For client Vitae, the largest homeless shelter in the EU, McCann Portugal runs a rather unsettling holiday campaign in which people find a hollow-eyed homeless man in their trash bins with the appeal, "Help. So that no one have to come here for food."
Coming from a country in which passing change to the homeless is discouraged, we're hard-pressed to work out the call-to-action here. Do you give them a potted plant? Drive them to Vitae? Bake them a pie?
An ad for the Mitsubishi Endeavor, in which a snowman melts when the hulking SUV drives by, was placed beside an article about whether climate change threatens polar bear habits on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's website. This kind of awkward placement always makes us feel a little squeamish.
Larry Futers, Mitsubishi's national marketing director in Canada, defends the Mindblossom-produced ad: "It was the right campaign for us at the time," he explains. Though why a marketer has to practically apologize about the crappy placement of his ad on an affiliate's page is beyond us. Shouldn't CBC be firing an intern right now?
More about the dramatic developments on Radar Online.
To promote their new laser-engineered series of Airmax sneaks, Nike uses laser-pierced metal as a print ad medium. Interesting idea even if the final product looks kind of like cave paintings. At least it lights up. We're in favour of anything, really, that lights up. Series credited to DDB Paris.
C'est So Paris is a marketing effort aimed at making Parisian quirks more charming to the outside world, which Paris is notorious for shunning.
The site gets an A for effort but is occasionally a painful experience. Humour ads like this one feel a bit contrived. But there's a whole section on Parisian attitudes that we think is helpful if you happen to need lessons on how to pout, snarl at tourists and almost effortlessly tell someone to shut up in the most condescending way imaginable. Prizes can be won by users who send in their best imitation of a Parisian.
We're not sure why the long fog of Parisian obsolescence lifted but we suspect it might be because the country's air is a bit clearer now that the no-smoking ban has been passed. Though we suspect if the campaign does succeed Parisians still won't be good sports about the deluge of tourists monkeying their mannerisms and giving them infanticizing head-pats for that adorable self-entitled air.
Russian Orthodox Christmas happened last Sunday. To help Orthodox Russians celebrate, True ran a holiday campaign inviting men to meet Holly, who's apparently three different women. Copyranter notes it's stupid to 1) use non-member nameless bimbettes in a dating site ad, 2) give said fake bimbettes names, and 3) use the same name for multiple bimbettes in an ad series.
We got stuck on point 1 and can't seem to move forward. You mean True's ad models aren't actually members?! Think of all this time we've been sitting around planning what exactly we'd say to Holly when we finally meet her this season. (Considering there are at least three, we just figured it would help improve our odds.)
Dove hops on the consumer-generated-ad-contest hype (at this point we're trying really hard not to use the word "begging" for the 200,000th time), assisting would-be advertisers with a tutorial on Dove Cream Oil. The winning ad will air during the Academy Awards in February.
Thanks Shawn for the news. Here's hoping another ad person doesn't win this one because the way everybody's beating this "campaign strategy" to death, we're obviously trying really hard to engage consumers here. Like, really, really hard.
Stashwax makes a Braveheart spoof with the anti-Semitic comments Gibson made during his Malibu DUI arrest. Saturday Night Live does the same thing (but slightly better) with Apocalypto. We have to admit Gibson makes the pairing of his melodramatic films and drunken bigoted hyperbole a little irresistible.
Despite this inarguable fact, Stashwax has its panties in a twist over SNL's outright piracy of "their" idea, even showcasing this momentous battle on their homepage. Stashwax President Lloyd Grenache tastefully adds, "Stay off our gags [...] Gibson is our Anti-Semite - go find your own."
Looks like Stashwax is trying to leverage itself by suggesting it's SNL's only logical media nemesis. And we're sure we haven't seen the end of one-upmanship between TV and the 'net. But there's really no contest here. South Park has long owned Mel Gibson with its own artful rendering way back when Passion of the Christ came out. Sorry.
The robber in this Crime Stoppers ad holds up a bank while barking out full name and contact info to the teller facing the gun. After spitting out his number he quickly adds, "...and if you can't reach me there, try--"
We laughed for a moment, then realized this is no laughing matter. Jokes aside, today's customer-oriented world demands a different kind of criminal. You have to make sure the people you're robbing are happy. Post-filesharing, stealing's gotten seriously legit. Apparently even pirates have to report hard-earned plunder to the IRS.
And all this time we thought stealing was a cop-out. That just added a whole new complication to tax season.
Agency credit for "Bank Robber" goes to DDB Canada. Perhaps one day the thoughtful antagonist can graduate to business cards like any other corporate raider.
One day we got thirsty so Shawn over at Shedwa offered us a sip from his water bottle, the contents of which had a distinctively sharp odour. We would have drunk it anyway but when we saw the label read ADEQUITE, we knew better.
Actually that's a lie. And the Adequite water in this print ad is probably similarly unfounded considering how pissy Lohan got over that "Be adequite" thing getting out and making her look all stupid. And as the little red celebu-hoodrat is so fond of sporting her AA pins, maybe she's not even an alcoholic.
We're on your side, Lindsay. It's actually we who are the alcoholics. And we're drunk with love of you.
We can't even count how many times somebody walked past our cubicle, leaned over really close and whispered "One - cut a hole in a box." This was only one travail we suffered resulting from the mind-boggling circulation of the Timberlake SNL spoof Dick in a Box, which came out around the holiday season.
It's since been spoofed by a girl who clearly wants Justin to know about her box in a box - and impressively, her version is more embarrassing to watch than the original, which at least limits its embarrassment factor to lovers of '80's teen idols and women with teased hair.
We hope the wrapped-and-ready brunette gets her wish: namely that Justin scopes Youtube for Dick in the Box spoofs, where he'll doubtless find her and fall in love with the one person who really understands him.
Update: Ivy Gate unveils the girl behind Box in a Box. Apparently she's a little high off her awesomeness right now, having opened a CafePress store for Box in a Box boxes on CafePress. We only wish we were kidding about that.
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