Herpes to Go, Cewebrities in the Wild, Banging Power, Calacanis-Style Damage Control

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- @MackCollier, in the thick of SXSW, captures social media junkies in unnatural habitats.

- Trojan continues that slightly uncomfortable pro-STD reverse psychology thing with an a la carte booth. Samples of genital warts, anyone?

- Mark Cuban invests in poo-inducing pizza. Just read the story, man.

- More 'net-based teen angst.

- "Is this the most sexually explicit ad ever?" In a word, no. We're still kinda confused about what dude was doing with the Six Hour Power jar, and it isn't immediately clear if he's going to bang his secretary or just give her a really peppy memo. It could go either way ... but the reason why this ad fails is, we don't care where it goes.

- Why Jason Calacanis employed a felon -- or how to handle negative press.

by Angela Natividad    Mar-16-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Celebrity, Commercials, Events, Guerilla



Whatever Happened to Progressively Smaller Handsets?

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Riding Ad Land's current obsession with breaking into Guinness, Cricket has just produced the world's largest cell phone -- a gigantosaur Samsung Messager composed of "wood, metal, lights, wizardry, and love."

Video here.

The phone -- so big you risk cardiac arrest if you happen to be lying on it in vibrate mode -- kicks off Cricket's Get Some Respekt campaign. See it in person through March 15th in Chicago; the monster of mobile hits Philly on the 20th.

Orchestrated by Seattle's Cultural Engineers and events firm NEVERSTOP.

by Angela Natividad    Mar-12-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Events, Guerilla, Mobile/Wireless



Don't Just Dab Your Mouth; THINK.

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We've all heard the legend that JK Rowling sketched the birth of Harry Potter out on a diner napkin while scratching by on welfare. The iconic "I Love New York" campaign was supposedly conceived in similarly humble circumstances -- on somebody's crumpled serviette.

To leverage the power of this unlikely muse, the School of Visual Arts re-imagines diner napkins, toilet paper, sugar sachets and other incidental scraps as college-ruled paper.

Across the bottom of each sheet is the message, "Think. School of Visual Arts." Nice, simple and instantly-engaging. We wish we had some doodle-worthy napkin now, and we're not sure we even remember how to use a pen.

Work by Knarf/New York; more photos at Toxel.com.

by Angela Natividad    Mar-12-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Good, Guerilla



Testicular Awareness Goes Right for the Balls

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You gotta forgive the quality of the imagery at left, but we couldn't leave this one alone. For a Macedonian testicular cancer awareness campaign, grabby paper hands were laid down on public seats or positioned suggestively over barber's gowns, snatchin'-the-manpouch style.

The objective is to take the stigma away from checking your Holy Grail for testicular cancer. (Alternatively, I don't know how I'd feel if I put on a barber gown and looked down to find two disembodied hands cupped over my boobies. I guess I'd have no choice but to live with it.)

The blunt "Check Them" message also appeared on eggs -- which made us feel decidedly wary about picking any up in the near future.

Orchestrated by McCann Erickson for NGO Veritas Spiriti. The work is also shortlisted in the "Best Targeted Campaign" category of this year's Festival of Media Awards.

by Angela Natividad    Mar-11-09    
Topic: Campaigns, Cause, Good, Guerilla



Need a Scarf? Go to Seattle. They're Everywhere!

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Adrants reader Andre Malvensen was impressed with a Wexley School For Girls campaign for the Seattle Sounders and wrote, "The Seattle Sounders have hit one out of the park with their Scarf Seattle campaign. (www.ScarfSeattle.com) The premise is simple, either buy or print a Seattle Sounders Scarf, place it somewhere in Seattle, take a picture of it and submit it.  It's brilliant.  Not only do the fans get a sense of involvement, but it's also free advertising and marketing as the scarves pop up all over the place.  As the fans try and one up each other and the thing goes viral you even start to get news stories and publicity on it."

And for those who might complain about all those Sounders scarfs laying around Seattle, just think of them as a nice give for the homeless who live out in the cold.

by Steve Hall    Mar-10-09    
Topic: Guerilla



Sexting Suicide, Sad Pups for PETA, Evan Williams' Life in Longform

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- Adidas launches branded video hub. Welcome to Bandwagonsville!

- New Pearl Jam website by Freedom + Partners. Site includes a puzzle that lets users "unlock" songs from reissues of Ten. Puzzle completion can be timed; people can compete for speed.

- Evan Williams: just a poor but honest farmboy.

- BeanCastin' it up: "I'm for Sale" with Bill Green, John Wall and the spirit of Ben Kunz. (Take a shot every time I say "like" -- and thank me when you've got the goggles on tight.)

- Media that shapes Advergirl's worldview.

- Who Watches the Watchmen?

- Helping PETA help themselves.

- Sexting suicide.

by Angela Natividad    Mar- 9-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Guerilla, Strange



MoMA Shafts happycorp for ECD's Sins

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MoMA cut ties with happycorp after ECD/founder Doug Jaeger (kind of) admitted to enabling ad renegade Poster Boy to "vandalize" one of its subway print installations.

Well, that's not really all. He also hired a photographer to shoot him in front of them and expressed his interest in selling said photos.

MoMA's since shafted the agency and replaced the images. Too bad; we dug the final results. See Defaced Marilyn and Oil Spill Monet.

more »

by Angela Natividad    Mar- 5-09    
Topic: Agencies, Bad, Brands, Campaigns, Good, Guerilla



Legs Clamps 'Net, Old-School Twitterati, Thinky-Thinky Print Pieces

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- Creatives on Craigslist. Yeah, it's sad. But not as sad as disseminating bulky PDFs about creatives on Craigslist.

- Legs, the content folk responsible for Diesel's "Pete the Meat Puppet," just launched its own website. Careful, desk cogs: it's ornamented with naked people, floating slowly about at extremely close range. (Like, close enough to see corns and butt freckles. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.)

more »

by Angela Natividad    Mar- 4-09    
Topic: Agencies, Brands, Campaigns, Guerilla, Social, Sponsorship



Diesel's Five on Fifth: the Rabbit Hole You've Always Wanted

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For better or worse, Diesel knows how to seize attention. ("Pete the Meat Puppet" is STILL stuck in our heads, and there's no way on earth we can ever unwatch "XXX SFW.")

But its gaze-gathering talents aren't strictly 'net-based. To draw mass appeal to the grand opening of its Five on Fifth (Ave.) location, the label balked at the notion of a one-night celebu-fete. Too bland. Not exclusive enough. Instead, it threw together a hodgepodge of quirky personages -- think Mad Hatter's tea party for grownups -- and held multiple dinner parties at its storefront window.

more »

by Angela Natividad    Mar- 4-09    
Topic: Brands, Events, Good, Guerilla, Promotions



There is No Nudity in This Christina Aguilera Perfume Campaign

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When a campaign has the tagline, "Sometimes it's all you need to wear," some would assume the imagery accompanying the tagline would involved a degree of nudity. One would usually be right but not this time.

For a recent ambient campaign Tel-Aviv agency Mizbala did for Christina Aquilera's new perfume in Israel, the agency placed tens of thousands of clothes hangers with perfume samples attached around Tel-Aviv.

While we're sure someone cold have taken this down the more crass road of, say, nude models prancing around the street with vials of the pefume hung from their necks, we're guessing the hanger approach was a lot cheaper, much easier to manage and a bit less potentially offensive to some.

Here's a video highlighting the campaign.

by Steve Hall    Mar- 2-09    
Topic: Celebrity, Guerilla, Promotions