Known for its guerilla marketing magic, the hard-hitting Truth recently got a clue about blogs and started their own on Xanga.com. This is in contrast to the many sites who prefer to blog exclusively on their own servers or homepages, a good move in our opinion because of Xanga's sizeable built-in audience.
The campaign's been around a couple of months and is advertised heavily on Xanga's front page, visible to a serious chunk of the Truth demo as Xanga sits in the top 15 most-visited websites for the American teen demographic (per their own research). Entries range from scandalous calls to action to news on concurrent campaigns like their back hair effort.
We dig the idea but the blog could do with a better writer as the content's a bit dry and hardly does dignity to Truth's razor-edge persona.
Volvo's Free Will campaign is a collage of consumer opinion about its C30 hatchback. While this concept isn't new, airing negative views as adstuff (er, kind of) is.
The campaign also includes video shorts that viewers can rate upon seeing. One features an audience throwing tomatoes and heckling as a burlesque woman unveils the C30 on a theatre stage.
The campaign's gone strong in the UK for a year. Ford global ad director Tim Ellis says the effort aims to get the up-and-coming 25-35 demo to do some thinking about the C30 and develop a relationship with Volvo based more on honesty than is typical in brand relationships. "In research, we learned that people feel as if we are really talking directly to them, so they consume [campaign offerings] and engage [them] differently than other typical advertisements," he explained.
Cheers to Volvo for their bravery. We look forward to seeing how it turns out even if we don't find the C30 that cute. (See? Works on marketers too.)
Here's what we think (er, hope?) is our last holiday card of '07. T3 The Think Tank sent us a game in which you pose as an elf and tip penguins.
Far from the benign polar friends we met in Happy Feet, the birds talk trash and also emit holiday wishes from T3 employees when you knock them over. (We located T3 founder Gay Gaddis' wish. It's for nice penguin shoes.)
Great incentive for a little digital abuse. The game is simple but strangely addictive.
The Presidential Office of Colombia, known for its heavy-handedness in rumour if not in actuality, turns to humour to explain why people should avoid cocaine. The 15 second ad says "Cocaine is addictive. Very addictive." We suspect this may not be true as we've been snorting at least 7 years and can quit anytime. To drive the point home, a man on a bus leans forward and snorts the dandruff off the shoulder of the man in front of him.
The ad generated a grade school reaction. We all went "EWWWWW!" and jerked our knees up. Then we watched it again. And again. And again.
500,000 watches later, we are still going "EWWWW!" and showing all our friends, who don't seem deeply impressed, then we all snorted cocaine and laughed over the thought of psychos snorting dandruff. Doesn't the Presidential Office know anything? You need a credit card and a flat surface to snort cocaine. Coke capital of the world indeed.
When you think about it, what did grades really say about you anyway? Allens Arthur Robinson pairs up with agency Westgate & Friends for a doodle campaign to demonstrate creativity is better gauged in idle scribble than on a transcript sheet. Text speaks to a demo of somewhat self-entitled Echo Boomers who just want somebody that understands them.
About friggin' time somebody cared about how awesome we just happen to be, though upon visiting the website we're still warmly invited to fill out the standard app with resume and do the interview rounds. We're not sure how compelling your earnest doodles will look to the irked paralegal whose job it is to take notes on you. Still, we dig the intention.
Check out the campaign file, sniped from our buddies at Best Ads on TV.
We've all had those moments of frustration when that Kiss track doesn't make blood curdle in our living rooms the way it would live. Hi-Fi Klubben illustrates the quiet angst musical elitists - er, purists - feel when their synthesized sound of choice just ain't jiving right.
The print reads, "Something wrong with your favourites? Change your stereo! Hi-Fi Klubben." AdPunch has more including a depressing Like a Virgin throwback that may be closer to the truth behind the scenes than we'd like to think.
RBLM's holiday card not only greeted us personally but also cleverly showcased their new creative effectiveness tool: the Scooter Challenge.
Find out how your work holds up streetside by uploading your own ads, then getting a view of how it looks from a scooter's perspective. RBLM admonishes detail-happy ad-heads to keep it simple. We agree, we like the idea and we dig how they got it out to us. Boy are those guys smart.
For Sportlife, a chewing gum that's big in Holland, Netherlands-based Fresh Creation orchestrates a stunning promotion called "Can You Make it to the Pack?" in which a skater is beamed doing tricks across billboards, buildings and other cityscapes.
For those who lament street peace jarred by deviant boarders the beamvertised, totally heedless skater must have been especially distracting, along the lines of "Goddamnit, now they move through walls." Must have been frustrating.
We dig the campaign and envision a world in which beamvertising becomes as much a part of city life as the lights on Times Square. Can you see it now? It would be next to impossible to drive. We'd all just walk around with that deer-in-headlights look on our faces all the time.
You have to love the simplicity of this Lynx promotional email containing the subject line "100% off women's clothing." Upon opening the email, the only this you see is a naked (with the appropriate body parts covered) specimen of female perfection who peers out at you with a look you can only hope to ever see in real life. It's a witty play on words that gives nod to the long-running notion portrayed in past campaigns that wearing Lynx gets you the girl.
Remember Alan Becker's neat video about creative gone awry? Atom Films just published the sequel: Animator v. Animation II. It's arguably better than the first as the stick actually escapes his template, wreaks havoc on the desktop, breathes fire and duke sit out with AIM and the Firefox logo.
The ending may either disappoint or grant closure, but there's definitely room for a bad-ass third installment. Unleashed on the world at large? Can't wait.
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