KFC Saves Money, Debuts CGM-Powered Commercial

Here's that new KFC spot that will debut during tonight's American Idol. If you recall, it's the spot that's made up entirely of consumer-generated content found on YouTube and MySpace. Hmm. Way to keep that production budget down, guys.

FedEx Talks Back to 'Net-Surfing Time-Wasters

We were skulking around the Internet when we came across this hourglass-shaped FedEx banner. It turned on its own a few times, then invited us to flip it ourselves. So we did and it said something really snarky like, "You must have a lot of time on your hands."

Oh how we seethed. Then we realized it's been a long time since we've felt anything at all about a banner (have we just been burned too many times before?) so we thought we'd post it.

Nice how it flipped without bringing us anywhere or generating pop-ups.

Apparently Agencies Can Make More than Ads. Just Not Well

It's every creative's fantasy to demonstrate his or her real talents by shooting a music video or movie.

This is a pathetic fantasy.

So here we see a music video for Boston band Boys Like Girls, created by Company X.

The agency's description:

Director Alan Ferguson worked with Company X's Megan Brennan to snip this vid for breakout band Boys Like Girls. Rocking out in front of their screaming fans, Megan alternates between shots of the pop band and bored teenagers looking for a good time, we get a rock and roll saga that culminates at the concert of the century.

Generic. Nostalgia. Piece. Think Grease II. With emo hair.

Virgin Atlantic Airways Does Barf Bags in a Big Way

We were shamefully unaware of Virgin's preoccupation with barf bags until this entry by AdFreak, though one can probably argue it goes hand-in-hand with the drugs > food lifestyle of their other obsession.

Anywho, the barf ... bag ... theme is something they're clearly committed to. With Crispin Porter + Bogusky holding the staple gun, Virgin's proceeded to affix three-foot-tall barf bags onto temporary walls around construction sites and scaffoldings in major cities like New York, San Francisco, Boston, DC and Chicago, the airline's biggest hub cities.

Each bag has a long tome across the front about the retch-worthy penny-pinching going down in the airline business today.

"What better expression of the current state of air travel than an air sickness bag?" a Virgin spokesperson dryly notes.

Under the tsk-tsky tagline "How did air travel become so bloody awful?", expect to see the campaign through mid-July.

Sapient Offers Stand Alone Ad Serving Tool

Sapient has come to the rescue. Well, at least for people who might not take kindly to others accessing their online ad program data. Following the wave of recent acquisitions, advertisers and marketers who use ad servers from DoubleClick and aQuantive to measure their online advertising - including Google search and MSN - are worried about loss of objectivity and conflict of interest while publishers in direct competition with Google are reluctant to embrace DoubleClick's tools for fear of sharing sensitive information with the enemy. Sapient says these industry developments have accelerated the expected demand for an independent online advertising platform supported by integrated tools and services. Hence, the introduction of the company's BridgeTrack ad serving solution.

In the works for seven years for 25,000 online campaigns, Sapient is now offering BridgeTrack as a standalone product.

Find the Bull, Win Glastonbury Music Festival Tickets

Well this is easy. Orange, the UK mobile entertainment company, has launched a game called Spot the Bull that gives players the chance to win one of 20 pairs of tickets to the Glastonbury Festival. Created by Poke London, all you have to do is pick a spot on the filed when you think Derek the Bull will appear at 3PM. enter your contact info and wait. that's it. We like simple.

Shoot Scooter Riding Cops in Single-Promoting Game

Oh look, an online game to promote a band's new single. Chicino is the band and the game lets you shoot scooter riding cops who drop out of the sky. Nifty. Sort of. Check it here.

'The Latino Guy' Explains 'Translation' at Diversity Conference

Last week, Adrants, Business Development Institute and Boston's Ad Club held the third Advertising, Marketing and PR Industry Diversity Job Fair and Leadership Conference at Boston University. The focus of the event was to ramp up the conversation about diversity in advertising as well as give those interested in beginning a career in advertising a chance to learn what it's like from those who are in the business.

With 300 attendees present, the event began with a Keynote conversation between Digitas Boston President Torrence Boon and Arnold Worldwide Multicultural Programs and Community Outreach VP Tiffany Warren who share their experiences working in the industry as well as the roles they play in developing diversity in their companies.

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Upcoming Batman Movie Makes Extensive Use of Viral

Catch Up Lady has a descriptive overview of an ongoing viral campaign for the the upcoming Warner Brothers movie Batman: The Dark Knight. The promotion began cryptically with a site that showed nothing but the Batman logo but then progressed to several other sites that encouraged visitor involvement to reveal the identity of the actor who would play the Joker, Heath Ledger. No less than four sites told the story in a very clear and intriguing manner. get the whole story here.

Change Shower Head Temperature, Get Girl on Girl Action

Axe just keeps pumping out the goodies for 14 year old boys across the globe. And every other guy across the globe of any age since all men are 14 years old when it comes to certain thoughts. Anyway, enough with the psychoanalysis. Axe, once again, is having fun at the expense of the male race's instinctual weakness, women.

In this little video created to look like an actual webcam mounted near a beach shower, the viewer can change the temperature of the water and view the results. Don't bother with the Cold setting. It doesn't deliver the response you expect. Go right to the Very Hot setting and you'll get the usual girl on girl goodness.