Oh how we just wanted to let this one go. Really, we did. And we thought it would just go away like every other occasional unveiling of an agency's always-embarrassing internal workings.
As idiotic, far-fetched and plain absurd as the Arnell Group Pepsi document is, anyone who's ever worked in the industry knows this brand blatherific crap is the norm when it comes to a renaming/rebranding/logo project. It's. Just. The. Way. It. Is.
We're not defending the document's overblown inanity but pick up any creative brief or major rebranding document you've ever written and read it. Then multiply the idiocy you just read by about 100 and it makes perfect sense, given the size of the Pepsi account, the Arnell/Pepsi document is as hilariously verbose and mind-boggling as it is.
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- George Parker is out with his new book; The Ubiquitous Persuaders. Buy it now!
- Moo Tags. Yea, me too.
- Here are five must-have ingredients for any Steven Segal movie. It promotes the recent release of one of his DVDs. He still makes movies?
- Here's a parody of The New York Times Weekender commercial featuring Paul Rudd.
- And yes, like everyone else, we have to air Arnell Groups dirty laundry in the form of their hyper-pretentious, buzz word-happy, brand blather-filled brief for the work it did on the new Pepsi logo. Please Arnell, tell us the whole thing was a joke and you're all laughing at us now. Please?
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So, ya know, you're strolling down the beach like one of those idiots with a metal detector - which is just an excuse to ogle sunbathers in bikinis - and suddenly you see a dude decked out in ski wear sliding up the beach. Huh? Then one falls out of the sky and lands on your head. Huh?
Yes. Mammoth Mountain just got closer thanks to the addition of one hour flights from Los Angeles. From bikinis to moguls in one hour flat. Not bad at all.
Yes, the Super Bowl is Over. Yes, all those Doritos ads seem to have garnered all the love they'd hoped to achieve. And, yes, there are still a lot of consumer-generated Crash the Super Bowl commercials floating around. Here's one from Lavirale which makes fun for former President Bush's relationship with pretzels.
It's pretty clear why this one wasn't chosen for Super Bowl airing. Or why it's not even listed as a contender on the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl site.
Big tech geek fantasy: when clicks fall from the sky and deluge him with traffic, burying his torso and filling his mouth, each depressed pointer button a little piece of validation.
Like MacTeague's wife and her pile of gold coins. (Or, if you weren't an English major, like Scrooge McDuck and his swimming-pool vault.)
That's the imagery Vancouver-based hosting firm Peer1 channels in "Slacker," a video ad where a lazy techie fails to equip his company website for a click-through deluge. Enter said "deluge." The piece concludes, "Peer1: Fully scalable hosting solutions."
Problem, solution. Simple.
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When was the last time you saw a homeless person? Do you even remember? And if you do remember, you probably just walked right by, right? On behalf of the Weingart Homeless Center, LA-based agency David & Goliath set out to change that all too common behavior among the non-homeless.
The agency, along with photographer Ewan Burns, photographed 12 of the 70,000 homeless people in Los Angelos holding a cardboard sign on which each of them wrote, "Before you turn away, put yourself in my place."
The agency then made life-sized cardboard cut outs with the face removed and placed the cutouts near shopping centers in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.
Admirable work. Check out the video overview of the project.
The Ad Store just sent us a plethora of new Zappos spots for spring/summer and fall/winter 2009.
"Step into Zappos" picks up where "Put a Little Zappos in Your Day!" left off. The latter featured a chipper delivery guy bringing sunshine and rainbows to a neighborhood; these spots riff off the glee infusion you get when you finally open that package.
Underpants-clad customers are pictured either standing in a Zappos box or walking into one. Putting on their best Vanna Whites for the camera, they either reveal their purchases or lift the box over themselves -- at which point they are suddenly transformed into fully-dressed Citizens of Society.
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The new Kia Soul is so compelling you will want to look deeper. And to depict this in the most obvious way possible, Publicis/Toronto came up with "Peer Into a Soul."
Each spot tackles the concept with a different film genre, a gimmick meant to appeal to people who want something more from their car marketers.
The campaign DP is Robert Yeoman, who worked on The Royal Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic and The Squid and the Whale, so we naturally expected the pieces to ooze some sub-normal slice-of-lifishness -- like that feeling you get when a joke's been told but was so subtle you didn't laugh, and now all the hipsters know you Do Not Belong.
The humor here isn't quite that sublime (and for good reason -- they're car ads, after all), but the choice of music definitely oozes Yeoman.
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The YMCA is the place to be. You'll get a burn, you'll make really awesome platonic friends, and sometimes clowns work out there. Maybe.
An art director at Preston Kelly sent us the above-linked (and below-embedded) spots for YMCA, which under the slogan "Real people. Real fitness" hopes to reel in new members that:
1. Don't look like porn stars and/or Arnold Schwarzenegger in his 20s
2. Don't make sex noises on the treadmill
3. Aren't complete fitness bunnies
The natural result of this checklist of Things That May Potentially Turn You Off are these spots, where two workout buddies partake of YMCA's fitness buffet while saying quirky "real people" things, like "It's like a bear trap. Except it's a people trap. And the people trap's made of bears!"
Here is the part where you relate, because that guy is simple, and yet hilarious -- like you! Don't be ashamed; we're relating too.
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In a video from a guy who can only be described as the archetypal high school geek, 50 Cent takes a lashing for his continued penchant to sell out to any brand who will have him. From Vitamin Water to a line of men's cosmetics condoms to a video game to a movie, 505 cent is now on to sex toys.
Female First reports, "The sexy rapper is desperate to release a line of condoms and waterproof sex toys designed to excite his female fans and make them feel closer to his idols."
To which our archetypal high school geek reacts, "My God. 50 Cent is just whoring himself out. First he's doing commercials for Vitamin Water then its a make up line and then...he makes a dildo of his own dick? What else is he gonna do? Fiddy cent diapers fo yo little gangsta?"
Classic.
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