It's really hard finding good pictures of Hilary Duff since her butt is her best feature and there aren't many pictures showing her butt. Oops, that's commentary for my other blog, heh. Seriously, Hilary has been booted from her television show because she wants $100,000 per episode as opposed to her current $15,000. Disney doesn't want to pay. I say pay it to her. She's pleasing enough to look at. Oh, sorry again, she's 15. I meant to say she's cute and adorable.
So anyway, she's got a movie. It did pretty well. Naturally she's using that as leverage to get more dough for her show. Disney isn't buying and is cancelling the show. Strangely, back in December, Disney also made mention of canceling her show so how do you cancel a show twice?
All is not lost. For a sequel to her current movie, Disney will give her $4M, 4% of the gross, and $500K if the movie grosses $50M plus. But Duff (or her greedy handlers) want the $500K no matter what the movie does. So, it's still no deal.
She will do fine though. She has two other movies in the works one of which will be out for the holidays and the other out next year.
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Termed, 'Mangina', this clip features a bunch of zombies in a mental hospital with a unique sense of humor and interesting ways to pass the time of day away. Created by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R and launched by DMC, this clip aims to lend support to Virgin Mobile's 3P text messaging campaign in the U.K.
"We are using online viral and buzz marketing as a strategic part of our 'Idle Thumbs' marketing campaign in order to broaden awareness of our new 3p text tariff - particularly among the culture-driving, technology-savvy online viral community that DMC can reach," said James Kidd, brand director for Virgin Mobile.
You can see the film by downloading it below.
PC USERS: Right click on the link below and choose 'Save Target as...' to download the file.
MAC USERS: Click and hold down, then choose 'Download Link to Disk'
QuickTime
Windows Media
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Henry Copeland of blogads writes an informative paper supporting blogs as an emerging medium for advertising. Well worth the reading if you want to remain on the cutting edge of new advertising media.
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PETA's new pet peeve is Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Wintour has been the butt of many jabs and jokes lately. You can see them all over at Gawker. A staffer even wrote a book about her apparently, horrid, nature. Now PETA, the animal rights group, is going after her with a poster campaign claiming she extoles the virtues of fur in Vougue which is a no-no for PETA.
On June 2, the posters will be placed around New York City and handouts will be distributed outside Conde Naste headquarters with her direct telephone line and email address. Additionally, PETA will ask supporters to flood Vogue's phone lines on the ad closing date of an upcoming issues just to piss her off even more. [via New York Magazine]
More on PETA's dabblings into the advertising world.
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The trouble with sex in advertising is the same as in life: it only lasts so long. That is the case with the Jenna Jameson ads for Pony sneakers.Seems the audience can only maintain a "heightened state of awareness" for the brand before...well, as I said, sex only lasts so long.
The sneaker manufacturer has decided the party is over and has hired Crispin Porter & Bogusky to re-launch it's brand sans Jameson. More on this at AdAge
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With all my bitching here about the ad business, you'd think I hate it. I don't. I love it. It's just so much fun to call out the bad in an industry than the good. Well, this post is different and rare. This is a positive post. A glowing post. A celebration of my love for advertising.
At the recent Ad Age Best Awards which honors the top ads in 2002, Saturn won with their "sheet metal" spot. The spot is brilliant in it's simplicity. Almost every car spot you see shows the car. Not this one. This spot shows you just the people. The people going through their daily automotive routines yet without the car around them. It's beautifully shot. It's a joy to watch. Yes, it's an ad designed to build a brand and to sell you a car but it is done in a way that is so warm and so inviting. This is brand building at it's best. watch it. It's that good.
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When you go see the Miramax film, The Green Hornet, in Summer 2005, what you will be watching is basically a two hour car commercial for the automotive manufacturer that ponies up $35 million for the right to star in the as yet, unwritten film. Because the movie has not yet been written, the automotive manufacturer that signs the deal is likely to have great influence over the story line and the usage of the vehicle in the movie. And do you think any car marketer is just going to let their car hang out in the background when they can write it's way into the foreground?
Done right, this could be the greatest achievement of advertainment in a long time. Done wrong, it will be an annoying two hour long car commercial filled with ubiquitous, obvious and annoying close ups of the vehicle. Whoever does this, please do it right. [via AdAge]
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None of these spots seems all that exciting this week. One ad for Deramaxx arthritis medication follows the typical long from drug spot with the typical beauty shots. Then, there Annika playing with the big boys, mermaids swimming for Capital One, a Matrix style spot for Heineken, a dog driving a car for CarFax, that dude singing that My Generation song for Apple, and another dog in a spot for a newspaper groups. Hey, I guess it's dog week in ads. Check them all out at Ad Age.
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You remember those ads. The ones that caused every one and their brother to post them on their web site. The ones that caused us all to wonder if they were fake or a well planned viral campaign. The ones that caused PUMA to send out cease and desist letters to those of us who just didn't want to let the joke go. If you need to refresh your memory, get the whole story here.
Following that particular marketing "mess", PUMA has hired Arnold Brand Promotions and Magnet Communications, in Boston, to handle public relations and promotional marketing.
"We chose [Arnold] because they had a combination of brand promotions and public relations under one roof," said Barney Waters, Puma's director of marketing in Westford, Mass. "They obviously had experience in the type of tour we were looking to execute."
More likely, they know how to clean that girls leg off while saving the brand's image.
OK, the real reason PUMA hired the two groups is to launch a Summer promotion to serious runners that will feature a mobile runner evaluation-mobile. [via AdWeek]
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