Seventeen Magazine is on some kind of Elf Quest to find (or just mold?) the perfect editor in the earliest possible stages of life. Toward that goal, Hearst and Arkadium have launched Editor's Assistant, an advergame that the fine folk of PR call an opportunity to step into the shoes of the magazine world's "unsung hero" - assistant to the editor-in-chief.
The game is comprised of bitchwork, which include managing schedules, booking shoots, hiring stylists, answering an ever-ringing phone, checking email, and watching the editor-in-chief's happiness meter. The object is to not be fired in a week, and maybe - just maybe - you'll win a cool treat, like a trip to Fashion Week.
We played for a couple of minutes and grew aggravated with the ringing phone and bored with staring at the virtual desk. The whole thing was a lot of fun until we had to do actual work. Then it was like, dude, this is a game, not our lives. After that happy conclusion, we said "fuck you" to the hope of our earnest little avatar hitting Fashion Week. She must be bummed - but that's okay, she was anorexic anyway.
It's kind of weird how aspects of Second Life do, and don't, mirror real life. (Someday we expect it won't be PC to call that other life "real.")
In any case, for all of June, Altoids, with the assistance of The WDDG in coordination with Electric Sheep, will be running "Gay Pride Month @ L-Word Island" in everybody's favourite virtual world. Events include a carnival, a date auction, gay prom and two massive parades that sync with the LA, New York and SF ones on our side of reality.
Check out the parade photos, which include LA and SF (NY takes place on the 24th and 25th). The virtual version looks a lot like parades we've been to (check out the jeans so casually posed under the Altoids container!), except easier on the eyes.
Wondering who's behind all the avatars must be something akin to asking how much somebody weighs. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The Commercial Closet Association has selected the winners for its third annual Images in Advertising Awards. IKEA nailed the gold for outstanding commercial with this peppy little spot; the rest of the winners can be seen here.
To note, the CCA gave out a ton of awards but didn't give any out for Ad Agency of the Year or Turnaround Mainstream Advertiser. This was due to a lack of worthy candidates. Youch. Better luck next year, guys.
Um, yea right. This YouTube video of an Altoids transformer which claims to have been captured on the cell phone of a dude who visited his brother, employed at the special effects company for the movie Transformers, was clearly planted by the marketers behind the movie or the folks behind Altoids. While the video's description apologizes for the "bad quality," the quality is far from poor. In fact, the second half of the video displays vivid slo-mo action, something a cell phone just isn't capable of producing.
As usual, the person posting the video joined YouTube the day the video was posted. So lame. Yawn.
Quicken Loans and the Cleveland Cavaliers have partnered with George Vlosich who claims to be the "world's greatest etch-a-sketch artist" to produce a video in which Vlosich creates an Etch-A-Sketch portrait of LeBron James. It took Vlosich five hours to create the drawing but don't worry, the video is presented in time-lapse so you can witness the wonder in just three minutes.
Cold Stone Creamery has timed its new Paris Hilton-like "will she?/won't she?" commercial perfectly with the real life Paris Hilton's "will she?/won't she" jail debate. Complete with paparazzi, tiny dogs and competing heiresses, this wacky commercial is just plain fun.
We simply can not put our finger on it but we haven't thought of Jennifer Anniston as attractive or sexy since back in the Friends days when, it seemed, nothing she wore could cover her permanently erect nipples. And even though she's doing the naked pretzel thing in this new ad campaign for Glacea Smartwatter, we're still not feeling it the way we did back then. It's very nice photography but it's just not exciting us that much about the product. Which, of course, is just fine because who really wants to get that excited about a bottle of water?
Defamer notes Dreamworks has had to scale back its marketing budget following the millions it's spent on building wraps and customized Lamborghini-bots to the point where the only thing it can afford are a few stickers placed on a random vehicle seen in a Burbank Staples parking lot.
"Gas prices are so high even cars are taking a vacation from driving these days," said a pressie this morning, followed by the image at left and this Tom Joyner Cruisin' shot with the Ford Edge.
This is for Tom Joyner's Fantastic Voyage, with heavy sponsorship from Ford Edge. The self-titled "Ultimate Party with a Purpose" raised over $1 million to benefit the Tom Joyner Foundation on Royal Caribbean International's Navigator of the Seas.
The Ford Edge on board was later adopted by Aubrey Wagner, who won the contest and got to speak on the Tom Joyner Morning Show today.
If somebody wants to shoot $1 million in our direction we'll raffle off an honorary Adrants martini glass - real olive included - and bestow two-line ranting rights on some future edition, contingent on if we feel like it and if some martini company wants to sponsor our glass giveaway.
We'll even throw in a cheesy line like, "Drink prices are so high, we're giving away free martini glasses in hopes you'll one day pay us back in alcohol content."
The London 2012 Olympic logo having pulled a Pokemon on us, Phil Hatten Design decided we could all use a little Wolff O'Branding. So they decided to re-brand, re-undesign and re-spell the Union Jack as the Unionjack (at left).
True to Wolff Olins' branding manifesto of "frenetic, contemporary and stretchy (which they call 'dynamic, modern and flexible')" design, Hatten lamented he was only able to work the word "branding" in twice.
In the forward-looking spirit of 2012, the final result looks like some hacked-together early 90s concept logo for a shoe that lights up on impact. The only thing we need is a remixed version of the "Clarissa Explains it All" theme song, and hey, we've got a new anthem, too.
What do you say, UK?
Thanks to Scott at Advertising Industry Newswire for the heads-up.
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