It seems Google's YouTube has debuted a new in-video style ad format. It's not pre-roll. It's not post roll. It's a transparent banner that appears on the bottom of the screen several seconds after beginning of the video which the user can either minimize or click on. If clicked, in the case of this example, the advertiser's video opens and plays within the same YouTube video window as the original content. Once the advertiser's video has played or if the close/minimize button is clicked, the original video commences playback right where it left off.
So it's a bit of a mashup between banner advertising and the standard :30 with a bit or user-controlled DVR-like behavior tossed it. It's certainly new. It's definitely different and we have to admit, we like it a lot.
Holy shit! It seems we've been targeted by a Miami serial killer according to a WBFX news report. Curiously, all five of the serial killer's victims have been male, in their 30's and work in the media industry. Chillingly, our name has been scrawled in blood on a wall in Miami and on a piece of paper found by the police naming us the killer's next victim. Even more chillingly, we were just in Miami for a conference.
In fear, we've barricaded ourselves into our offices with one inch thick back issues of Vogue and blocked the the windows with the hundreds of Casale Media bags we've collected at ad:tech conferences over the years. The police have been called and we hope the industry's prayers are with us.
OK, OK. It's all just one of those personalized video promotions, this time, for the Showtime series Dexter which will begin airing on FX in the UK.
We were screwing around on some foreign news site when we saw the banner at left and thought, "Hey, Smokey Bear! Can't believe that guy is still around."
Out of curiosity, we hit www.smokeybear.com and found a creepy video that involves a child singing some song about forest fires, coupled with imagery of a spark igniting stenciled animals and a forest.
Smokey's Vault is a feature that brings Smokey into 2007 with a bunch of hip little spigot-thingies. There we discovered that Smokey was an actual baby bear that in 1950 rolled charred (and orphaned) out of the forest after a (clearly unprevented) forest fire.
And that's way more about fire-shy Bear than we ever thought we'd know. Those spigots, or at least that Bambi-esque banner ad, are clearly very effective.
We felt pleasantly provoked by this ad for Marithe + Francois Girbaud, in which female models take up the mantles of Jesus and the Apostles for The Last Supper. There's also a man that we're guessing is supposed to be a Magdalene, or maybe a Judas, figure.
We love how the viewer is first slapped with recollection of the Da Vinci original, but beyond that the image merits a good long look. The facial expressions are wildly illustrative. And there don't appear to be chairs or table legs.
more »
Let's be realistic. Artsy qualities aside, one of the biggest selling-points for European films in the US market are the sex scenes. The hot, steamy, sometimes seamy or wholly improbable sex scenes.
With that in mind, YouTube user EUTube released a montage called Film Lovers Will Love This!, in which a bunch of steamy moments from EU films (well, mainly Amelie) are knitted together to join in one harmonious slogan: "Let's come together."
Supporters call it a celebration of European cinema but British Conservative MEP Chris Heaton-Harris called it a "cobbling-together" of "44 seconds of soft porn" that wastes taxpayers' money and does nothing to solve the European film industry's "image problem."
We figure it's a little lopsided to glean quotes from a British publication when it's the Italians, Spaniards and French doing all the grunt work. After all, where do you find those racy PSAs we love so much? Not at the home of Big Ben.
With the Blu-ray/HD-DVD wars well under way, it's apropos this new Fallon London-created, RSA Films-produced Sony Blu-ray commercial, Lasers, contain fighting gladiators. Shot in a working industrial chimney (a really big one) in Hungary with no natural light and illuminated only by laser beams, robotic cops and gladiators duke it out while automobiles are dropped on rain-drenched drums from atop the chimney. The commercial's plot? Your guess is as good as ours. Oh wait. Random Blu-ray-enhanced entertainment for the entertainment's sake.There. That's it.
Usually, he's just slowly walking around his Battlestar mumbling prophetic statements about the importance of mankind in that gruff voice he perfected so well back on Miami Vice but now Edward James Olmos is appearing, again, in two new commercial for Farmer's Insurance. In the first, Olmos is thrown, hands tied, from a plane without a parachute but is "rescued" by a pair of parachutists who, oh, just happen to be free falling through the air to save him by untying his hands and affixing a parachute to him. Of course, on the ground it's revealed it's all just a scene from some movie.
A second spot, also part of a movie set, has Olmos in the future being chased by a flying motorcycle while being shot. Olmos and everything is undamaged. The message in the two spots is things in real life are not indestructible which is why one needs insurance, namely Farmer's
Do you know what your Mom does for work? Do you really? We think this Mom's kids - and husband for that matter - have absolutely no idea. UK-based Nandos restaurants serve something called Peri-Peri chicken, a dish so addictive, the restaurant had to introduce Nando Fix Gum to stem cravings. Well, not really but that's what's going on this commercial for the restaurant chain in which "mom" doesn't always mean minivan-driving, PTA-involved, high-powered executive-style woman.
In a new historical examination of Frank, Furback" Sack, the inventor of the TuftBeGone body hair removal device, Philips Norelco Bodygroom takes a look back at cultural influences which resulted in the the launch of its own Shaveeverywhere.com phenomenon.
Tribal DDB rep Steve Nesle tells us, "The mockumentary is based on the early history of 'manscaping,' as modeled by some furry 1950s Coney Island guys. Narrated by 'Follicle' Phil Fontana, it tells the story of a character named Sack, who invented an unfortunate device known as the Tuft B-Gone. Hairy guys sprinted through the machine, and 'after the scabs fell off,' Phil says, 'we'd grab a broad and a cold beer and call it a day.'"
We applaud Tribal DDB New York on this one. We actually watched it until the very end and even enjoyed it.
There's not much to say about an ad:tech session that focuses on creative since its so subjective. However, during the Creative Showcase: The Best of Latin America moderated by AHAA Immediate Past Chairman and Parliamentarian Carl Kravetz, Media 8 Digital Marketing Executive Creative Director Gustavo Garcia presented work his agency did which maximized the notion Hispanic women love to talk about beauty and all the product that go along with beautifying oneself.
more »
|
|
