- And just for some holiday diversion, some guy recut the Mary Poppins Trailer into what he calls Scary Mary.
- Celebhead, a new series from VH1 Mobile created and directed by former Deutsch creatives Cheryl Van Ooyen and David Rosen, debuts online and on cell phones today. The first episode, of course, features "Paris Hilton."
- On December 5, Save the Children launched an outpost in Second Life called Yak Shack where residents can buy a virtual yak and donate to the charity.
Visa has launched Fan With A Plan, a community site where sports fans can make travel plans to their favorite large sporting events such as the Olympics and the World Cup.
- Sunday, January 7, VH1 is debuting The Surreal Life Fame Games, a collection of the show's audience favorites from the show's past six seasons.
- The AARP magazine has increased it readership seven percent to 29.9 million adults according the Fall 2006 MRI report.
While many might look at these ads(1, 2, 3), which have been out for a while we believe, and call them a horrific glorification of unfortunate word events. Other might say, "Hey, shit happens. Get over it. It's just an ad campaign." Of note, these ads were created in China by Saatchi & Saatchi according to Ads of the World and their world view is quite different than ours. Though, the fact they are Chinese ads written in English always causes one to wonder whether they are actually real or leaked fakes. If someone at Saatchi wants to confirm or deny their existence, we're all ears. If they are real, we think they step over the line just a wee bit.
Here's a fun little spoof of that McDonald's Inner Child commercial, out earlier this year, in which kids crawl out of grown up's stomachs and end up at a McDonald's restaurant. In the spoof commercial (you might have to download it to see it properly proportioned), called Eat Large, the true reality of eating at McDonald's is revealed and it's suggested that one might consider eating at Sumo Salad to avoid that unfortunate reality.
Today, Bluelithium tells us, "BlueLithium Labs released a new report analyzing online shopping data from Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This report contradicts the many recent claims that online shopping trends are no different on Cyber Monday than any other day, in fact, this data shows 30 percent higher conversion rates than normal.
The impact of this data on the actual effectiveness of online advertising on both days is significant. Many retailers would be tempted to bump up their online advertising efforts for both Friday and Monday, which are both known to be high shopping days, but this report suggests that they may do better to pull back on Friday and focus their efforts and ad dollars on Monday."
There you have it. Act accordingly next year.
This Colombian campaign for El Trago Mas Caro or "the most expensive drink" stages a gory accident along a busy roadside to promote the "drink+drive=DIE!" message for teens. Read the news story here, though it might prove challenging if you're not proficient in Colombian Spanish. It's a nice set-up but since this in-your-face approach is standard fare in many high schools we wonder whether it does the job for the young and jaded.
In any case, let's ponder over this whole fake dead people thing. Yeah. Getting kind of old. Cry wolf, anyone? - Contributed by Angela Natividad
Here's something we don't get to report every day. Massachusetts company Alt Terrain LLC unleashes an actual new media platform. We were like, is that possible?
The patent-pending 360 Degree Mobile Video Billboard delivers ad content (even 30-second moving spots) to thousands of eyeballs in a given hit. Right now it's in New York, LA, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco. You attach it to your car, truck or SUV.
Wait. Four-sided, mobile, audio/visual advertising? We'll say for the record that if we were the inventor of the dated but endearing ice cream truck, we'd be pretty pissed that somebody was trying to take our idea, attach a bunch of bells and whistles to it and pass it off as their invention. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
Now's your chance to but all kinds of celebu-shit from Tori Spelling and her husband, Dean McDemott. In non-news today, the pair are having a yard sale this weekend and were spotted placing flyers around their Studio City neighborhood. Some thinks it's a publicity stunt/joke but there's website promoting the event as well. Whatev.
Berkeley's Impact Theatre, a grassroots troupe that operates out of the basement of a pizza joint, put some heads together to work out how to raise more dosh. As these things tend to go somebody said, "Hey, wanna take pictures of the company girls half-naked and get really, really drunk?"
Unlike most stories that start out with an blur of limbs, vodka and grenadine, this one ends happily ever after: with a publication called Sinfully Delicious: The Impact Theatre Cocktail Book. A step up from the calendar idea, the book features real-live troupe girls, company costumes and off-the-cuff Impact recipes (with the exception of one). It's a nice sticky way to promote "theatre that doesn't suck," Impact's long-standing motto.
Wow. Don't you wish orgies always turned out this way? - Contributed by Angela Natividad
After we realized we weren't Taye Diggs in an episode of Day Break, we realized Agency.com just can't seem to catch a break these days. Just a week or so after Lynx releases Lynxblow, a site that lets people blow the clothes off a model by blowing into their microphone, Agency.com client BT releases The Hi Def Chamber, a site that lets people blow stuff up by blowing into their microphone. Homage paid or coincidence? You decide.
In a twisted nod to that Draft/FCB Lion ad everyone took pleasure in shitting on, this Ogilvy Amsterdam-created ad for MTV takes the whole lion fucking thing even further incorporating other species and, in an excruciatingly long 60 seconds, tells people to wear condoms because "every six seconds somebody is infected with HIV." Catchy tune though. Unfortunately, it's gonna be stuck in our head the next time we decide to go all animal on someone.
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