Match.com's Make Love Happen campaign pushes the notion that there's a match for everybody, no matter how quirky or off-colour. The lively prints come courtesy of Serge Seidlitz. Well, we said we were all for the unsexy in a primarily sex-driven industry so this is what we get: sexless Lego pieces in an Erect-a-Set city.
Check out a pink variation of the ad here. It merits a close look as there are a lot of details. Whether it will draw attention to said details is a story only time will tell.
Mini Cooper marketers Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners get savvy with billboards that talk to cars. RFID technology in Mini Cooper keyfobs get picked up by billboards which then reflect that information in little messages like "Hey Bill" and "Nice convertible."
Check out the video here. We're impressed but creeped out, not least because if people still wonder whether Big Brother is watching, this would be an appropriate time to suspect that yes he is. And he approves of your taste in cars.
Mini users not in the RFID loop can sign up for it at the Mini website. You'll be asked a few questions about your private life. Try not to let slip the awkward BDSM fantasy about your boss unless you want it aired 200 feet above you.
Appropriating ads and turning them into fuck-the-man messages is not actually anti-advertising. It's turning an ad into another (granted, irony-rich and possibly more sophisticated) ad.
While like Mortarblog we have serious doubts about the Anti-Advertising Agency's claim that "city dwellers see 5,000 ads per day," we agree that the world out there is oversaturated ad-wise. But in an ideal world, that raises the bar for us - not to become more ostentatious with our messages, but to make them more slow-moving and subtle. In an ideal world, anyway.
We dig what the Anti-Ad Agency's trying to do. It's important to ask questions about the presence of ads in our daily lives. But isn't that what this whole consumer-gen thing is all about? It's our strong suspicion that, short of finding a society bent on ridding themselves of ads, what they truly want are ads on their terms and not The Man's. That's okay with us.
There was speculation over the past month that AKQA was up for sale but the agency tells us that's not the case. They are, however, "recapitalizing" by selling off stake of the agency to private equity firm General Atlantic. The agency will retain its independent status and we are told speculation the agency would sell was exactly that: uninformed speculation.
There's nothing like the reality and freedom of series cancellation to get the creative juices flowing. For sure, FOX's The O.C. was heading for shit and deserved to be canceled but in the past few weeks the show has gone through a dynamic rejuvenation worthy of re-instatement. The show has been turned on its head with Ryan's transformation from brooding, tough guy loner to active participant in the human race, Taylor's morph from cartoonish high school caricature to smart girl with feelings, Seth and Summer's maturing relationship, Julie Cooper's shift from vapid bitch to love struck nice girl (even if she doesn't really love the Bull oops...Bullet...or stay with him...shouldn't write while drinking a martini), Kaitlin Cooper's change from stuck up, ego-centric mean girl to supportive daughter and Sandy and Kirsten Cohen's transition from perfect couple to even more perfect couple.
FOX, you ought to reconsider your cancellation. Or, at least threaten all shows with cancellation in order to achieve improved creativity. And yes, we admit we watch the show.
With live concert, billboards everywhere imaginable, a big pretty theme park and yada yada yada.
So ... Vista's still trying to be down with the homies and Second Life's still trying to colonize reality and the internet, all at the same time. Ho hum. Get a first life, Vista.
Agency BBDO Italy is to blame for this fiberglass life-sized Mini Cooper that actually does bob up and down like a yo-yo. We like Mini's forays into the whimsical to illustrate its compact size and playful personality, but the fact that it's slightly more wee than a regular car probably doesn't comfort those driving under the billboard.
More images here.
Isn't it beautiful what hands can do? That's the question VW asks at the end of this Phaeton ad by Grabarz & Partner Werbeagentur out of Hamburg. With a playful instrumental and impressive handplay, Volkswagen draws attention to the potential of hands to do more than grope, play games and spread the flu. This is meant to showcase the notion that the Phaeton is as elaborately handmade, though we're hard-pressed to imagine a set of European craftsmen sitting around adding final details to a VW.
We agree with Motionographer that it's probably not the most effective ad. It's a long, patient watch and these are not prized audience characteristics. But we like the thought, talent and attention to detail that went into putting it together. If ads are the art that will speak in years to come for society today, we'd rather it be Volkswagen's elegant handplay than, well, this.
It's not often you're rewarded for your dirty fingernails. Discovery Channel Sweden aims to change that with Dirty Jobs, a contest for consumers who have the filthiest jobs imaginable. A winner is picked each week for five weeks, and each gets 1000 Euros to spend on a vacation away from the latrine they're wallowing in.
The contest is promoted on custom printed toilet paper, courtesy of Miami Guerilla Agency in tangent with Discovery Channel's Zenithmedia. At the outset we considered trashing the firm for being just the umpteenth to think wiping one's ass on the company logo is a good idea, but we find the use of toilet paper apt for their purposes. Right now big contenders for the prize are nurses, pig farmers and heavy divers. It might do well to enter Chuck McBride into the mix, as he seems to be the only one happily at work in his plasma-splotched mass murder scene of an office. Oh wait, he left. Never mind.
New York Magazine is reporting what we all already know. New York Magazine tells us Wal-mart has proof Julie Roehm had an affair with Sean Womack, writing us, "Wal-Mart has told New York Magazine exclusively that it has 'irrefutable and admissible evidence' that fired senior vice-president of marketing communications, Julie Roehm, had an affair with Sean Womack, a vice-president who reported to her. Roehm is the subject of an upcoming piece in the magazine by Steve Fishman. Wal-Mart had remained nearly silent since the firing of Roehm and Womack on December 4."
We're not sure we want to know what that "irrefutable and admissible evidence" is because, well, that sort of thing is just gross. Kind of like a President's "fluid" on an intern's dress. Ew. Roehm isn't taking it lying down telling New York Magazine, "I guarantee there is nothing because it didn't happen. I know what they have, and it's not evidence of an affair. It's irrefutable evidence that we're really good friends. He's like a brother to me." Even more ew!
Can we just get past all of this?
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