While statistics are easy to play with and manipulate to suit a particular argument, this video from Did You Know 3.0 offers up some stunning stats.
To the tune of Fat Boy Slim's Right Here Right Now, we are told tidbits such as the top ten in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004; by age 28, people will have had 10-14 different jobs; one out of eight couples who married last year met online; if MySpace were a country it'd be the 5th largest; Bermuda has the deepest broadband penetration; the number of text messages sent and received each day exceeds the total population of the planet; the mount of information generated this year will exceed all that was generated of the past 5,000 years; an NTT fiber optic cable is capable of pushing through 2,660 CDs in one second; by 2013 supercomputers will exceed the computational capabilities of the human brain; by 2049, a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the entire human species.
Hmm. So maybe by 2013 contextual advertising will finally become "intelligent" enough to stop placing ads for turpentine next to stories about girls who drank the stuff to induce an abortion?
In an all out effort to accost, uh, make the public aware of its new logo and celebrate the "next generation's" apparent positive outlook for the coming year, Pepsi has unleashed itself upon Times Square with a week-long promotional extravaganza.
This past weekend, Pepsi, with street teams and a Times Square billboard takeover, featured its new Refresh Everything message of hope, optimism and a world made perfect through the rose colored glasses of advertising. A new television commercial, Wordplay, also made its debut.
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On Christmas day, One Laptop Per Child brought back the voice (if not the body) of Yoko Ono's beloved John Lennon.
OLPC's mission is to bring cheap, sturdy laptops to the world's poorest children. So paint your sympathetic face on as a freshly conviction-laden (if nasal) Lennon compares giving a child a laptop to the vision he shared through his music. At the end, the Walrus himself appears, piped in from the great beyond through a kid computer with Shrek ears.
Negroponte ought to learn from his profitable peers. Resuscitating a dead guy -- particularly one whose yearning for peace has been used to sell everything from diapers to ice cream -- never works in your favor, no matter how noble the intentions. In fact, it's about as disturbing as watching a demented technophile play puppeteer with a decomposing marionette.
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Were we to honor an advertising agency for creating the best holiday card of 2008, that distinction would go to Cleveland-based agency Brokaw which we once described as a place which "just drips with wit."
In a nod to the toilet bowl in which the advertising industry now swims, Brokaw created a "holiday card" that's reflective of the harsh economic climate but, at the same time, offers up a ray of hope replete with a wink and a smirk.
While three pieces of popcorn aren't going to solve the industry's woes, we applaud Brokaw's positive spirit and "cost-effective" creativity.
Plaid made the holidays extra-special this year by sending a video to clients and friends -- including us -- that claims we were involved in an affair with Mrs. Claus, which has since gone public and may potentially destroy Christmas.
It is a completely insane premise.
You've probably seen this or something like it before, laughed once and never thought about it again. But at least two people out there are so distraught over it, they've had a lawyer send an official cease and desist letter to Plaid, demanding that the material be taken down and that proof of its removal be conveyed to them.
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No ad industry holiday is complete without a lovable mood-setting douchebag. This year Tom Fellow is ours.
The guy had us from "felice navidado" and now we can't stop listening to his Christmas standards and watching him open presents while growling.
Lavish in the Fellow aesthetic or watch with glee while Twitter catches on. Big THANKEE to @pjbfcp.
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With help from production firm Dictionary Films, Leo Burnett launched a TV spot for "Food Shouldn't Be a Luxury," an effort to encourage locals to donate supplies to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
The ad's put together like a generic perfume ad, with occasional flashes of a boiling pot and some random pasta fondling. We seriously winced when the model sexily purred "Spaghetti" in her fake Kate Moss-for-Eternity voice, but it got the point across: Okay, okay! Food shouldn't be a luxury.
Make a donation or volunteer time at Every1Can.org. Unlike the prints (see first link), the spot doesn't invite users to text donations over. Not sure if that means the texting thing didn't pan out, or if Leo Burnett just doesn't think people keep phones nearby while watching TV.
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Last year JWT sent us a holiday card featuring Albert, an animated tool whose tongue's been attached to the same pole for a year, I guess.
Albert's back. Try to free him without overtaxing his pain threshold. Pulling him back and letting go has proven somewhat amusing. Also, JWT promises there's a way to detach him this time. (But why would you?)
- URLesque has compiled a list of the top ten spec ads of 2008. Our fave, the JCPenney Speed Dressing ad is on the list.
- Just once I'd like to be able to tell someone like her to put her laptop on vibrate and stick it where the sun don't shine."
- Fuel Industries' Sean McPhedran tells us, "Rather than the cute holiday mini-game I think everyone would expect, we gathered around the sound studio and put together an old fashioned radio play this year, complete with bad acting!"
- Zugara sends us all over YouTube with a Santa-themed annotation adventure.
- New York Festivals has announced it 2008 Global Awards.
Australian hip-hop artist Al Bino (um, right) is out with a video entitled It's A Beautiful Day for Cancer. It's sexy. It's weird. It's gross. It's funny.
Produced by Lyrics Born, the video, according to the Lyrics Born website, was created for an "Australian skin cancer benefit project."
It appears the video has been successfully seeded across sites such as YouTube, Break, AOL, Current, Dailymotion, Buzznet and several others. On YouTube, the video, which was posted December 11, has seen 22, 798 views. Views on other seeded sites don't add up to much.
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