Hoping to take the euphemistic "special" out of "Special Olympics," TDA ADVERTISING & DESIGN/Boulder developed a print campaign that focuses on the sporting similarities between the event you watch and that other one.
"The typical perception of 'Special Olympics' is young children with Down Syndrome, playing track and field. We want to change that," said VP-Marketing Heather Hill of the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games. "The majority of our athletes are serious, adult competitors."
There's a brand repositioning worth throwing some weight behind.
Variants include "Slalom" and Ice Rink. If so inclined, you can also read the radio script.
In ongoing efforts to align itself to Obama's message of hope, Pepsi worked with R/GA and Eyeblaster to launch a banner ad encouraging people to record videos for our new POTUS.
Maybe it should worry us that so many overzealous brands are falling all over themselves to clutter the Oval desk with glad tidings and unsolicited critiques.
IKEA -- freshly patriotic, despite its conspicuous Swedish roots -- is compiling a "WELCOME OBAMA!" guestbook. Facebook partnered with The New York Times to launch a Presidential Suggestion subsite. And just today, memelabs launched "Where Were You?", a consumer-generated video effort inviting people worldwide to reflect on where they were on the night of November 4.
All this in addition to Change.gov, an actual government site through which the Obama Administration already solicits your every mental meandering. We pity the armada of interns that's gonna have to sift through the Zeitgeist's stream of thought.
- Ketchum's FedEx faux-pas. "True confessions" probably don't belong on Twitter. Particularly if you're a Veep trying to seal a deal.
- Various types of Twitter birds complete with cheesy-but-empowering! traits of eagles.
- If you cannot heat the Healthy Choice mixers, you don't deserve to.
- "Where balloons go to die."
- A goal worth texting for.
- Twitter as Hudson crash citizen journalist.
- A yarn worth remembering: Lotus claims you can successfully swab your sunshine with "Just 1" square of super-strong TP. Uh-huh.
On January 18, 2009, Lebron James will announce his "first love." Will it be football? Will it be basketball? Will it be to become a rapper? Those are the speculations surrounding a recently released video in which James faces an audience and says, "First of all, I want to thank everyone for coming out here today. After having a long discussion with friends and family, I've decided to follow my first love."
Thankfully, we won't have to speculate for much longer but it's likely this is tied to Nike. If it were simply an announcement as to his desire to play another sport or become a rapper, there'd likely not be paid advertising on Google promoting the video.
Whatever. We'll know Sunday.
UPDATE: One theory points to his first love being Reebok and all this is is yet another marketing stunt.
Earlier this week, Affiliate Summit held its West conference in Las Vegas. With over 3,300 people in attendance, the organization's largest yet, the conference stuck its middle finger up at the so-called recession everyone's screaming about these days. For those in the dark, affiliate marketing is most simply described as "an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts."
The people who hang in the affiliate marketing space are a motivated bunch. To them, traditional advertising has been long dead for years. In their world, a :30 spot is a pointless endeavor, a foreign concept. If it doesn't work and there aren't tangible, proven, money making results, it isn't affiliate marketing and no one at this conference want anything to do with it.
So let's break it down.
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Earlier this week, Affiliate Summit held its West conference in Las Vegas. With over 3,300 people in attendance, the organization's largest yet, the conference stuck its middle finger up at the so-called recession everyone's screaming about these days. For those in the dark, affiliate marketing is most simply described as "an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts."
But this story is about the parties that occurred during the conference.
The first major party during the conference was hosted by Buy.at at Moon Nightclub atop the Palms Casino. Moon is the shit. It's a giant, multi-level nightclub with dance platforms on which way too drunk women in way too short skirts showing way too much (wait, what? that's all good!) pranced for all to see. Apparently David Hasselhoff was in the house that night as well. But no one seemed to care.
 Buy.at grabbed the top balcony area for their party (pictures here). It overlooked the dance floor and had a balcony outdoors which offered a killer view of the The Las Vegas Strip. It's where most people hung out. It's where there were lots of familiar faces and lots of new ones. Inside had it's own defining qualities. It's where the privileged could view the commoners on the dance floor below. It's where drinks flowed freely. It's where the entire roof opened each hour to reveal, yes, the moon...and to let out all that dry ice fog that swirled around the dance floor. It's also where I met Buy.at's Missy Barnstein, the coolest affiliate marketing manager, oops...extra super awesome, amazing Senior Marketing Manager I know.
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As always, domain-buying service GoDaddy took the fullest advantage of its liaison with Danica Patrick -- and her beaver -- for this year's Super Bowl spots, whose scripts appear to have been written by pornographers in financial distress.
Here's a trope you might've seen before: pubescent boy's fantasies, realized.
And this spot, confusingly dubbed "Baseball," plays on trashy court TV. I think it would be better served if it were renamed "Enhanced? I'll show you enhanced."
Cast votes for your favorite on GoDaddy.com up to January 23rd. Like last year, each spot continues in a (gasp!) unrated online version.
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"That's Dan. And I'm Dan's pancreatic cancer."
How do you even begin to take a pitch like that seriously?
I just love how, after describing Dan's untimely death with a listless "eh," Pancreatic Cancer looks out the backseat window and croons (with the most subtle of accents), "I have 35,000 other people to kill this year."
Blase, baby, blase. Unintentionally hilarious work by Gardner Nelson + Partners for the Lustgarden Foundation. Somebody needs to page Charlie Brooker and tell him to update his list.
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Think adopting a Russian teenager is hard? Try taking home a shy yet obstinate pet.
In these Saatchi & Saatchi spots for Iams, Felicity Huffman selflessly reminds us that "the real reward in adopting a pet is when the pet adopts you." So don't fish for that return receipt just yet.
This is part of Iams' Home for the Holidays Adoption Drive. It was only supposed to last through the holidays, but it fared so well that Iams thought, What's the harm? If it sells more munchies...
See dog ad and cat ad. Oh, and more credits here.
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- Facebook shuts down Burger King's "Whopper Sacrifice" app, which offers users free Whoppers after they de-friend 10 people. The data-sharing giant treated the app as a privacy breach.
- Google shafts 100. Dodgeball will be no more; Google Video will cease taking uploads in a few months' time.
- Paris-based Havas is splitting CEO duties between COO Gabriel Saenz de Buruaga of Madrid, and CSO Anthony Rhind of London.
- How advertising works.
- Got a secret, but can't be bothered to make a postcard? Contribute to Big Love's web of secrets. Note that each secret you enter endorses polygamy. Kidding. Maybe.
- Get a load of Obama's beast.
- Oh nooooes, renting a movie is just too hard for some.
- The Social Path lists emerging careers of 2009.
- MTLB's gas-related wisdom.
- Eyewear for the poor.
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