is great though.
|
|
