To promote its new Harrison Ford family-man-in-peril (does he do no other?) movie, Firewall, Warner Brothers has launched Inside the Firewall, a site created by Pod Digital which introducs a game in which the player has to find his way out of a room using available clues. Apparently, the game's getting alot of buzzz in forums with players exchanging clues and hints. Us? We're just going to go see the movie to see how Harrison gets out of yet another one of his messes.
While we've seen food-engraving advertising before, Advertising For Peanuts points us to EggFusion, a company which hopes to etch millions of messages on millions of eggs for millions of advertisers for millions of dollars to reach millions of consumers. It won't be long before PETA does a roadblock buy and every egg in the country is emblazoned with "Murderer! Don't Eat This Egg!"
We all know spending $2.5 million on a Super Bowl spot is, well, not always the wisest marketing move but thankfully, we've got experts who know how better to spend $2.5 million. iMediaConnection has gathered 28 marketing experts who give us a bit of insight as to what they might do had they $2.5 million to spend elsewhere. You'll love AOL EVP Michael Barnett's completely self-promotional "spend it all on AOL" approach to answering the question. But you'll seriously love Word of Mouth Marketing Association CEO Andy Sernovitz' suggestion that the $2.5 million be spent to train customer service reps to be helpful, polite and sincere. Amen.
Back in August 2005, Ben Affleck signed a $1,8 million deal with Lynx (Axe in the States) to appear in several commercials. Adland points to this spot which features Affleck clicking his way through the day counting each time a female checks him out. At the end of the day, he's quite pleased with his click total, that is, until he gets on the elevator.
It's not like anyone in advertising is surprised at the selling qualities of sex but sex still seems to to do a lot more selling in countries outside the United States as indicated by this ad for some kind of butter. The butter is so creamy and so smooth it's useful for, well, other things than just spreading on your toast. This is one of those videos you should watch when your boss isn't looking.
In a clever marketing effort and to encourage Swedish environmental awareness and to introduce a new loan option from financial institution SEB which promotes the purchase of environmental cars eight Scandinavian snowmen have been built in Stockholm to carry the message. The snowmen are the work of Lowe Brindfors which appears to be too busy doing client work to create their own website.
Lending a bit of humor to the daunting tax season and promoting its TaxCut while doing so, H&R Block has launched Deduct-a-Buck, a seventies-style game show-like game hosted by Max Refund. The game consists of five questions relating to the kinds of thing one can deduct when filing taxes. Prizes range from a Dell XPS Notebook, to a $100 GameStop gift certificate to free online tax preparation. Created by Mullen, the game is both humorous and comforting to what's on the mind of everyone as April 15 approaches and we all struggle to please Uncle Sam.
Our friends over at the Creative Liberation Intelligence Organization are at it again with a promotional music video to, one assumes, drum up more entries for this year's Clio's. Back in early December 2005, the group launched a very spy-like website using all manner of spy metaphor to create awareness of the Clio's. Take a look and let us know what you think.
In the works since last year, tire maker Pirelli will, in March. release The Call, a 10-minute video, created by Leo Burnett and set in the Vatican, starring John Malkovich who plays a priest and Naomi Campbell who plays the devil. Using the power stuggle between good and evil, Pirelli claims the film, directed by Antoine Fuqua, will be a metaphor for the company's "power is nothing without control" tagline. The film will be released exclusively online and receive promotion through online, print and television.
This is Hollywood-style, celebrity-powered ad is sure to give Russell Crowe plenty of ammunition to further castigate celebrities for selling out. That said, if we, as an industry want better ads, we have to tap better talent. Big names bring a sea of eyeballs and getting noticed in today's media environment is becoming an impossible task. Granted, Malkovick, though a superb actor, isn't A-list in terms of popularity and Campbell, while very popular, is no Malkovich in the acting department but together, they just might bring some notoriety and sales to Pirelli and its sleepy, commodity-like category of automotive tires.
Courtesy of our roving New York photographer, Bucky Turco, we're blessed with this new outdoor board for Howard Stern mimicking the black power movement and promoting his new Sirius radio show. With the headline, "Let Freedom Ring. And Let it be Rung in by A Striper," the Howard Stern brand is clearly delivered.
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