The no blah, blah, blah auto insurance company, Desjardins General Insurance, with help from Toronto's Youthography, has launched a very GM Flying Car-like video in which three bubble-headed girls video each other until one lets out the classic "Oh...My God" after seeing her friends car take off into the sky for no apparent reason other than to slap up the geared4u.com URL which takes you to Desjardins' auto insurance site.
Once you arrive at the site, you can watch the very uncool parent-like figures utter parents-trying-to-be-coolims "ill" and "dizzle" while the kids get right to the important blah, blah, blah. It's all very Fetch.
If you've got to push a stroller you might as well have someplace to go while doing so. Dutch stroller company Bugaboo, with help from 72andSunny, has launched a new dedicated site for its Bugaboo Daytrips program which can be found at the oddly sexual sounding URL bugaboodaytrips.com (bug-a-booday-trips, get it? OK, fine it's just us. Sorry. On with the story)
The site provides 22 downloadable walking tours throughout major cities around the world. 72andSunny Creative Director and Co-Founder, 72andSunny explains, "When you become a parent, you want to maintain your identity as an adventurous, curious, active person. Bugaboo offers two ways to help. One is a line of multi-functional strollers; the other is now Bugaboo Daytrips. The daytrips are a great way for parents to discover the multi-functionality of their Bugaboo strollers." Ah, yes, the cure for the common minivan.
As part of a promotional campaign to introduce the new TBS show Tyler Perry's House of Payne, ice cream trucks branded with the show's characters made stops in various neighborhoods, malls and events in Atlanta, Birmingham, Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte and Memphis in an effort to draw African-Americans to the show which debuts June 6. Free "POPScicles" in honor of LaVan Davis' character, Curtis "Pops" Payne were freely distributed to all. Yes all. Pay no attention to our nasty headline writer.
In Munich this weekend, Audi will perform a stunt during which two Audi A5's will be tethered to and control a large stunt kite. Apparently, it's to break some kind of world record. The event is being promoted with a large billboard, placed in Berlin, with a kite extension attached. Get that A5 over here guys. The A4 is too small and the A6 is too expensive. In fact, just let the wind take control and fly those two babies to New York. We'll take it from there.
There are many ways to sell mouthwash and, believe us, we've seen them all. Except for this new piece of work for Oral-B from Leo Burnett Brazil. No one likes to be near a person with bad breath so why should it be any different with telephone listings?
You learn something new everyday writing about the ad business. Did you know the biggest thing on the minds of ad agencies and brands is these days is...wait for it...how to monetize WAP site. Yes, we kid you not. This, according to a recent press release from iLoop which has partnered with Third Screen Media to "enable mobile web sites to have Internet ads." Stellar!
According to the release, the partnership "eliminates the 'how do I create the ad and make it mobile' question and Third Screen eliminates the 'how do I offer automated, relevant and targeted advertising optimized for each individual campaign' question."
Hmm, and we thought the biggest question from agencies and brands today was "Who's paying for my trip to Cannes?"
In yet another example advertising is clearly not the place to let loose your jive-talking, yo dude, phat fetchisms, Copyranter points us to the new Delta outdoor campaign currently assaulting New Yorkers from all angles. What the new campaign like? It's fly, my friend, fly.
Frederik Samuel brought our attention to this piece (at left) for The Pink Line, in which we're actually staring through the receiver holes of a telephone, at the woman on the floor. "Help is close," the ad coaxes.
We kind of liked the esophagus concept better.
Abuse hotlines or help centers are always trying to magnify the moment you're left bleeding on the floor. Like children gone numb to the act itself, this repetitive stance is getting tiresome - and focusing on the traumatic moment may actually miss the point.
Why can't they make like your standard ad and put the spotlight on the vast improvement that takes place after taking action? Granted, healing is less interesting than stained linoleum, but it's a stance that may stick out.
MySpace has become a total box office mouthpiece. When it's not all Silver Surfered-out, it's a poker table for Ocean's Thirteen (at left).
Littlejohn at Advertising for Peanuts wonders whether users will get turned off by the social networking darling's shameless ad-whoring (kind of like friend-whoring?) but we doubt it. If there was going to be a meaningful reaction to MySpace's games of homepage dress-up, it would've happened already. At this point we're all just watching the show go by.
Anyway, there are worse things in this life than a homepage swathed in George and Brad.
Dear Wieden + Kennedy (and most other ad agencies too),
Please repeat on the conference room white board 100 times: A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film. A commercial is not a film.
Or at least stop your PR people from referring to :30's and :60's over and over again as films. They're commercials. They're ads. No matter how beautiful or creatively fueled they are (and your latest work for Nike certainly is, indeed , beautiful), they're ads. They're just ads. Sorry. No amount of creative puffery can change that. Most movies aren't even films let alone :30 and :60 bits of creativity that sell stuff.
So, please, can we lay off the inflated sense of ego and just realize all we do in this business is sell stuff? We can glamorize it all we want. We can give it fancy names. We can even go to Cannes a week after "real" filmmakers do to make ourselves feel as though we are they're equals. We are not. They make entertainment. We sell stuff.
Sincerely,
The Pompous Assholes From Adrants
(who, at heart, are really, really nice people who totally understand the business of the press release which, for better or worse, must follow a format that is far removed from how normal human beings speak but, for better or worse, we are stuck with and make fun of from time to time which then causes unrest because of that fun-making which, in turn, causes us to profusely apologize to the very nice human whose job it was to write the standardized information delivery transferal, all of which, for better or worse, rightly earns us the the title Pompous Assholes)
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