The next time you're in the grocery store walking down the soda aisle and your six year old daughters asks, loudly, "Daddy, what are hooters" for all nearby shoppers to hear, you had better quickly blame Hooters, the restaurant chain, lest you be stared down by fellow shoppers who wonder exactly what sort of language you teach your child at home. As you turn to your daughter and tell her quietly so other shoppers can't hear, "Well, honey, you don't have to worry about that for about six years. We'll talk about it then," an internal debate suddenly overwhelms you. Oddly, you can't seem to reconcile why hooters are on the shelf in the grocery store when they're usually attached to females and supported by a bra. Or, wait, are hooters just owls?
Suddenly, you forget why you're in the store in the first place. You take your daughter out of the cart, leave the store, walk to your car in which your wife is waiting and blurt, "Honey, your daughter wants to know what hooters are." Your wife stares at you and wonders how in the world a conversation about hooters would begin in the middle of a grocery store. Oh wait. The whole point of this story? Hooters is now selling Hooters-branded soda. And creating embarrassing moments for all.
Now here's a spot that's so bad, so cheesy, so predictably poor in it's use of t double entendre, it's actually good. It's an Australian spot for Tite-Tie, a product that helps tie things down in tandem with rope. And yes, we know this isn't new. See it here on the Tite-Tie site or a director's cut here on YouTube.
Post Red Bull, peddling liquid energy is the thing to do, regardless of whether the drinks actually work. (Consider the oxymoronic nature of energy beers.) So how to make your carbonated Kool-Aid sell? With a Gremlins throwback, of course.
Digital Domain creates a quirky spot for Amp, an energy drink from Pepsi. A guy up late gets attacked by Lilliputian paper monstrosities composed of his reject pile. Eventually he mans up and fights back. Then he has some Amp and starts writing the payoff piece.
We don't get why the trashed oeuvres turn into gremlins and attack, but we guess it has to do with the adventurous unpredictable lifestyle Amp drinkers lead. Either that or Amp is a hallucinogen, which would arguably sell better than yet another taurine-and-ginseng potion. Pepsi, are you listening? People don't want more energy. They want 'shrooms.
MySpace, True.com's banner whoring stomping-ground, is running an ad that's made us double-take at least six times thus far.
Are they saying men are like dogs? That men should seek out dogs instead of women? That either one of the sexes should go canine and not carnal?
They also appear to be addressing us in pup language. Sit. Stay. Date. Bark? Jump? How high? It didn't occur to us how condescending True can be, not merely in language but in branding, until just now. Is this what we've come to? Docile men, interchangeable sex kittens and one-word commands?
Well, maybe. Despite the lackluster appearance of its website, True destroys competition in the dating world right now. So tonight we've decided to hit a bar and ask members of the opposite sex to wag tails and play dead and see if it gets us laid. There's a whole fetish industry that revolves around collars and commands, so we're feeling optimistic. Thanks, True.
OK, this looks like it really really hurts. But, it also looks really, really cool. Using stop motion pixilation, PES, working with Margeotes, Feritta Powell, created a spot for Sneax Shoes in which a guy rides a skateboard that's actually a person. It's just weird enough to be cool. Though we wonder just how many times that skateboard guy had to move an inch at a time so they could piece the whole thing together.
North Carolina-based Woodbine Agency rips into the Ad Club of the Triad's annual ADDY Awards, swooping up 18 Addy's, including 11 Gold and four Silver Addys. Additionally, they won a Best in Show for the Pivotal Decisions campaign they did for Piedmont Federal (which premiered here!).
To celebrate, the formidable bunch tore into what they called "the remains of their competitors" - which they claim was just leftover roast beef but could easily be the devastated flesh of some sadly razed agency exec from elsewhere.
Woodbine has offices in Winston-Salem and Charlotte, the latter of which marks its first year in July. Check out more celebratory meat-grinding here and here.
To liven up the boring auto show and to provide some customized interactivity with an automotive brand, Mindflood along with experience marketing company George P. Johnson teamed to create some very impressive consumer experiences for Acura and Scion. We can remeber going to auto shows and thinking it was cool just to touch the car ans sit inside it. That's so yesterday. The Acura Interactive Oracles and the Scion Mix it Up Experience give people so much more to play with including complete vehicle customization, t-shirt creation and a complete interactive experience of the vehicle.
more »
It's no secret that the US's slow divorce from oil dependence is a transition frowned upon by some. But to joke about it? Publicly? Quel faux-pas.
That's why we dig Toyota Prius' ballsiness. This ad, put together by Saatchi & Saatchi in Poland, throws an ice breaker into the discourse. It doesn't make the Prius any prettier, but it certainly makes the brand more appealing.
Something about the sheikh's despondent expression brings to mind those sad westerns in which ways of life get torn asunder, and natives cruelly displaced, by the new guys in town. Oh sheikh, don't mourn too long for the past. We'd pat your shoulder, but we probably wouldn't recognize you through the tinted windows of the gold-encrusted Hummer.
We suspect Levi's puts its design cash toward licensing fees for the awesome songs they use in ads that keep us trying, year after year, to find a cool pair of Levi's jeans, even if history tells us this will never happen. Lame denim fits aside, the ads are sensory pop art.
We love -- love -- the Dangerous Liaisons ad for their 2007 line. At first we thought it was the usual booty-call striptease bit, because we've seen that gimmick a thousand times, but as the spot wore on we realized something more interesting happening.
In the Bartle Bogle Hegarty masterpiece, a couple undresses to reveal layers of decades suggested in clothing, demeanour, style and even background noise. It moves fluidly from the rough-and-tumble 19th century workjean years to 2007's waifish verge-of-tears emo period. All to the haunting and playful tune of "Strange Love" by Little Annie Bandez.
Time for another futile trip to the flagship store.
Balendu draws our attention to this promotion for Beyonce Knowles' upcoming tour in Australia, which is drawing controversy from the usual slew of anti-smoking groups and mean PC people. One such group actually contacted the Federal Dept of Health to say the ad acts as a tobacco promotion, thus breaching the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act.
We're surprised by the lifelong groomed artist's decision to use the old-fashioned cigarette holder, particularly because of strong negative sentiment about tobacco's effects (as if nobody knew before). Nonetheless, the act makes a statement and we're impressed by B's gumption. The untouchable Audrey would appreciate the political hat-tip, even if her immortal pose with the long cigarette is decidedly more chic.
|
|
