The internet, coupled with a war that's making everyone crazy, makes politicians out of the most unexpected people.
And no, we're not talking about Stephen Colbert.
In this case we're talking about Pittsburgh Paints, which allegedly sponsored the ad at left to take a poke at homeland security while advertising its soothing and well-named series of colors.
Honey Pot would look nice on the ammo den we just built under our living room tables. Thanks to our chum Brian A. for pointing it out.
Lufthansa has launched RumorTravels, a campaign which highlights the prevailing stereotypes about countries around the world and why "You'll never know if you don't go." In several videos, countries such as Sweden, Germany and France are imagined by would be travelers.
There's also a contest which encourages people to submit rumors about a foreign country in the form of a video or a story for chance to win two round trip tickets from the U.S. to anywhere in Europe. We'll take Sweden.
Here's a series of commercials for Vancouver's Vancity Savings Credit Union which promotes environmentally friendly financial products with goofy scenarios such as a married couple using aerosol spray while discussing the wife's use of the credit union's credit card that donates to environmental causes, and an Eskimo couple debating whether or not global warming is a myth.
See the enviro VISA, the climate change mortgage and -- our favorite -- the mixer mortgage.
Created by TBWA\Vancouver, the commercials are shot by OPC director Brian Lee Hughes using his usually quirky style and mood. They're not the best we've seen from him but their brand of humor seems to click with us.
Today, the European Union has launched an anti-smoking campaign consisting of several videos that highlight the nastiness of smoking such as brown teeth, gray skin, raspy voice and smoky stench. Several videos mock these side effect of smoking by making them the price of entry and acceptance by creating products that actually create these side effect.
A man who tries to enter a saloon is turned away until he used a product that browns his teeth. A singer's producer doesn't like what he hears until she sprays her through that makes her sound like an old lady who'd been smoking for 40 years. A woman who looks too healthy uses skin cream to mask her skin with a seemingly more attractive gray color.
more »
The stodgy, staid medium known as outdoor continues to impress with its inventiveness and its creativity. That inventiveness and creativity is on full display from a billboard company itself. Stroer Out of Home Media launched a live billboard performance in Warsaw which placed a Marilyn Monroe look-a-like atop a billboard cat walk and creative underneath with rotating imagery of a man looking upward as the models skirt blew up as it did in the famed movie scene from The Seven Year Itch.
more »
We like checking up on the BBC, mainly because its home nation seems really nervous about the internet (whose merits and demons we were comparably quick to embrace).
In the last few weeks, the BBC has furnished vigilant parents with terror-stricken warnings about Cyber Bullying and ID theft (social networking's mainly to blame), the "worsening" state of child porn, and the denigration of basic human values resulting from virtual worlds. (Well, we could've told you that.)
But we can't hate that hard. NY state is home to investigators that posed as kids to tempt sex predators on Facebook. Nice.
To promote either 5 Gum or Orbit (because those are the ads that pop up), Candystand gives us Pow Pool, where you shoot little time-bombs into holes before they explode.
The game was developed by Stimunation in Germany. Like any pool tourney it's a matter of getting your angles just right.
But we're not engineers, and we're really bad at this game, so in our minds it possesses absolutely no value at all in the known universe.
Elvis from Dubai just informed us that Ad-Air, which builds "bird's-eye billboards" for airline travelers (or aliens?) that aren't visible from the ground, has just set the world record for "largest advertising banner" with the launch of its first effort for the Dubai airport.
It kind of makes sense that a country that can afford to put snow in the desert is now also hosting the largest ad ever. The spot is for Sorough Real Estate and covers over 20,000 square meters (the size of more than two soccer pitches).
The Guardian says a Guinness Book of World Records Inspector came out and designated the ad as the record-holder for banner size. All we can say is, we're glad the record-holder wasn't Eva Longoria for Maxim or an iPod.
Phenomenon, a crappy '90s movie with John Travolta, is now a crappy 21st-century TV show with Criss Angel.
Play the promotional game. Criss and minion Uri Geller will try to convince you they are reading your mind with a little numbers game.
It's pretty clever if you're in the 5th grade, but at the very least it gets you to play so you can be all cynical about it afterward.
We recommend you turn your sound off unless you're into that whole Universal Studios feel.
HungryManTV is coming out with a new web series called Strange Detective Tales: Dead on Stage this Oct 30th.
The series stars Dracula's Renfield and Frankenstein's Dr. Igor Vorlic -- in Hollywood. And because it's ironic social commentary, the monsters are trying to stop big bad humans. Kind of like X-Men.
This is an adaptation of a comic book called Strange Detective Tales: Dead Love by Jesse Bausch and James Callahan.
Check out character animation and set designs at the Dead Stage blog.
Hungry Man TV is building a reputation for "poignant social commentary," at least according to Shoot Magazine. Essentially, it's SpikeTV with spectacles. Other shows include Phistophicles, Danimal's Late Nite Cartoons (this is for people who don't have Cartoon Network), The Biggs (which also premieres on the 30th) and Undercover Cheerleaders, which is ... exactly what it sounds like.
|
