Rumor has it yesterday was a holiday. Know what it was? ...No? Good rule of thumb: if in doubt, check Google.com to see what the world's most popular search engine did with its logo.
Those expecting to see, I don't know, an explorer rubbing his hands together, or the ominous silhouette of a ship, or natives cowering in fear, were vastly disappointed. Google has no love for the directions-challenged dude who mistook the Americas for India. And it's not alone: Berkeley observed Indigenous People's Day, and Venezuela celebrated the Day of the Indigenous Resistance.
What'd Google celebrate? Paddington Bear's 50th birthday.
A decidedly safe choice. Paddington never hurt anybody. Well, except for that one time he "poisoned" his birthday guests with Marmite. But even that rang cute, not devastating.
Weiden + Kennedy has created another beautiful commercial for Nike. This one is direct by David Fincher and illustrates the glory of life's successes and accomplishments by following the lives and differing skills of two child athletes turned NFL football players, LaDainian Tomlinson and Troy Polamalu.
Adding appropriate emotion to the commercial is a remix of Ennio Marricone's moving L'estasi Dell'oro from the classic film The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, a film everyone should see if only for its grandiose spaghetti western cheesiness. Not to mention Clint Eastwood in his early cowboy years.
There are so many reasons to launch a consumer-generated media campaign. They save money and think time, encourage brand appropriation, and are pretty easy to sell to a client. ("Think of all the engagement opportunities and cost savings!") Doritos alone has done it, like, four times (make that five!), all your friends did it, and hey, even Tide did it -- with reasonably good results.
Besides laziness and balls, what's keeping you from leaping aboard the Goodship CGM? ...A platform,* by gad! Because building grids where users can input their own content and browse through others' is hard, right?!
Waffle no longer, love. Photrade just launched a photo contest platform that enables anybody (even you!) to follow the well-trod user-generated media trail.
So what are you waiting for? Get out there and start ingratiating your unwitting client with casual photographers. Think of all the engagement opportunities -- and cost savings!
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You probably know Baz Luhrmann by reputation, if not by name. He directed Strictly Ballroom, a tribute to the art of dance; Romeo + Juliet, his altar to the written word; and Moulin Rouge!, a garish but dazzling musical homage to pop culture.
He's just completed his latest film, Australia. I don't know much about it, but -- here's an interesting twist -- he's promoting it through a tourism gig.
DDB Worldwide -- which represents Tourism Australia -- tapped Lurhmann for its "Come Walkabout" campaign, which is technically for Australia but also for Australia. In the debut spot, a mystical (and naked?) little boy encourages a stressed woman to defect from her unraveling life.
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- MySpace MyAds, live in beta.
- OMG Elle and Stardoll!
- Celebrating 10 years as pop star and leader of the new world order, Google walks down memory lane with some happy worker bees. I'm guessing that the gushers chosen weren't day care patrons. Or hungry.
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Why are these people staring off into space and accepting bribes in the form of Pepsi? Why do they look like they are somehow detached from the realities of their lives? Why is it so inconceivable to believe these situations would actually take place?
Oh wait. This is advertising. Reality is irrelevant. All that matters is cool art direction and great photography. For that we give thanks, or not, to CLM BBDO Paris for this Pepsi print campaign.
- Hearst Magazines will close CosmoGirl with the December issue. It first published in 1999.
- CBS has schedule the annual Victoria's ecret Fashon Show to air December 3 at 10PM. It wil take place at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel.
- As only George Parker can, DraftFCB gets some sage advice concerning its penchant for repeatedly tooting its own horn.
- The Ladders takes a unique approach to illustrating the attractiveness of its $100K talent pool.
- Google does the green thing with project 10 to the 100th.
- Citizens Bank customers get happy together karaoke-style. It's bad. Really bad.
- TAMBA is out with Granny Bash Bingo, a game in which granny deflects attacks from a bingo machine which has had enough from its grey haired oppressors.
AdFreak's David Gianatasio craps on the efficacy of the results highlighted in a new study from Bzzagent which claims the profit from an eight minute brand conversation is 38 cents. Apart from David's rant on the ridiculous eight minute length, we'll chime in on the 38 cents as in that's all? We're actually getting excited about making 38 cents for eight minutes of a person's time? Like David admits, perhaps we're not getting the point of the study either.
Or maybe we are and we're now supposed to hate BzzAgent even more for reducing the value of people's time to a mere 38 cents for eight minutes of their life.
While the stunt angered some Lancaster, CA resident, others came to love the "musical road" created by Honda which played the William Tell overture when cars drove over specially designed grooves on Lancaster's West Avenue K. While musical roads have been created before in Japan, it's quite new in America.
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Video. Everyone's doing it. Everyone's sticking a camera in your face at conferences while asking you to spout intelligentsia. Everyone's screaming, "Buy a Flip! Buy a Flip!" Given the video craze, it would seem proper yet another capitalization on the trend should arise. And we have Big Fuel to thank for this one.
Using visual mapping technology, the agency will take videos from marketers interviewed at DMA this week, along with those collected from consumers and aggregate them based on key concepts to www.bigthinking.tv. Big Fuel tells us anyone and everyone will be able to glean insight into consumer trends or patterns of behavior. The site will go live October 20.
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