Country Music Promotions Even You Might Like

If you're into country music, you'll love these new promos for the Country Music Channel. Hmm. Even if you're not, you might like them too. They're quick and you don'ty have to think too hard to get the message. Just the kind of advertising we like. See the promos here and here and here and here.

'Star Trek' Returns With Weird Promo

Cable channel G4 is trying to breathe new life into the original Star trek series by creating an entertainment mash-up to use the buzz word of the day. Working with LA agency 72andSunny, G4 came up with a play-while-you-watch game called The Spock Market that allows viewers to buy, sell and trade shares of characters, aliens, gadgets and ships. Stock values change based on events in the episodes. Now that's a pretty cool way to get today's Internet geeks in tune with yester-year's Star Trek geeks. There's some funny stop-motion commercial that promote the whole thing which you can view here and here.

McDonald's 'Mobile Whoa' Promotion Leverages SMS

Tulsa area McDonald's have teamed with mobile marketing company Gamut Industries to create Mobile Whoa, a campaign that offers people an SMS scavenger hunt, mobile coupons and a mobile phone picture gallery. People can join the hunt by texting "hunt 62931" or at the website. Clues will be sent until the mystery is solved.

The coupons, dubbed "mCoup," are available beginning April 17 and will provide a free small order of fries or hash browns. Damn, I'm in! The mobile phone picture directory will offer ring tones and wallpapers to those who upload photos.

Magnetic Paper Promoted In Roundabout Manner

Chicago Agency Hadrian's Wall has created an interesting campaign for its client Magnecote paper. Rather than simply advertise the product to its target, agency creatives and production people who can use the stuff to make magnetic posters, Hadrian's Wall took a different approach. They chose a public service cause, World Bicycle Relief, enlisted seven other agencies to create PSAs for WBR. Magnecote agreed to produce the campaign, WBT agreed to run it, the campaign had to use Magnecote paper and each campaign would be voted upon by the public. Now isn't that a whole lot more interesting that just placing a few boring ads in Creativity for a product as boring as magnetic paper?

'Alzheimer' Commercial Not About Alzheimer's

Because this spot is labeled "Alzheimer," we figured it had something to do with the dreaded disease. It doesn't but has to do with an equally horrific situation, one that often never is revealed until the end if at all. Watch. The ad was created by Leo Burnett Lisbon.

Toilet Floor Browser Provides Stall Time Entertainment

Media Plaza places Internet browsers beneath the surface of bathroom floors to there's somethinf to do while you take a load off. After all, there's not going to be any newspapers to read in the stall soon since there all converting to online so there's needs to be something to do while on the can.

Heineken Light Succumbs to Questionable Headline

Copyranter breaks down a recent Heineken Light outdoor panel which includes the healine, "Succumb to Smooth writing, "Succumb to Smooth? SUCK. CUM. 2 (number of sperm-producing testicles most men have). SMOOTH(IE) [slang for Blowjob]." Apparently, the copywriters didn't go through this excerise in analytics prior to presenting to the client. Unless, of course, they did and they're laughing right now as they read this.

advertising for peanuts: Apollo Optik

Advertising For Peanuts points us to this ingenious ad for German eyewear retailer Apollo Optik which, as Advertising For Peanuts says, puts sex as a selling point to good use.

Morningwood Wet T-Shirt Contest Forces us to Listen to Band's Single

We suppose putting up a site called Morningwood and covering it with bikini-clad women makes it perfectly OK to make a site that takes over three minutes to load. Yes, three fucking minutes just to...oh wait....you mean we get to squirt water on the girl, get her t shirt just wet enough so that it falls off? Well that's what we thought until we waited the three plus minutes only to be presented with "You Pervert!" It's an April Fools joke and a very late on at that. So if all you want to do is listen to a single from Morningwood's upcoming album, by all means, play the game. If not, you can skip this one. There's no happy ending to this game. But....we do give them kudos for keeping idiots like us drooling long enough to listen to their song. So after all that crap, we might just have to go out and buy their friggin' album. We don't know whether to thank or hate Adverblog for pointing us to this one.

MediaPost Invites Then Un-Invites 'VIPs' to Conference

We were going to leave this one alone because mistakes do occur. We even left alone a previous mistake involving the placement of an image which looked like it belonged to editorial rather than the unmarked ad it turned out to be. But, two mistakes in a short period of time just can't be left alone. While we love the folks over at MediaPost but today, they made a very huge mistake.

Late this afternoon, we received this email from MediaPost inviting us to their Email Insider Summit May 21-24 in Scottsdale, Arizona as a VIP. All expenses, including airfare, accommodations and conference registration, would be covered. We thought, "Damn, Adrants has finally arrived!" We were all excited to spend four days at the Boulder Resort and Golden Door Spa basking in the Southwest sunlight while hanging with industry big wigs. That is, until a second email arrived.

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