Big Bed Goes a-Traveling in Great Glass Truck

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, Mattress Giant is holding a contest called the "Mattress Giant Bed Makeover." It's promoting the contest with a big yummy bed, encased in glass, on the back of a truck.

Cute. We've seen similar stuff before. If the contest accomplishes nothing else, it might attract the attention of some arrogant filthy-rich super-brat that's always wanted her own litter.

Actually, we wouldn't mind one.

Yuzu Sushi Morphs Assvertising into Spare Tire Advertising

For a little taste of non-traditional advertising, Canada's Yuzu Sushi gives us...spare tire advertising. Yes, spare tire advertising. Perhaps they figure assvertising was a bit too...oh...in your face whereas the ass end of a car would be less offensive and, well, more effective. After all, most people stare at the ass end of a car much more often than they stare at the ass end of a woman lifting her skirt so you can see the branded underwear she's wearing.

Minnesota Lottery Ads Capture Store Clerk Geekism Perfectly

The sad thing about this new Colle + McVoy-created campaign for the Minnesota State Lottery is that there really are real people in the real world just like the ones depicted in three new commercials. You've met them. They might work at your local convenience store, the local Best Buy or, perhaps, CompUSA. You know the type. The ones who look so goofy you can't believe they don't, themselves, believe they look goofy. Or the ones who say and do things so strange you can't believe they don't, themselves, know they sound and look like an idiot.

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Andy Soothes Edgy CMOs with Deceptively Straight Face

Andy Berndt, once of Ogilvy and now of Google, got up in front of a bunch of marketers last week and said, "Google is not starting an ad agency."

MarketingVox (i.e. me in less knee-slapping form) compares this statement to that made by Google's Alan Eustace pre-Android. You know the one: "We're not doing a mobile phone."

Google may not be starting an ad agency, but you don't have to start an ad agency to make life hard for ad agencies. (And hey, maybe that's just what you slackers deserve.)

One more time: "Google is not starting an ad agency." Think about everything that sentence leaves out.

Show of hands if you believe Andy.

Firebrand to Create National Holiday Out of...Um...Commercials

Is there such a thing as tanking a press release, hoping no one will pick it up and make fun of it? No luck of that here today folks. It might be Martin Luther King day but we're still strapped to our crappy, back-breaking, sorry-ass chair dishing out content for the rest of you unlucky souls working today while your bosses are enjoying the day off.

Anyway. here we go. Firebrand (the hottest spots from the coolest brands, ya know) is pleased to announce what it's dubbed "The Holiest Day in Advertising," occurring February 4th. On that day, Firebrand will showcase the best of this year's Super Bowl spots.

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Student Envisions Future of Interactive Television

Television has always been the proverbial "lean back" medium with information flowing mostly in a one way direction from the TV to the viewer in a non-interactive manner. That's changed a bit over the years with the arrival of video on demand and other semi-interactive capabilities. However, it's never progressed to the interactivity of the web and it's still unclear whether or not it should aspire to that level of interactivity.

The current passivity of TV hasn't stopped people from attempting to add interactivity to the medium and it hasn't stopped Koen, a student at Working Tomorrow who created this demo of clickable TV whereby a simple click of a product in an ad of product placement brings up information and ordering screens. It's not really new but it's interesting to see how different people execute the same idea. Whether or not TV ever progresses (or should progress) to this stage remains unclear.

Big Agency Idiocy Explained

In support of his ongoing theory the advertising industry is filled with BDA's aka Big Dumb Agencies, George Parker has unearthed an interesting analogy that involves monkeys and classical conditioning. The net result of this exercise explains perfectly why BDA's (and most other big companies) can never get out of their own way and achieve greatness.

So if you want to laugh and, at the same time, realize that, yes, you too just might be one of those monkeys trapped in a perpetual hell of repetitive behavior without knowing why, give this a read.

Sometimes a Profession (First Mangles, then) Chooses You

A girl named Mandy promised this video would reveal the COOLEST ROBOT EVER! We were skeptical but later decided she was right. Sure it won't shave your balls and get you off, but it will do a silly little dance. And it looks cuddly.

Here's another spot where robotics author Daniel Wilson, the star (and creator) of both videos, gets smack-talked by an automated phone system named Diane. We think it's just a cheesy way for him to represent his alma mater and show off his iPhone.

If you find yourself moved by the Carnegie Mellon alumnus' emotional subservience to robots, check out RoboU. CM's robotics unit could apparently use some new junkies.

Orange Uses Gesture-Based Display to Drive Handhelds into Actual Hands

For client Orange, the Alternative is doing that gesture-based advertising thing. Do a little hand-dance to bring news, film clips or music videos to your fingertips.

We see a less useful, but strangely more amusing, version of this technology every time we go to Virgin Records in Times Square, the home of that Nirvana floor display where you can step on or kick projected babies and bubbles. (It's actually more benign than it sounds.)

Hyundai Pussies Out of Dropping Super Bowl Spots

With what Advertising Age calls Hamlet-like indecision, Hyundai has decided to keep its ads in the Super Bowl after all.

Here's our brief coverage of its flirtation with pulling out. (We hate that!)

AdAge dubs the move "a most unlikely ploy to drum up pre-Super Bowl buzz." Replace "most unlikely" with "feeble," and you've got our opinion.

Not to tear open old wounds, but waffling was what lost Kerry the 2004 election. (Say what you will about Bush, at least we always know where he stands. To our endless, purgatory-like chagrin.)

And going back to that useful Hamlet reference, didn't everybody in that play die because he spent such a long time caressing his volatile emotions?