- T-Mobile debuts first Google Android phone, thereby changing face of mobile forever, etc., etc.
- Wieden and Starbucks break up.
- Wrigley sells advergaming goldmine Candystand to Funtank. No word on why the service, which CEO James Baker of Funtank called "great viral marketing," was sold. Maybe it was just time to cash in.
- Biggie Smalls hits the big screen. "Too bad we're not in middle school anymore," says a twenty-something colleague. "I'm imagining the tears ... and the hugging."
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Toronto-based furniture shop Simone Interiors now sells art created by the company owner, Lin Gibson. To promote this happy news, Gibson created a bunch of LP album-sized posters with multicolored bars and stuck them in local store windows -- with no accompanying explanation.
Roger Cullman over at BlogTO has more pictures. He also wonders whether passers-by noticed the installations. Commenters say they did, but nobody knew for sure what the promotion was all about.
"We thought it was one of those new gangs declaring their territory. Obviously, it turns out it was only those hipsters doing their hipster things," ruminated a reader called SCREWFACE.
So Blogworld. If you've ever wanted to hang out with 3,000 bloggers and talk about, well, blogging then Blogworld is the place to be. In its second year, Blogworld brings together everyone from Robert Scoble to, well, people you've never heard of in Las Vegas each year to pontificate about how blogs and all that blogs have spawned effect, well (again), everything.
In his keynote address Friday, Wine Library's Gary Vaynerchuk took a"just do it" approach to explaining what it takes to launch a successful business through the use of blogs and social media. Basically, his mantra was "become the expert" and "own the space." Identify every known blogger in your intended space, make contact with them, comment on their blog, comment on those who comment on your own blog, answer every single email, join Twitter and make contact with everyone related to what your business does.
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Here's an extended version of the American Express Travel ad that aired during the Emmy Pre-Show. In it, Martin Scorsese gives Tina Fey the hard sell on Boca Raton. It's the kind of thing we might characterize as funny, even if we didn't really watch it, just because it involves an awkward timeshare situation and Scorsese prattling -- almost, it seems, without end.
"There's a possibility of nine days -- not consecutive -- near the end of August, beginning of September." I like how he asks her to make the check out to "Cash."
By Ogilvy for American Express.
Take note, CP+B: In the realm of advertising, Scorsese's like the Seinfeld for a live-in-HD, less corny generation. His AmEx work aside, see what he did for Freixenet last year. (Seinfeld occasionally still does work for AmEx too, but it's all got a datedness to it.)
Hoping to target a multicolored crowd that's "losing touch with antiquated [...] ethnic messages," calling card company Rebtel partnered with Monsoon Media, creators of the decidedly-ethnic web comic strip Doubtsourcing.
At left is one component of what Monsoon came up with. Inspired by old-school Bollywood print ads, it features Rebtel CEO Hjalmar Winbladh surrounded by multi-ethnic folk on cell phones. And an Asian dude with a gun. (A more direct and permanent form of communication, I guess.)
"Great service, dazzling features and super cheap rates! Rebtel CEO Hjalmar Winbladh is looking to dishoom ripoff calling plans!" the ad beams brightly.
At first I thought I read that wrong, but the pressie says "dishoom" is the sound a Bollywood hero makes when punching a bad guy. Well then, all right.
Future iterations of the campaign include a web component, some sort of tongue twister, and a third ad where a forlorn mother guilt-trips viewers into calling neglected relatives.
...it does, and they don't wish you well.
Time has taught me to look forward to French PSAs, whose entertainment value outpaces (often dire) American counterparts while maintaining a lighter, friendlier feel.
This French PSA for colon cancer is less action-packed than the AIDS PSAs we've been so stuck on. Like a rerun of Osmosis Jones, the :30 spot takes users on an animated trip inside an apparently-healthy man's body, where a grinning cancer cell waits, eager to wreak havoc and whatnot.
Its object is to convince men over 50 to get tested for colon cancer -- which, if caught early, can in most cases (the ad says nine out of 10) be cured. Launched by the National Cancer Institute, it airs from September 14-October 8 across most major French stations.
- Recap of the McCain/Rachael Ray glee-fest.
- University of Georgia claims narcissists can be pegged by their Facebook photos.
- Save your soul -- and the rotting souls of others -- while microblogging. Way to multi-task!
- AIG yanks all corporate ad campaigns.
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In an online spot called "Bzzzz. Mini Clubman," a passel of geriatric houseflies gather 'round for the emotional funeral of an ex-buddy, whose death is characterized as one "every fly wishes for," "legendary" and "bigger than life."
What happened to him? He was flattened mid-flight by a Clubman.
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- Google's Sergey Brin started a blog. In the first entry, he discloses his risk for Parkinson's disease. The New York Times probes why he'd do that.
- British actor Paul Kaye plays Seamus Murphy, the shady proprietor of an airport car park, for another one of those not-yet-viral "viral" campaigns. This is for Holiday Extras, a travel website.
- Esther Lee departs EuroRSCG.
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