Buy.at Kicks Off Affiliate Summit With Rooftop Party

So if you were at Affiliate Summit East the first night, then you probably made it to the Buy.at rooftop party at the Empire Hotel. If not, well, then it was your loss. But at least you can look at the pictures.

Buy.at always does nice job kicking off Affiliate Summit. They certainly did so during Afiliate Summit West when they held a party atop Moon Nightclub at the Palms Hotel.

Anyway, that's all. Just pictures.

Affiliate Summit Takes on New York

Beginning Sunday, Affiliate Summit will take over the New York Hilton along with a collection of clubs and bars over a three day period for its biannual conference which focuses on, no surprise, affiliate marketing. Think Amazon book links. Then add an injection of steroids and 3,638 derivations and you have the multi-billion dollar market it has become today.

You can check out the conference content here. You can read the blogs of conference organizers (and practicing affiliates) Shawn Collins here and Missy Ward here. You can check out the party schedule here. And, well, you can read out coverage here on Adrants as it happens.

And you can check out coverage of Affiliate Summit West which was held in Las Vegas this past January

World's Largest (Fake) Water Slide Hypes Microsoft Project

Smack atop the category No Fucking Way comes this video of Austrian engineer Bruno Kammerl tearing down the "world's largest water slide," catching serious air and then making an impossibly perfect landing in a small blow up swimming pool.

And yea, it's sponsored, of course. By Microsoft Project.

Your Country Get Slammed by Another? Make A Video Of Course

So apparently a Japanese couple went to Italy and were treated poorly. They subsequently trashed the country as a tourist destination. Understanding the potential tourism loss from a country the size of Japan, they turned on the Italian charm and begged the Japanese to Please Don't Go.

Or it's just another marketing ploy. Either way, three's the ubiquitous Facebook group so the Japanese and the Italians can get it on virtually and repair their differences.

TBWA\Italia and Agency.com (nope, we're not gonna say it) are to thank for this.

Verizon Visits Adrants Office

You just never know when you're going to run into a Verizon Street Team. While busy trying to get back into the swing of things today, we noticed several red-shirted types walking on the sidewalk outside our "office." We're like "Oh wait, we write about adverting and it's happening right in front of our eyes."

So we grabbed the trusty camera and headed out to the sidewalk. After listening to the obligatory FiOS pitch, we informed the pleasant gentleman we wouldn't be in town much longer and wouldn't need Verizon's services...except, of course for our phone which...we won't need much longer either since we're getting an iPhone and *have* to switch to AT&T. That is until Verizon supports the phone and we immediately switch back.

Wow, all that verbiage just to wrap around a picture of a Verizon Street Team. At least they didn't have a Verizon Dumb Dad characature lurking about trying to explain how FiOS can help with this cool new thing called the internet.

Dear Absolut, You're Not As Exceptional As You Think You Are

Hmm. This new Absolut commercial from TBWA\Chiat|Day called Anthem makes one yearn for the glorious days of the long-running and simply beautiful print campiagn that was the cornerstone of the brand for so long. Now we have all manner of over-production to convince us "doing things differently leads to something exceptional...in an Absolut world."

Well, first of all, doing things differently is no guarantee of an exceptional results. And wasn't this Apple's deal? Remember Think Different? And how about in the real world. Don't we want exceptional things to happen in the real world and not cocooned about in some marketer-created dream world?

Ok so we are way over analyzing things here. But we still yearn for the "absolute simplicity" of Absolut's yesteryear.

Lovers Torn Apart To Promote Band

If you're a sucker for heartstring-pulling yearnings of love, you just might like this videhttp://www.findlittlefeather.com/o from the band One Eskimo in which Little Feather and One eskimO lead a pleasant life in an igloo...until the evil Mr. Top Hat breaks the igloo in two separating the two lovers from one another and takes Little Feather.

One eskimO sets out on a journey with his friends to find his love as we listen to the band play quest-worthy music.

By visiting Little Feather fans can join One eskimO and his friends on a quest to track down his lost love. Users are confronted with a series of challenges and games set by Mr. Top Hat, which they have to overcome if they ever want One eskmiO to see Little Feather again. Each game corresponds to major plot points from the animations themselves and employs the same unique look and feel.

Go ahead. Feel the love on a Wednesday morning.

Walmart Hopes Miley Cyrus Can Bring Some Cool

In case you were wondering, the Miley Cyrus machine is alive and well. While we'd have to query a bunch of 12 year old girls to know for sure, it seems Miley is on her way to convincing kids it's (shudder) cool to buy clothes at Walmart. Out with her new line of clothing from Max Azria, Miley talks about what clothing means to her and what it was like to work with designer Max Azria.

While far from sluterrific Britney Spears-inspired fashion, Miley says, "This line has inspired me to take chances with what I wear a little bit more."

Ooo. Risky. But moms will be happy there's no belly shirts in this line of clothing.

Yawn. Ozzy. Chimps. Yawn. Samsung. Yawn.

Not because the animal lovers don't like them being used in commercials but, rather, because they are overused and the concepts are increasingly lame, we feel all primates should be banned from advertising. Yes, CareerBuilder, you heard us right. The chimpanzee thing is over. Dead. Done.

And that's made crystal clear in this new Sansung Solstice commercial featuring Ozzy Osbourne and, yes, a band of chimpanzees. Or is it monkeys? We can never tell the difference.

So Ozzy's getting atour of the Samsung facility and is shown the new phone. He drops a lame line about how cool Samsung is. He drops the F bomb (real surprise there) and he gets a text asking if he'd like to be in a new band...formed by the aforementioned chimps.

Lame. Lame. Lame.

And doesn't Samsung know the Solstice is a car? Oh wait. Not for much longer.

Don't Flush That Toilet! Pee in the Shower Instead!

This is what being eco-friendly has come to. Urging people to pee while taking a shower. Yes, it's true. There's really nothing else to say about this Brazilian effort to save water by not having to flush the toilet.