Chubb Can Make Sex Jokes, You Can't

Copyranter posted this ad for Chubb that sets our '80's sensibilities aflame. He also points out the less-than-subtle hard-on reference, courtesy of handy ol' Urban Dictionary.

Huh.

That's mildly violating but perhaps insurance providers don't have to worry much about throwing double-entendres around and courting a lawsuit. Man, those guys must be good.

Agency.com's Office Door Continues to Revolve

Working at Agency.com's gotta suck. If it's not that Subway video, it's the agency's chronic employee bail out. It's kinda like summer interns. Just as soon as you've tricked them into thinking they'd actually see something in your sad, over-the-hill 30-something ass, summer's over and they're off to school again and you're left with nothing but a fantasy. And who can get any work done if your management team is playing musical chairs and your co-workers are changing like a client revises a layout?

The latest bit of Agency.com merry-go-round action comes courtesy of David Eastman, the agency's CEO who is leaving after less than a year on the job. That is so not a good indication of what's going on inside the fist-bumpers club. Whatever the reason behind the shuffles, this sort of stuff is not exactly a confidence builder for clients and prospects.

UPDATE: Well, who knows what the real story is. Commenters say he was fired and now we're told by Agency.com directly Eastman isn't actually leaving the agency but will take on a newly-created role of President-International beginning May 1. Agency.com Chairman Chan Suh will take on the role of CEO.

Consumer-Generated Confessions Come Clean For Mom

Damn! Just when we thought this consumer-generated trendlet was dying down, online video network Capessa and Dawn had to go and partner to create Come Clean For Mother's Day...The World's Cleanest Video Contest. Now we have to watch random people confess to their mothers such gems as stealing wine from the fridge (oh, the horror!), eloping three months before the real wedding (that's pretty shocking), dating mom's co-worker, getting a tattoo (Angela?), Lake Acapulco cliff diving and all sorts of other mundane escapades. Thankfully Mom doesn't have to watch all these videos but she does get a year of free maid service if her kid's confession is the best. Even so, we're thinking Mom would much prefer to watch Xtra-pine's Cleaning Hunk rather than their sons and daughters copping to their adolescent dirty deeds.

iPod Powered OhMiBod Sex Toy Delivers Music-Powered Orgasm

Where back in the day The Cars said "Let the good times roll," vibrator maker Soft Paris says let the good times vibrate with the lyrics "you should plug it, let's all plug it" in this iPod-style commercial for the company's Oh My God-inducing OhMiBod iPod plugin sent to us by Shawn Waite. The device promises to rock your inner world Beautiful Agony-style with the pulsating beat of your own iTunes collection.

We can just hear the frantic, mid-orgasm calls to Apple tech support from the office bathroom complaining the device is stuck and won't turn off and, while admitting between orgasmic breaths of air extended periods of pleasure aren't normally a problem, returning to a meeting in full-on orgasm certainly would be a bit embarrassing. Now that's something that'd surely awake any CSR from their coma-inducing day at the office. Though this device may surely be fun for some, Ariel thinks it looks like a Tampon which we're sure is a "device" that isn't all that fun to insert or to have stuck inside.

Creatives Fall Prey to Power of Subliminal Advertising

If any of you still doubt the power of subliminal advertising, you need look no further than this video sent to us by fresh creation in which two unsuspecting creatives fall victim to the old naked lady in the ice cube trick. No, this isn't just the much discussed lady in the ice cube of old but rather an elaborate stunt to prove subliminal messaging does work. As long as we are to believe this video truly represents what happened.

Watch as two creatives are recruited to create a campaign in 30 minutes for a taxidermy store. The resulting campaign will surprise you once the curtain is lifted at the end of the story. McDonald's is no stranger to this trick having recently done a bit of their own sort of subliminal advertising. And, yes, we know this video is a year old.

Sony Slaughters Goat for Gods of War II

Even though this happened last month, it seems to have slipped undetected under our radar though we're not sure how given our unique propensity for all things wacky and wierd. Sony, in a not so twisted effort to illustrate the gruesome nature of its just launched God of War II PlayStation2 game, thought a slaughtered, beheaded and gutted previously live goat would do the trick. The goat was central to a party the gamer held in the UK which also featured an offal-eating contest, knife throwing, snake biting and topless waitresses with painted on tops.

