PETA certainly won't like this campaign but there are people out there who love the circus and want to see it stick around for a while. One such circus lover is David Wojdyla, president of Chicago ad agency & Wojdyla. Wojdyla created a poster campaign for two non-profit circus venues, the AI. Ringling Theater and the Circus World Museum both in Baraboo Wisconsin, birthplace of Albert, Otto, Alfred, Charles and John Ringling and the circus they founded in 1884.
The poster features AIbert Ringling along with Water For Elephants stars Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattison. The poster is s riff off another poster which features the five Ringling brothers.
The campaign touts the Baraboo premiere of Water For Elephants May 20 and aims to raise money for the two non-profit organizations that, together, celebrate circus history.
We missed this one when it came out a couple of weeks ago but thanks to Copyranter, who published it today, we can share it with you now. We all know Stride gum has done some interesting work over the years, most notably, the work it did with Matt Harding who traveled around the globe to do his strange and contagious dance with the people of the world...all sponsored by Stride. Seriously fun and moving stuff.
This time, the brand, working with JWT which, sadly, just made staff cuts today, is going a bit darker. In a commercial that centers on a woman who just lost her husband and travels home with his ashes only to have them fall to the floor to discover...well...just watch the commercial to find out.
It's no feel-good Matt Harding video but it does smack you with the brand's message; Stride gum lasts a very long time.
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Perhaps during the last week or so while fast forwarding through commercials, you may have caught a peek at the odd combination of Rachel Bilson and a box of condoms. You think to yourself, "condom ads on TV...no big deal. After all, TV is rife with penile stiffening products, why not condoms too?"
Had you paused and rewound to watch the commercial, you would have seen Bilson who, stuck in a traffic jam, decides to hop out of her car, run over the tops of other cars to chase an 18 wheeler filled with condoms.
Oh wait. Had you actually paid attention while watching the commercial you would have realized it wasn't a commercial for condoms at all. Rather it was Unilever's U.S. introduction of the very questionably (for this country) named Magnum ice cream.
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Online forum network CrowdGather is launching a new fragrance aimed at gamers and geeks who frequent online communities. Called Erox, the fragrance will contain a combination of human pheromones that are said to "increase feelings of arousal, excitement, social warmth and friendliness in both men and women.
CrowdGather hopes to combine social media with affiliate marketing to develop an online marketing strategy with mass appeal so that all the geeks who will, one day, inherit the earth will smell good when doing so.
Calling attention to the plight of small children and their place in the disturbing world of child sex trafficking and exploitation, comes this video from Love146, a group run by Rob Morris. In 2002, Morris, along with a few friends, traveled to Southeast Asia to see, first hand, what the trafficking of children looked like.
Morris was dismayed at what he saw. Children lined up behind a glass wall with numbers affixed to them. He stood there, along with other men from around the world, and watched as the children were bid on as if they were cattle at auction.
According to Love146, human trafficking is the second largest income generating syndicate in the world. In addition, two children are sold every minute. That's depressing.
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Writing on Strollerbaby, Rebecca Odes has an insightful take on the proliferation of brands selling products to young girls that are designed to make them look, well, less young. From padded bras to booty firming shoes, it would seem marketers are intent on turning 12 year olds into sexed up models.
Odes calls attention to a recent campaign from Skechers that promotes the brand's Shape Up sneakers for girls which, much like Reebok's ReTone sneakers, are designed to tone the thighs and butts of little girls.
And while Skechers says the campaign's message is "the same messaging as Michelle Obama's Get Moving campaign," Odes wonders why little boys don't need their thighs and butts toned as well.
We've written about this topic ad naseum wondering about the wisdom of marketers attempting to turn young girls into stripper-esque tweens and the industry's notion that using sex to sell is is a worthy business strategy.
What's the solution? It's simple. While sex and the use of it as a means of convincing someone to do something will never go away, marketers could very easily simply cease making sexualized products for children and stop glorifying and glamorizing a sexed up lifestyle to those under the age of 18.
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In acknowledgment of its creative achievements - in the form of the 50 Lions it has won over the past twenty years - Cannes will bestow the honor of Advertiser of the Year on Ikea. The award will be presented to Ikea Group Global Retail Manager Noel Wijsmans during the Festival in late June.
Ikea and its agencies are well known for their work which included the famed Crispin Porter + Bogusky-created Lamp ad that was awarded the Film Grand Prix in 2003. We thought the honor should have gone to Honda's Cog or Saturn's Sheet Metal that year but hey, that's just our opinion.
That said, there is no doubt the brand has done admirable work over the years and is absolutely deserving of this award.
So yea. Another flashmob. Who gives a crap, right? Well, no matter how lame, boring or amateurish, anything that features hot guys and girls in their shorts and bikinis is bound to attract at least a little attention. And that's exactly what this flashmob for PacSun got when they staged a flashmob at The Grove in LA.
The work is part of the brand's Dress Irresponsibly campaign which aims to hype the brand's focus on fun and creativity.
PacSun partnered with Passion Pit to remix a PacSun track titled "My Body's Not Your Toy" featuring La Roux's "I'm Not Your Toy" versus Young the Giant's "My Body." We are told this same flashmob played out in 15 other retail oocations across the nation at the same time.
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From the moment it starts, you can tell exactly what's going to happen in this Glass And A Half Full Productions/Ogilvy Johannesburg work for Cadbury. It follows the classic unexpected - except in advertising - behavioral shift a group not known for the unexpected suddenly displays as if they were magically set free from the bonds that confine them to their routine.
In this particular case, it's reclusive monks who spend their entire day is respectful silence and study. That is until a balloon falls from the ceiling, helium hilarity ensues and a monastery transforms into a dance club with monks raving to Flo Rida's Low.
And of the monks, Director Erik Van Wyk, speaking in classic adver-babble, said, "What this endearing group does so beautifully and simply, is reflect humanity back to us. The part of humanity we like." Um...maybe they were just glad to get up off their asses for a while.
Snark aside, we like the work. After all, who doesn't love seeing a group do something fun and uncommon?
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Amstel Light has launched a new campaign today which refocuses the brand's messaging from that of the beer's Amsterdam heritage to that of the beer's actual benefits; that it doesn't taste like a light beer. The campaign, shot by Dutch photographer Maarten de Groot, will include national print and online as well as radio and OOH in Boston.
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