We'll caveat this whole story first by saying B.L. Ochman realizes she should have noticed the monthly fraudulent charge that's been hitting her credit card each month since January. Ochman saw the $19.95 charge recently and noted is was for a subscription to AdWeek to which she never subscribe Noting the account had never been logged into, AdWeek acknowledges the apparent mistake but would only agree to refunding three of the nine months Ochman was on the subscription list.
Knowing Ms. Ochman well, AdWeek would have done well to simply refund the entire nine months because B.L doesn't just let these things slide. It's not the amount, it's the principle that irks her and, in true Ochman form, she's written a letter to MasterCard calling he charge fraudulent, hunted down VNU CEO Bob Krakoff to send him a copy of the letter, cc'd New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer and notified us right here at Adrants. Not that we carry any weight.
For a measly $179.55, one would think AdWeek could have swept this quietly under the carpet. But nope. On the day after visiting Boston's Hatch Awards, our hangover just won't allow us to concentrate on real news because this stuff is so much easier and so much more fun to write.
In front of the thousand or so creatively dressed creative community members that attended Boston's 46th Francis W. Hatch Awards last night - hosted by KISS 108's Billy Costa - at the newly renovated Back Bay Events Center, Boston's Arnold took home 89 awards including the evening's Best of Show award. Following Arnold with 42 awards was Hill Holliday. Mullen took home 22, Fort Franklin, 14 and Modernista!, 12. Dunkin Donuts was named Marketer of the Year partially in recognition of its America Runs On Dunkin marketing program.
 As with all advertising related events, there was liquor and lots of it. Following a two hour cocktail party, attendees were properly sloshed by the time the awards began and much hooting and hollering could be heard throughout the auditorium as each agency won their respective awards. Particularly busy was Arnold having to applaud for itself 89 times throughout the show. That's them in the picture to the right. Oops. We're told this is the Mullen crew. not Arnold. Sorry.
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In support of the potential of viral advertising, we are duty bound to force feed you this force fed viral (cartoon and video) that attempts to force itself, like the NZgirl helicopter stunt, to go viral because, well, that's what viral's about right? I mean all you have to do is create some witty thing like Pherotones or slap a few pictures of the King with Brooke Burke on Flickr or make a stupid video clip of some guy break dancing or, oh, let's see, create a video illustrating how your agency goes about pitching the Subway account just to, oh, prove that viral marketing works and just sit back and watch it all happen.
So, we're going to oblige AdWeek cartoonist David Jones in his quest to prove just about anything you want can become viral because, well, the agency told the client they could do it and, dammit, they're gonna do it. So take a look at Send to a Friend!
In this Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield campaign created by Publicis & Hal Riney, three sort of funny scenarios or near health harming situations work to convince people of the importance of a good health plan. One spot has a guy toppling backwards in his office chair. Another has a kid explaining the antics he and his Dad went through while Mom was away that caused Dad to check the Anthem website after several "mishaps." A final spot has an injured married guy talking to his dumb, single friend about why he should have good insurance - all while the dumb guy is doing potentially health harming activities.
There's a reason most director's cuts of movies and commercials are usually snuffed out by those in charge of their distribution. It's because, with director's cuts, we have to insufferably sit through the director's long, overblown vision of himself just to hear taglines like, "fashion that turns every head in the place if you don't even make it to the place." Yes, BlueFly is that confident it's clothes will do that to you.
Not that this is yet another contextual ad mishap. Then again, maybe it is. It's not obvious this ad is on this page contextually or just normally. Next to an article about Segway recalling 23,500 of its scooters because the wheels can suddenly reverse causing injury to the rider is an apple ad with the PC guy in a wheelchair with casts on both arms and one leg. Actually, this contextual screw up, unlike the Anna Nicole Smith dead son one, is actually brilliant.
There's a social network for everyone and now there's one for highschool athletes called MyStack from teen athlete magazine Stack. Just like MySpace and every other net out there, MyStack lets people create a profile, list intersts, connect with other athletes, upload videos of high school games and create goups based on sporting interests. MyStack also intends to make the site a place for high school athletes and college recruiters to connect. It seems, though, one needs to pay $26.99 per year and receive the magazine to join MyStack.
While we suppose it's not surprising that most guy's minds are continually filled with images of boobs and that, faced with certain death, those images might flood forward as part of the final lifetime flashback. Though, in this spot, created by Mask, for French sneaker retailer Courir, none of that is initially obvious. Apparently, we are to believe a little ketchup spilled on a pair of new sneakers is enough of a trigger to bring on a full blown boobathon flashback. In any event, it's always enjoyable to o drink in a few quick cuts of cleavage during the day. Besides, the French created this so that explains all.
Adrants reader Roy Coffman sends us this little bit over reactive buffoonery regarding a man, a dog and humorless animal activists. In the UK, Kellogg's is running an ad that shows a man riding home from work on top of an Irish Wolfhound. We've seen the ad and think it's funny. Apparently, at least 100 people don't and have complained to the Advertising Standards Authority. For some reason, even though it's quite obvious the pairing of the man and dog are computer generated, the complainers think the ad is cruel and that there's going to be a trend of kids hopping on dogs copying this commercial. OK, everyone. Take a deep breathe. Let it out. There. Is all your freakishly obsessive, humorless behavior gone now? If not, repeat until it is or just shut up and let the rest of us enjoy this commercial.
With this new patented invention from Colin Davies, the marketers vs. DVR ad skippers war continues to heat up. Davies' system allows for full frame, still images to be placed on screen while a person is fast forwarding through ads. This is almost kind of funny. It's so amusing to see what each side of this battle comes up with to usurp the other side's efforts. TiVo already does something similar to this during its fast forward process. Although we don't mind watching a still ad while fast forwarding, sometimes we actually do want to see what we're fast forwarding past so we hope this system allows for some method of accomodating that.
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