Pontiac Canada Offers Artistic G5 Experience

Here's an interesting site created by Maclaren McCann Direct & Interactive for Pontiac Canada to promote the 2007 G5 on which visitors can fool around with their mouse and keyboard to create customized visual and audio representations of the vehicle. There's also a "build your own" section and a contest to win a new G5. One of the more engaging car sites out there.

Colorado Anti-Smoking Effort A Barney-Like Second Life Experience

Part Barney cartoon, part Second Life experience, part Honda Hate, this entrancing Colorado State Tobacco Education & Prevention effort created by Cactus and AgencyNet with help from Biscuit, Final Cut, Company 3 & R!OT, Lime and Beacon Street Studios on the TV spots is an elaborate creation of an entire online town, called C-Ville, with endless things to do and see. The underlying message within the town is choice. The right choice of course and the importance of choice when it comes to deciding whether or not to take that drag.

PSAs, viewable on the site and currently on air, show the importance of making the right choices and direct kids to the site for more education about making the right choices. Final Cut's Carlos Arias explains the approach saying, "Kids are so sophisticated these days so we don't need to make the message obvious. This is a new way of communicating with youth -- by not spoon-feeding them. Through great visuals and interesting stories, we were able to build up the intrigue. These PSAs had an interesting, short film style - like a throwback to 80s movies or branding commercials with sing-a-longs. They're just zany!" And, indeed they are. Zany enough to maybe actually work.

Amanda Congdon Video Blogs Her Way Across America For Ford

Sponsored by the NRDC, the Environmental Countdown and Ford, former Rocketboomer Amanda Congdon is heading across America on a five week road trip in a hybrid vehicle for a project called Amanda Across America. On a blog and in videos, she'll document her trip and meetings she'll have with other bloggers, politicians and environmentalists along the way. Looking like a Loneleygirl15 spoof (intentionally), Amanda kicks off her trip with a video taken in her "Connecticut bedroom" in which she displays exuberant excitement usually reserve for, well, loneleygirl15 videos.

Anyway, Gawker wonders about the whole thing, writing, "Is she really passionate about driving cross-country on some environmentalist-sponsored road trip that landed her in Good magazine? Or is she relatively unemployed and desperate for the world not to forget that she's got a decent rack?" We think the latter but we're not going to say that because she might hang up on us like she did the radio DJ who tried to tell her she was hot.

McDonald's Capitalizes on Gaming Trend With Midnight Contest

In acknowledgment of the fact everyone plays video games now, Dallas-based agency Moroch Partners along with Video Gamers League and Affinity Sports and Entertainment Marketing created the Midnight Gaming Championship. The gaming contest will occur Satuday nights at Dallas/Ft. Worth area McDonald's from 9PM to 4AM beginning September 23 and ending with a championship bout on November 18.

Each week, players can register online for a chance to play in one of three different gaming tournaments each Saturday night. The games featured in each competition are NCAA Football '07, Guitar Hero and Tekken 5, and players will compete each week in a single elimination format until one winner is declared for each of the games. Winners of each game's tournament will receive prizes from McDonald's, Best Buy and GameZnFlix. Grand Prize winners will receive a generous prize package from Best Buy, GameZnFlix, McDonald's and Red Octane.

New Ideas Exist In the Smallest Places

It seems there may actually be some new ideas left in the ad business though we're sure someone will tell us this has been done before. Anyway, Michael Shostack tells us graphic designer Jeni Mattson created some very cool business cards for, apparently, another designer. The concept was to illustrate the designer's probing nature so Jeni designed a metal business card made up of actual lock picking tools. Hey, it's diferent. That's half the battle.

Fully Clothed the New Naked in Advertising

Shake Well Before Use, ever vigilant for our societies repressed obsession with sex, calls our attention to an ad campaign for a Turkish clothing company that attempts to go the sex sells route but fails miserably as SWBU writer Ariel comments, "the director couldn't even get them to 'play sex' in a convincing role in that crap junior's department clothing. Of course, fully clothed sex oulf be the new "fetch" since nakedness is, after all, so five minutes ago.

Boob Fondling the New Dating Service Ad Tactic

You know, we were gonna screen capture this ourselves the other day while we were trolling MySpace for the latest batch of fake/marketer profiles but, well, there's a lot of distractions on MySpace including this True dating service ad. Yes, their ads have always featured barely dressed hotties staring desirously out at you but they might be pushing the limit here with this ad featuring a woman fondling her own breast. What's next, some seductive crotch grabbing? Not that we're complaining or anything.

Nike Gives Headbutt to Materazzi

We saw this Zidane headbutt nod Nike did on TV (or maybe it was YouTube. Who can tell the difference these days?) a couple nights ago and, well, pardon our idiocy, we didn't even recognize it was Marco Materazzi, the recipient of Zinedine Zidane's head butt, in the ad. So bad on us for missing it but good on AdFreak for mentioning it here today. The ad is actually quite funny and, yes, a great wink-nod to the original head butting event.

McDonald's to Make China Fat, Horny

With the introduction of the Quarter Pounder in China, McDonald's has launched a new ad campaign with billboards, print and TV showing orgasmic imagery and copy that reads, "You can feel it. Thicker. You can taste it. Juicier." In China, beef is seen as a luxury good that increases energy and sex appeal. Of course, it seems Chinese culture only believes this works for men so the ads focus on every man's desire: too many women and not enough time or energy to do...uh...spend time with all of them.

Spinach Kills, Smoking Kills, Credit IIlls

- Copyranter rants about an Embassy Suites ad that promotes a spinach omlette which he says couuld have been pulled following the recent outbreak of spinach-based e. Coli. Oh well. Slap that media planners hand hard now.

- Cool fitness bag.

- New Zealand anti-smoking organization ASH placed padding on goal posts and then crushed it down to make it look like cigarette being put out.

- In the continuing saga of credit not being placed where credit is due, two execs from SS+K apear to take full credit for creating the Lance Armstrong bracelet campaign in the New York Sun without nary a mention of Wieden + Kennedy.