We've always loved Ripley's Believe it or Not and this campaign for the show, hosted by sloppy seconds Superman Dean Cane, leaves us with a sense of validation. We're not the only freaks out there. We're not even the worst-looking. And that's nice. Work by TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, South Africa.
Is it safe to use the word "freaks" anymore? There's probably a PC variant that's escaping us right now, mainly because we don't want to come up with one out of worry we'll have to use it. If you can think of one, you deserve some 100 calorie cakes.
Word on the street is this ad came out of Chile and was rejected by Energizer, whose ads are best characterized by that mildly randy bunny.
We can't imagine why they'd turn down this one; we think it says something. We're just not sure what, because we can't tell if the man in the tub is dead or just disappointed.
South African insurance company 1st for Women gets the point across with this set of prints. Text reads, "If men were women, we'd insure them. But they're not. So they don't get to pay substantially lower car insurance premiums. Cover with care."
To leverage the ha-ha, men are depicted in distinctly female positions - cowering from mice and taking luxurious bubble baths.
Condescending much? Per the website's invitation, have a cappuccino as you ponder.
Apparently even movies want in on CGM. Paramount gets together with Eyespot to push a video mash-up contest for the Disney-fied Rear Window-esque film Disturbia starring Shia LaBeouf.
The promotions put heat on how well you know your neighbors and encourages a sensory mix of audio, visual effects and whatever else you can weave out of Final Cut Pro. Contest winners get an Xbox 360 because everybody already has an iPod and only spammy banners give iPhones away.
For friendship, a relationship, random play or whatever you can get, Facebook.com can help you nail an equally drunk, confused and vacuous co-ed.
Facebook has kept its head down in the media since the stalker-feed inclusion and the shedding of its university exclusivity, but finally there's a spoof worthy of mention. Produced for EXPOSED, a TV show for University of Southern California, and directed by Mu SunIn, this eHarmony-style infomercial gets the tone down perfectly, from the pompous manner of the narrator to the non-serious-but-serious use of relationship status on the site. And we love the self-conscious indifference leaking out of Walter Pederovsky's pores.
...What is that poking function anyway?
- Cynopsis reports, "After seven months of negotiations, the deal got done after all. News Corp. and NBC Universal announced a partnership for the digital age yesterday, planning a new jointly-run entertainment portal that will aggregate the biggest collection of TV content on the web and create "the largest advertising platform on earth." The agreement will encompass the vast libraries of television and film content from each of the companies' broadcast, cable and film brands. The deal also contains a distribution component that will make video content available across the leading portals of the net AOL, MSN, Yahoo and MySpace, who will share in the ad revenue and customize its delivery as they see fit."
- A Compete.com survey claims the supposedly "failed" CareerBuilder Super Bowl spots actually delivered some positive metrics.
Everyone's talking about the News Corp./NBC Universal video site that may give YouTube some stiff competition. Advertisers such as GM, Cadbury Schweppes, Intel, Cisco and E-surance are lining up for the advertiser-friendly site.
- The Catch Up Lady sums up the booting of the bespectacled Classmates.com girl who had always been placed next to the jock along with the tagline, "She married him?" Now a Farrah Fawcett-like girl takes her place.
We recently learned that March is Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month. MS impacts over 2.5 people worldwide, and to assist sufferers the National MS Society started the Join the Movement campaign.
We wonder who gets to dole months out to interested parties because it seems like there are more Awareness Months than actual months.
Before we forget why we started writing about this in the first place, hit the MS MySpace to make other movement friends and watch sad videos.
Anna Chlumsky of My Girl and My Girl 2 fame is all grown up now and will be starring in a CW comedy pilot entitled Eight Days A Week. The show will follow four women in their twenties who are assistants to successful top New York Executives. Hasn't the Devil Wears Prada thing been done already?
Tim at AdFreak brings our attention to a new frontier in employee uniforms - panel advertising! That's right, a local grocer near you could be hocking Florida orange juice at you whether he wants to or not. Other potential billboards include employees at sports arenas, state fairs, and theme parks.
The ad panels come courtesy of Eye Level Marketing, a division of Billboard Clothing Co. - clearly people who cut right to the chase in name and in the tenets of fashion.
Tim addresses the slippery slope that may lead to Pfizer buying space on physician's scrubs, for example. Hey, maybe this word of mouth thing was just too much work. Why make a recommendation when you can just wear one? It's not like WOM was ever super-pure - consider how many big pharma reps take Dr. Joe Blow out to lunch per week.
Oops. That didn't go so well. Sometimes the hottest shop just isn't the best shop. After just over a year, Miller Brewing and Crispin Porter + Bogusky have parted ways with CP+B resigning the account.
Crispin Chief Creative Officer told Advertising Age the two made every effort to make the relationship work but split because of "fundamental differences over creative and strategy." Miller isn't talking.
Maybe it's time for the beer babes to return. Those two fat dudes were definitely no fun to watch.
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