Big Shocker: Even Citizen Marketers Get a Little Lazy

Chevy's running Super Bowl College Ad contest draws to a close as February creeps closer. And this teaser for the reality webisode series that started Monday is the sugar they've got to show for it.

By gad, the Chevy Aveo is textured, spacious and roomy? Good use of $5 words. And we love how the ad devolves into a beer-keg yell. These guys are geniuses. Really.

Wii Water-Drinking Contest Kills Woman, Microsoft Sponsors Story

We're not exactly sure what the Microsoft ad is or on this page but we are sure it's yet another really bad contextual ad placement. Once again, contextual advertising fails. This time in a story about a woman who dies during a water drinking contest for radio station KDND called "Hold your wee for Wii," a Microsoft ad appears in the form of a water cooler that fills a cup to the point of overflowing. Sweet. W love the smooth flow of a good contextual ad placement.

Beatles Actually Proponents of Savvy Spending According to Target

In their usual mod, somewhat Stepford style, Target takes the Beatles' "Hello, Goodbye" and makes one critical improvement, which they flash intermittently throughout the ad.

We'll grant it that John Lennon maybe had spelling issues but whether he meant "goodbuy" is not for us to say. Sir McCartney's staying mum. Guess we'll never know.

This is way better than turning Audrey Hepburn into the posthumous spokesgirl for Gap, yeah? If only the dead could protest on their own. Actually Orville Redenbacher might just be able to.

Agencies, Government Bodies Brainstorm for At-Risk Snot-Nosed Teens

The Ad Council and the US Army join forces, enlisting AdPack to help them encourage teens to stay in school. The result? Boost Up. The gimmick? Branded tissues by Zim-squared (sorry, we can't make that symbol without getting our post all fudgey) for at-risk youth throughout NYC.

That's almost too inspirational for words. You know what? Pencils would have been more useful. Or even green recess balls with good bounce to them. We can't think of anything to say to this mediocre effort besides you guys suck. You would probably have sucked less if you ran these kids over with recruiter vans. And we're almost 99% sure those tissues you're so generously doling out don't come in neat tiki man-shaped boxes, either.

Coke, Nestle Say Be Gullible, Drink Fat-Eating Fizz

Purveyors at Coke and Nestle are greeted this new year by a lawsuit from the Center for Science in the Public Interest because of Enviga, a pilot beverage that playfully assures you'll burn a whopping 60-100 calories after just three cans.

We'll be slightly nicer than Copyranter and say sure, that's more than possible. Walking to your car, getting in, buying a six-pack of bullshit and raising and lowering your arm as many times as it takes to down half of that could possibly burn 60-100 calories. Not to mention the brain cells you burn during ingestion, which are notoriously heavy.

To be fair it's not like Enviga was the first to encourage the all-too-willing to eat and drink more for weight loss. We totally fell for the pasta-chocolate diet.

SUV Ad Gets Inconveniently Spotlighted for Global Warming

An ad for the Mitsubishi Endeavor, in which a snowman melts when the hulking SUV drives by, was placed beside an article about whether climate change threatens polar bear habits on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's website. This kind of awkward placement always makes us feel a little squeamish.

Larry Futers, Mitsubishi's national marketing director in Canada, defends the Mindblossom-produced ad: "It was the right campaign for us at the time," he explains. Though why a marketer has to practically apologize about the crappy placement of his ad on an affiliate's page is beyond us. Shouldn't CBC be firing an intern right now?

More about the dramatic developments on Radar Online.

'Ad Age' Crowns Consumer King a la 'Time.' Inadvertently Rebukes Self

Angela's Take: AdAge just named The Consumer as Agency of the Year, hot off the tracks of Time which recently made You its Person of the Year.

What does this mean for you? We guess it means that you're kind of a big deal. Despite the fact you've always had the power, right now you're blowing up like a rock star. With the magic of spending power, ad-critical assertiveness and the frontiers for freedom getting blazed across the internet, publications everywhere are suddenly bowing down in humble supplication.

What does this mean for AdAge? We think they said it all when in the lower right-hand corner of their Consumer article they posted a link to a Scott Donaton piece that reads, "Me-too-itis Hobbles Too Many Marketers' Efforts."

Oopsy.

Doritos Begs Customers for Super Bowl Ads

Yahoo and Doritos marry up for a consumer-generated-media contest in which the best Doritos video to hit their site by mid-January gets aired on a coveted Super Bowl spot. A crass man at the bottom of the screen repeatedly shouts, "Watch and vote for your favourite Doritos commercial NOW!"

We were really into Doritos for a minute because they had that Japanese nut-crushing thing going on, but then they started littering and now they resort to the all-time laziest but most prevalent campaign style of the web 2.0 world: begging.

We're embarking on a new horizon in which we were supposed to work with consumers, not beg for creative at every open opportunity. Are we just going to hand over our cushy jobs and Foozball-ridden offices like that? Just like that? Come on, guys.

Bose Good Enough to Court Imminent Death, Doesn't Go Extra Mile

Saatchi and Saatchi throw together this print illustration of a rower fit to slip into a formidable Scylla-and-Charybdis-like vacuum because his Bose noise cancellation headphones are so awesome he just can't pay attention.

Funny how you get punished for not paying attention in real life, but this same deficit comes as a premium when illustrating how distractingly awesome a given product happens to be. Does that really help sell shit? We love the idea of getting lost with Beethoven but if the composer himself can actually fly down from heaven and lift us out of a boat destined for disaster then all the better, you can sign us up for some Bose headphones right now.

We somehow doubt the sound quality is that great, though.

Suzuki Looks at BMW Films, Rubs Off "BMW" Logos, Replaces with Own

You'd think a vehicle mark notoriously known for lacking originality would make at least a slight effort to step their game up if they've got major marketing dollars to throw behind an idea. Any mediocre idea can be prettied-up with cash. Even cutting another project up, tossing it in the air and making it slightly unrecognizable would be fair game, and it would only take five or six more minutes. But maybe that asks too much of Suzuki.

Make the Logo Bigger unpacks a delectable rant on Suzuki Films, a Suzuki marketing effort aimed at inspiring audiences to move from television to the 'net to find out what happens next in a sultry French Connection-style multi-platform drama called "The Briefcase," which suspiciously echoes BMW Films' "The Hire."

"Maybe it's fitting they copied [BMW] since Suzuki is an imitation of a real car," Bill snarls.

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