'Saw V' Mobile Promotion Ends With Calls to Police

It's almost Halloween and that means it's time for another Saw movie. The franchise is up to number five now and there's no indication a sixth won't arrive next Halloween. This year, the movie's promoters took the prank call route and, with help from Varitalk, brought the voice of Jigsaw to unsuspecting recipients, some of whom in Toronto where genuinely scared enough to call the police. Reacting to complaints, the site took down the device.

more »

SocialSpark Launches Affiliate, Premium Blogger Programs

In years past, we, along with others, have thrashed PayPerPost (now more commonly known as SocialSpark though the PayPerPost name still exists) for its initial, somewhat shady offering which paid bloggers to write about a particular company without disclosure. Following an immediate backlash, the company moved more and more towards open transparency and, today, is out with two new offerings.

more »

Dog Disappears, Grey's Blog Disappears, HHCC's Reappears

- In this new Venables, Bell & Partners-created commercial for Audi, a house gets a time-based makeover and so does the dog.

-Apparently, Grey SF is inexplicably no longer blogging.

- But Hill Holiday's blog, one of the earliest agency blogs, is active again after a few layers of dust settled.

- Google has launched do it yourself display advertising.

- Today's Jeopardy will feature a category dedicated solely to the AMC show Mad Men.

Could a Discount Hotel Improve Your Street Skillz?

Holiday Inn takes on an odd feat: convincing people that staying at a Holiday Inn Express will make you smarter.

You'll freestyle like Del the Funky Homosapien, outshine doctors in emergency situations involving Cal Ripken, Jr., and -- if you have the good fortune of conceiving a baby in a Holiday Inn Express -- that kid will be capable of handling sharp objects at close proximity. From birth.

Strange but true. Three ads in a row can't lie.

I dug the rapper spot. The rest were sorta kitschy. Well, the rapper one was kitschy too, but it had that "dream fulfilled!" element to it. How many of us don't want to unexpectedly kick ass in a Lyricist Lounge situation? It's one of the biggest geek fantasies of all-time -- right up there with being proclaimed royal heir to a small island, and being told your Tetris skills might save the world.

'Saved by Zero' Makes Viewers into Victims

"Saved by Zero," a spot for the Toyota Tundra, has run in "seemingly every ad break during NCAA Football, MLB Playoffs and NFL games," claims Rohit Thawani. I suppose that wouldn't be terrible if the ad were good, or even innocuous, but -- get this -- it has a repetitive jingle with an audacious country twang.

You know you're fucked then.

more »

CK's 'New Movement' Campaign Prioritizes Spiritual, Physical Health

For its Performance line of yoga apparel, Calvin Klein puts the usual waifs in spandex. They're also doing less lounging-around and ODing-on-camera.

See models stretching and models in upward-facing fetal (is that a position?). They could all be Kate Moss, as far as we can tell, but they're all slightly meatier and CK probably wouldn't waste its dosh putting Kate in profile. (That's only half the bang for the buck!)

Jokes aside, "New Movement" is sublime work by Full Contact.

Racetrack Screensavers!

Oh, the things you can do when your boss is away. Some kids at Dm9ddb/Brasil set their screensavers up to look like corresponding pieces of the same race track.

It actually turned out pretty nifty. You know that feeling you get when you create a successful domino effect? You're both impressed and slightly surprised, right? That's what this was like.

The objective was to disseminate the game Virtual Global Race (or was it just to promote Intel? I can't really tell). The screen savers took a month -- and 20 people -- to perfect. See making-of.

Big Planet Forgoes Big Billboards ... for Lots of Little Ones

"Little is the new big," proclaim one of the miniaturized billboards for LittleBigPLanet, a video game that goes live on October 21st. Other billboards sport a similar little/big message.* Find them on eBay -- where people are actually bidding on a few.

Also, somebody posted flickr pics of the billboards in his garden. (Can you imagine using billboards as garden ornaments? Wait, don't answer that.) One's apparently been tagged by lightning-obsessed gangster elves that rock pastel.

more »

Fickle Men Drink Fickle Whisky ... and That's All There is to Say About That

Wiser's Canadian Whisky is the drink of choice for The Wiserhood, a self-proclaimed Society of Uncompromising Men. (That doesn't actually mean much; just that they'll only drink "the most uncompromising whisky on the planet.")

A visit to the site is a sneak-peek into a buzzing fraternity. Click on different things to engage games, watch ads or see what the security cams picked up. I clicked on the bookshelf, garnished with the requisite skull, and found myself face-to-face with a giant media system.

There's also a semi-fun ice cube-catching game behind a statuette of The Thinker.

By John St, which recently did a breast cancer thing involving mens' hyper-fixation with boobage.

OMG! Britney Spears is Back in Advertising!

Well Christ on a Cracker, Britney Spears is back in the ad world hyping her latest fragrance, Hidden Fantasy. It's her seventh fragrance to date and the ads haven't changed one bit. Still the same vapid, heavily Photoshopped look. The same flowery visuals. The same cheesy headlines. It seems like forever ago she was all over the pages of Adrants either hyping some product or simply doing something stupid.

Today, she seems to have her act together and might, once again, reign supreme amongst the tween, teen and advertising sets.

The fragrance, with the headline, "What do you have to hide?" is being called a "seductive scent that is all about expressing the many mysterious sides of a woman."