Adrants reader Alex points out yet another not-so-new alternative form of advertising. It's called Bird Typing but it should be called Birdvertising. Roman Kingsley, the man behind Bird Typing, has trained birds to form letters while flying yielding a unique form of sky writing. It's not easy though. Kingsley's been doing it since 2002, spent three months training a bunch of birds and is now in the process of getting them to chirp in unison. Apparently Volvo has hired Kingsley to fly the Volvo logo. If anyone gets a picture of that, we need to see it!
Michael Tchong, guru of the future, of the trend and of Trendscape is hosting a seminar called INVENTrain at Studio Z in San Francisco on September 10. The seminar will help marketers to "see the trends changing our world, understand the forces driving the economy and seize new business opportunities that will shape your future.
While it might sound like futuristic, consultant-babble, Michael Tchong is a smart guy and this event will most assuredly stir the entrepreneurial bones in your body and fuel your imagination with regard to your current work efforts.
Courtesy of Japander, soccer superstar David Beckham and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham appear in a series of commercials in Japan for TBC, a cosmetics line. The Beckhams can bee seen frolicking at home, showing there love for each other, all in the name of selling makeup.
A new ad medium, "ass-vertising," from non-traditional ad agency, NightAgency, can be added to the long line of alternative advertising tactics exploding on a seemingly daily basis. Apparently, advertising can be slapped on the bikini-ed ass of hot woman in the form of logo and design. Placed on the right ass, there's no doubt these ads will attract attention and perhaps finally give valid reason to follow that hot chick down the beach while staring lustfully at her ass. Now if they could only figure out "thong-vertising."
Clearly not a billboard Clear Channel would allow, this one, on Sunset Boulevard above the Rainbow Bar and Grill, shows a larger than life visual of Jenna Jameson's larger than life breasts barely covered by the nuzzling nose of some lucky dude who gets to sleep with her in her latest video, "Jenna Jameson is The Masseuse." Defamer points out the humorous press release that accompanied the erection of the boards as well as these pictures taken by a Defamer reader. Thanks to both from the appreciative readers of Adrants.
Fort Lauderdale based Parlux Fragrances has signed a deal with celebutante and reality TV star Paris Hilton to develop, manufacture and distribute a line of products in her name. It may not have legs according to Andy Dehnart who notes "she's very late-2003 and early-2004, and we're almost to mid-2004, and it's definitely now Lindsay "whoa" Lohan's era." I think we'd all agree considering the size of Lohan's....I mean the sizeable collection of her support-challenged-upper-body pictures bouncing around the web. A poll over at ThatsJustNotRight certainly places Lohan atop some of her peers.
As the baby boom generation ages, important issues such as thinning hair, incontinence, sagging body parts and hearing loss are less able to be ignored. While battery maker Energizer can't help with all the aging generation's problems, it hopes to help some by using eighties rocker Pat Benatar make hearing aids (and their batteries) cool.
With the very un-hip headline, "It's Hip to Hear," 51 year old Benatar says, "From Aerosmith to the Rolling Stones, our music defines us, but all those years of rockin' are beginning to take a toll." Now if only eighties hottie Debbie Gibson could do something about those damn colostomy bags.
Mo-blogging or mobile weblogging is not new. Posting to a weblog from a mobile device can already be achieved through using a Handspring Treo as Jeff Jarvis does or another similar device. With the launch of Nokia's Lifeblog, the company is simply making it easier albeit proprietary to a specific Nokia phone. The service, which will work with the 7610 imaging phone, will automatically save and categorize photos, video, text messages and other mobile media for later viewing and sharing.
Following a seven year marketing hiatus, Kellogg's will promote its Pop Tarts product on MTV's "Dumb Ass" in the U.K., a show combining the best from "Jackass," "Viva La Bam" and "Wildboyz." The deal includes product placement, mention and an online promotional element.
There's a new opt-in ad network in town and it aims to hand control of marketing over to consumers. Dotomi has launched Direct Messaging which, boiled down to its most simplistic terms, provides opt-in, on-page banner advertising tying a marketer and its customer database to consumers who join the Dotomi network. The Dotomi system, through partnership with publishers, delivers personalized banners to consumers who have selected to be part of the network.
One assumes, publisher that are part of the Dotomi network will promote this feature to consumers on their sites as a means to control ad clutter and to marketers as a means to deliver highly targeted messages. An initial demo of the U.S. based system yielded a Pets.com banner that was customized to the point of knowing my dog's name. Clearly, this is just the start but the possibilities are encouraging.
Dotomi conducted a pilot launch of Direct Messaging last March in Israel, and the service rapidly grew in popularity and currently serves ads from 65 top-tier marketers on 95 percent of the local publishers. The results were quite good and revealed that Dotomi Direct Messaging campaigns generated between seven and thirteen percent click-through rates. Nothing to sneeze at.
Dotomi was founded by Yair Goldfinger, who created Instant Messaging and currently serves as Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Dotomi. Running the company as President and CEO is John Federman, formerly of several CGMI divisions.
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