Predictably, the International Fund for Animal Welfare was not pleased calling the stunt "outrageous. The organization's spokesman said, "We are always opposed to any senseless killing of an animal and this sounds like a gruesome death. We condemn Sony's actions. It is stupid and completely unjustified."

more »

ad:tech is Over. Seriously. No, Really, It Is. Oh Wait...

OK, then. Enough with all this ad:tech adver-blather, right? Had enough? Us too but we're not promising we'll completely dump the topic because we'll definitely have some after thought and such. Though 24/7 ad:tech coverage is done for now and we'll be getting back to our usual wise-ass, wittylicious take on our favorite topic, there are a few more things to say.

Speaking of wittyliciousnous, you've no doubt noticed the added editorial spice here at Adrants over the past six months and that's all due to our not-so-new-anymore Co-Editor Angela Natividad. Oddly, prior to San Francisco's ad:tech we had never met ourselves before. Huh? Sorry, this first person plural thing isn't going to work very well in this case so I'm going to have to be me for a minute. Anyway, the two of us, as in Angela and I, had never physically met before and it was a wonderful thing to finally see the person behind the words I enjoy reading so much every day. Much fun was had but now that we've met and ad:tech is over, it's off to our respective coasts to continue pulling the ad industry's ego-filled nose hairs for your personal delight; one by excruciatingly painful one with true schaedenfraude-like vigor.

more »

On Beer and Big Balls

I popped into a session at the recent ad:tech in San Francisco that covered Anheuser-Busch's Here's to Beer campaign and Verb, an active attempt to bring play back to the kiddies.

ad:tech is quite possibly the only place where beer marketing and children can be discussed in one forum.

more »

Old Warriors Descend from On High

"You're born, you take shit. You get out in the world, you take more shit. You climb a little higher, you take less shit. Till one day you're up in the rarefied atmosphere and you've forgotten what shit even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake, son." - Eddie Temple, Layer Cake

ad:tech's Wednesday evening keynote, entitled Old Warriors Don't Die!, gave war-hardy industry executives a rare opportunity to reflect on the early state of online communication. Moderator Tony Perkins of AlwaysOn Network moved discourse saltily between the following panelists: founder Jonathan Nelson of Organic, founder Kevin O'Connor of O'Connor Ventures, managing general partner Bob Davis of Highland Capital, and co-founder Gene DeRose of House Party, Inc.

more »

DoubleClick Closes ad:tech In High Style

Sadly, the final evening of ad:tech San Francisco came to a close. A stellar yet bittersweet close, the evening began with a fabulous party put on by DoubleClick at the W Hotel during which Cirque du Soliel-style dancers contorted, twirled hula hoops, danced, mimed, posed, postured, walked on stilts and generally provided the audience with first class entertainment. Perhaps some of that Google money is already finding its way to DoubleClick's coffers. We're also quite pleased with DoubleClick's recent re-branding which gives the company a refreshingly current look.

After downing an apple martini handed out to all in attendance and accepting a Macallan 10 from friend and DoubleClick Research Director Rick Bruner, the night quickly got off to a joyous start. As soon as I took the first sip of the McCallan, my pants started vibrating and it was fellow ad:tech blogger Ana Yoerg letting me know she, along with Adrants' Angela Natividad and Marketing Experiment's Mike Palmer would be arriving soon. While I waited for the crew to show up, I spent time speaking with AdFemme's Lindsay Mure, beautiful strangers from the exhibit hall floor, Rick Bruner's DoubleClick Co-workers and, yes, the famous Lindsey Frankenfield of ad:tech's past.

After all the ad:tech wannabe partiers gave it their best shot to get into this invite only party, the crowds thinned enough to make social fluidity far more enjoyable than an ad:tech New York Crobar party. At the outset of the party, the hula hoop girl took the dance floor and performed all manner of contorted hula-isms which made one want to call in a chiropractor stat. Later in the evening, the floor filled with the full-on Cirque du Soliel-style dance troupe which kept the crowd so entranced, the line at the bars diminished to near none.

more »