Orbit Plaque Suits Help Fight Plaque

With their usual oddball style, The Perlorian Brothers have delivered another campaign for AMV BBDO London client Wrigley. The two spots illustrate the plaque-fighting qualities of Orbit gum by dressing people up in plaque-fighting suits and havening them fight plaque while accompanied by...a street musician. How very hip. Or weird. Or whatever.

Simple Messaging Works For Multiple Sclerosis Effort

Sometimes the beauty of simplicity is all that's needed to send a powerful message. This Cummings & Partners-created ambient campaign for Multiple Sclerosis of Australia carries the simple message, "Without your donation, research will stop." That message was affixed to a glass box in which an actual person, dressed like a research scientist would sit, slumped over until a person placed a donation into a slot beneath him. He would then come to life and pretend to so experiments until he felt the money had "run out." He would then slump over again until another donation was made. The effort brought in about $100 per hour and the organization plans to continue the effort.

Gore Personed, Revlon Shifts, Anti-Ads Add Ads, Oprah Tops Mag List

- MEDIA magazine names Al Gore Person of the Year. Huh?

- Without a review, Revlon has moved it $200 million from Carat to Initiative. Well, that's gotta suck for Carat.

- Yet another anti-advertising group fights the proliferation of outdoor advertising. The problem with all these groups though is that they use the same techniques all other advertisers do which simply adds even more to the already ridiculously cacophonous level of marketing litter.

- The Oprah Magazine tops this year's AdWeek Magazine 2007 Hot List. Rounding out the top ten are Real Simple, US, More, Teen Vogue, Glamour, Allure, Wired, Martha Stewart Living and The Economist.

Red Campaign Tanks Bringing in Just $18 Million

Oops. That feel good Red campaign isn't working out after all. It seems it took up to an estimated $100 million to bring in $18 million for the charity effort. Not exactly the best ROI for a campaign of any kind. Groups such as Buy Less Crap which we wrote about here have derided the campaign claiming it's stupid to make people spend money to buy stuff when they could just give directly to charity far more efficiently. It's true. While many businesses may need a middle man to function properly, charity is most certainly not one of them.

The star studded campaign which was fronted by Steven Spielberg, Bono, Christy Turlingon, Chris Rock, Oprah Winfrey and others seems to have been a flop. Global Fund Private Sector Head Rajesh Anandan defended the campaign telling Advertising Age, "Red has done as much as we could have hoped for in the short time it has been up and running. The launch cost of this kind of campaign is going to be hugely front loaded. It's a very costly exercise."

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Lexus' Says Safests Accidents Are Ones That Never Happen

Historically shunned but acknowledged more and more every year by car markers is the inevitable fact car accidents happen. Following VW's most recent entry with its dramatic crash ads comes this work (one, two) by Team One and visual effects company A52 for Lexus in which an interesting approach is taken to illustrate the ability of Lexus vehicles to help you avoid accidents. Each of the two spots takes a reverse look at an accident and, through a set change, takes us from the accident to a world in which the accident never occurs.

Recently, the Danish Road Safety Council took a similar but more dramatic approach with a couple ads that reverse the filming of an actual accident. The Lexus campaign imagines a world without accidents/injury because cars are designed to be safer. The Road Safety Council imagines the same thing but by urging people to drive more safely. Each uses trauma to illustrate trauma doesn't have to occur in the first place.

Animal Death Celebrated in Crossbow Campaign

Leaving all political correctness to cause groups with nothing to do but bitch about every possible human activity and opinion, this new campaign from Cleveland agency Brokaw for Horton Crossbow, refreshingly, minces no words selling its article of death. With witty slaps in the face like "Hunters really aren't so different from other environmentalists. We just like to keep souvenirs" and "Sometimes the best way to clear your head is to bring one back to mount on the wall," the campaign isn't likely to be well-loved by PETA, the Humane Society or the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. We do, however, think Charlton Heston would get a kick out of it.

See the whole campaign here.

California Lottery Introduces Yet Another Way to Waste Money

Foam fingers, branded chests, emblazoned sweatshirts, goofy looking hats and all manner of flags are usually reserved for sports freaks who seem to get more excited about a game than whether or not their kid got honors in science. That's not the case with the California Lottery's Raffle, which spared none of this goofiness, and added some of its own, all to promote its next best way for people to piss away their hard earned cash. BBDO mastered this got editing help from Umlaut. Yea, we know. Who cares about editing but they sent the press release so it's only fair we give props.

America is Hated For Everything Except...Watch the Video to Find Out

According to this video, America is hated the world over for its leadership, its moral authority, its declining economy and its trashy culture. Apparently, even Mother Nature hates America. But, America still reigns supreme in one area and that one area is the subject of a new documentary film hitting screens at the end of March. The film? Watch the video to find out. Telling you now would spoil the fun.

St. Pauli Girl Plays 'Guess A Model'

In its new campaign, dubbed "Drop Dead Refreshing," St. Pauli Girl is playing a little game with us. Front and center in the brewer's new print campaign is the image of a model Photoshopped to look like beer. As an added twist to the campaign, the model is said to be "renowned and popular" and those who care, can guess the model's identity on the brewers website. Her identity will be revealed this spring.

Look for the ads in March and April issues of Esquire, Maxim, Men's Health, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Backpacker, and Sports Illustrated. Other campaign images are here and here.

Adidas Teases With Athlete's Artwork

For some reason, YouTube has become a channel through which marketers enjoy teasing us with their upcoming campaigns. More and more, clips of upcoming campaigns are appearing on the video site and now it's Adidas' turn to tease us with its next installment of the Impossible is Nothing campaign. The campaign will focus on how various athletes overcame personal challenges as illustrated through...uh...artwork. OK. Can we just have the full campaign, please? View the teasers here, here, here and here.