While we missed it while fast forwarding through the commercials during Monday's The Apprentice (yes, we still watch that crap), Chevy has teamed with The Apprentice and launched a consumer-generated advertising contest for the 2007 Chevy Tahoe, heavily featured in the episode. Rather than asking people to simply submit hack videos, Chevy has set up a site where people can click and drag commercial components together to create a canned spot. We;re sure that's fun for the average Joe but if Chevy actually wanted something creative, they'd let people submit original stuff. Then again, the promotion is supposed to be for the general public and not creative geniuses. Oh well, yet another brand climbs on the consumer-generated media truck.
That boxy SUV is so hip, it's spawned a fashion label. Scion is hosting a celebrity charity golf invitational to celebrate the launch of its Release sportswear collection. The event, the Scion Release Invitational, will be held at the Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa and the Tournament Players Club (TPC) from March 19th - 21st and will benefit the Boys & Girls Club of America.
The three-day golf invitational, produced in collaboration with malbon Brothers Farms (mBF), IMG, and Beyond Marketing, will bring together key influencers in music, fashion, film and sports to celebrate the launch of the clothing brand. Celebrities that are confirmed to attend include RZA, Gabrielle Union, Mike Jones, Hill Harper, Naima Mora, Sleepy Brown, Mobb Deep, Zoe Saldana, Tony Yayo, Raekwon, Timbaland, Trina, Nick Cannon, G-Unit and 50 Cent. Hosting the invitational will be the Emmy-nominated actor Jeremy Piven.
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For its client Heroes of the Game, an Avon, CT sports memorabilia shop, Adam $ Knight Adveetising created a series of posters focusing on baseball greats such as Ted Williams, Don Zimmer, Willie Mays, Earl Torgenson and Mickey Mantle, The posters will be placed in-store as well as at card shoes. A series of print ads is planned as well. Take a look at the campaign here.
If something can attract 60 million to it, there must be something goo about it. We;re thinking that's the thinking behind the USA Network's launch of ShowUsYourCharacter, a site that features character from USA shows but also mimics the social community aspects of MySpace and other similar operations. On ShowUsYourCharacter, visitors can dig deep into the profiles of their favorite characters and then set up a profile of their own to highlight their uniqueness.
While the site is about creating a community, the network is also hoping to collect and identify profiles of unique individuals who, upon submitting a video and statement, will be selected as winners with the Grand Prize winner appearing in an on-air USA campaign. With Tagworld, Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Friendster and others, there seems to be no end to people's willingness to place themselves in front of the world for all to see. No doubt, USA will see return on this effort.
Hated for years, the Canadian Tire Guy and his wife, portrayed in hundreds of commercials and loathed, apparently, by every Canadian citizen has been dropped from the campaign. The Canadian Tire Guy seemed to have fallen into that typically emasculated male stereotype we see often in America as well but put out of their misery before it goes on too long. We won't bore you with the details but every media outlet and blogger has derided the guy for years. Canadian Tire nor the actor who play the Tire Guy, Ted Simonett, willelaborate on the change
We love PSAs. We especially love PSAs from countries outside the U.S. where creating an ad that dramatically delivers the message isn't hampered by left, right, middle-winged cause groups that feel anything beyond a shot of a smiling baby will be offensive to...well...some small minority no one's ever heard of. So we gleefully share this Berlin-based public serviced announcement encouraging bicyclers to wear helmets.
Boston agency Hill Holliday has tossed its traditional site and launched a weblog. No, they didn't just add a blog to their already existing site, they ditched it entirely. Well, almost. They've done a wonderful job incorporating some of the usual capabilities and portfolio items into the header of the blog using Flash. The beauty of this approach, what many agencies still need to discover, will catapult Hill Holliday into the "conversation" about advertising. The site will get natural Google love, Technorati love and proliferation throughout the blogoshere's link-fest, something a static agency site can never achieve. And, most importantly, potential clients will get to know how HH thinks rather than how well they write website copy.
Other agencies such as W+K have great weblogs but we're not aware of any other major (yes, smaller ones have) agencies that have gone the all-blog format. We think this is great and we welcome HH to the conversation.
Our Asian cultural expert Tian tells us Adidas should expect a bit of backlash from the Asian community in reaction to a newly introduced line of sneakers called the Yellow Series. One particular shoe has the image of a buck-toothed bowlcut slanty eyed face on the shoe's tongue - not exactly the currently acceptable rendition of the Asian populace.
The AARP, bastion of those unworthy of inclusion in the coveted 18-49 demo, is issuing a wake up call to youth-fixated media planners and twenty-something ad agency types in the form of a new research service called AARP Publications Marketing Intelligence. The service hammers home the point over 50's have the bucks, aren't all in a rocking chair on a deck in front of a lake in Maine and are cooler that a lot of twenty-something who think they know it all. So, now that we've insulted you enough, go out and grab this research, talk to this audience and smile as they open up their fat wallets and throw money at you and your brand.
Ironic Sans points out an ad for the Army that, perhaps, sends the wrong message. In the ad, citizens are shown smiling and army personnel are shown with stern, even angry or sad expressions. To us, it looks like being a citizen is a lot more fun then joining the army. We're guessing the top brass is of the opinion smiling soldiers convey a weakness, hence the bad ass, military facial expressions.
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