Anything to get people to care about Current TV. Al Gore has hooked up with Cameron Diaz to introduce its ":60 Seconds to Save the Earth" contest which calls for people to submit :15, :30 or :60 PSAs urging people to care about the climate. The winning spots will air on Current TV and on MySpace's Impact channel. So if you're feeling green and have the CGM itch, this is your chance to get something on the air as opposed to having it trashed by the client.
A little bit Happiness Factory and a little bit OutPost Gerbil Cannon, this new commercial for Guinness created by BBDO in Ireland and edited by Cut + Run celebrates what's inside its beer by shooting futuristic-looking Speed Racer-like guys out of what looks like musical instruments onto a set of drums. The result is an orchestral masterpiece of sorts
And, yes, we get it. The guys are beer. Though we are a bit irked by that first shot which is supposed to be the reflection of beer in one of the guy's helmets but, rather, looks a bit like a melting brain. But that's just us. Similar as it might, in theory, be to the aforementioned spots, it does get points for a certain originality we find hard to describe.
The four day shoot used real stunt men shot out of real air cannons onto real, eight-foot drums specially made for the shoot. Now that's a shoot we wouldn't mind attending.
For some odd reason MySpace has gone all super-pink on our asses. This bamboozled us so we dug deep to work out what was going on.
Oh right, it's all part of that Cherry Coke contest, for which they've found a winner - a cat (yeah, you read right) named Pouncer.
To honor said winner, for all of today (and hopefully not tomorrow), it's not just MySpace.com; it's Pouncer's MySpace.com. Courtesy of Cherry Coke.
Options to molest your MySpace page in equal cherry-soaked fashion are available here.
We don't know why we're surprised or even confused, considering MySpace has always been open about its willingness to sacrifice a consistent aesthetic scheme to the highest bidder.
As the last pair of Beatles and the Saatchi guys will tell you, music and advertising make a passionate, but occasionally fatal, mix.
Bassist Brian Ritchie of the Violent Femmes is suing vocalist Gordon Gano for lack of attribution on some songs and inaccurate earnings distribution.
The lawsuit also alleges Gano "[trashed] the band's reputation" by licensing the use of "Blister in the Sun" in a Wendy's ad.
Ooh, pulling out the big guns. The ad doesn't strike us as super-controversial, but fans feel differently. One blogged, "My ears perked up. Then my jaw dropped. Then my heart sank."
Awww. There, there. Maybe it's the ad's white-collar aspect. Hey, an '80s folk-punk band can't stay young forever, and at some point even fans must exchange the bong for the mousepad. We'd cry in sympathy but, oh, we don't know how.
Thanks Brian for the tip.
What's awesome about puppets is that they never age. We think that's probably why Sesame Street continues to survive.
There's also the underlying mythology. Why was Oscar the Grouch so grouchy? How did the cookies become crumbles in Cookie Monster's toothless, wide-open mouth? Why did Bert and Ernie live together?
Answer these questions and more with any jaded adult who, having never worked it all out in childhood, was forced to use deductive logic to fill in the blanks. (Oscar does drugs; Bert and Ernie are quite obviously gay; and while the cookies-to-crumbles mystery remains thus, Cookie Monster now diets for today's impressionable youth).
But we digress. Season 38 of the show will open with a segment called "The Word on the Street," put together by agency mono (gotta love those agencies that do the mod "we don't need capital letters" thing - go literacy!).
In each segment a zealous orange puppet named Murray wanders the streets looking for news on "the word."
Watch the segment on "disappear," or see Murray get all "frustrated."
The first time we saw this video of Filipino inmates dancing to Thriller, we remember thinking, "... Dude, how were 1500 inmates at a Cebu prison coaxed into a coordinated syncopated jamboree?"
We didn't have long to wonder. Security consultant Byron Garcia, the force behind it, isn't exactly shy. With a near-comical audacity, Garcia uploaded the video onto YouTube himself, along with a shit-ton of other coordinated nightmares, including I Will Follow Him from Sister Act.
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We were on Discovery News reading an article when we were interrupted by the presence of a really ugly "scoop n' poop" advergame for Wild Hogs that expanded, didn't contract and opened the website when we pushed the "close" button.
We'd say that the type of ad a site chooses to populate its real estate is kind of a big deal. And while a film like Wild Hogs is probably within Discovery News' parameter of family-friendly fare, it would have been nice if somebody had tried it out beforehand or at least seriously considered its placement - in the middle of a story about King Nebuchadnezzar? Come on!
For those of you just getting into the ad biz, Advergirl has some important tips for you. You might already know this but, despite what you may have been told, you ain't getting any training. You've been hired to put out and avoid fires for your boss. And, contrary to what you might think, you've also been hired to take the heat when your boss screws up. Just avoid all that crap by reading Advergirl's list and you'll avoid most of the ad jungle animals' tricks.
If you're Jonesing for some Skittles and you like that whole Midas Touch thing then you'll love this new Skittles commercial which features a guy who "guesses it's pretty awesome" to turn everything he touches into Skittles. Except, of course, the guy he shook hands with on the bus this morning.
Maybe if McDonald's and Burger King offered a free Lap-Band with every Happy Meal or Whopper, the legislature and the ad industry wouldn't have to go head to head on this whole obesity thing. After all, if the food can't get in, the kid can't get fat.
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