What's a group of poor, starving Creative Circus students to do when they find out they've just won Cannes Future Lions and really, really need to get to France by Monday? They host a bake sale, of course, selling cookies for $500 a pop.
So if there are any altruistic types out there with a spare $6,000 or so laying around to help these winners make their way to Cannes, get in touch with them here. Oh, and if you have any cash left over after than, feel free to send the Adrants crew as well.
What? Wait? Flash mobs? That's so...four years ago. Oh but wait. We're talking about advertising here. Not exactly the industry that latches onto trendlets in a timely manner. But since the press release also dubs the stunt "performance art," I guess it's OK.
To promote Taco Bell's Fruitista Freeze, Philadelphia's LevLane hired actors costumed in iced-over beachwear with their skin tinted blue who would freeze in position for hours while a support team outside Citizens Bank Park last week during an MLB Phillies home game handed out coupons for the frozen tropical beverage. Also, a flash mob in street clothes would do the same for a few minutes.
Because the stunt was, apparently, so successful and because, it seems, LevLane is so nice, the next day they did another stunt for free. Last Thursday during lunch, all agency employees wore orange t-shirts and walked to Philadelphia's City Hall. On cue, the majority froze in place while a few others handed out more Frutista Freeze coupons. Ten minutes later the mob thawed, walked to nearby Love Park and refroze.
So there you have it. The flash mob lives on. Or is it performance art? Hmm.
Showtime did it to promote Dexter. Now Universal Motown is doing it to promote Ashanti's new CD. Like the Dexter promotion, which allowed people to send customized messages that appeared to be news reports of the recipient's death by serial murder.
In the Ashanti promotion, a customized news report can be created and sent to a friend. In the report, it's noted recent murders are linked to Ashanti's new single, "The Way That I Love You," which is about how a woman gets revenge on a cheating boyfriend
Yawn. Oh, sorry. There's nothing to yawn about Ashanti. Sorry.
To promote Tom of Finland, a new manly-man scent from Etat Libre d'Orange, Ogilvy/Paris attached naughty images to protruding public fixtures.
Tom of Finland was a gay comic and erotica artist dedicated to preserving his craft. The Ogilvy street images follow his aesthetic.
About the scent: Antoine Lie, who created the fragrance, says the perfume manifests "a guy coming out of a shower. He's clean, but not fragranced. And he puts on leather pants."
Um, okay then. Onto the ads (with captions thoughtfully imagineered by me):
o Hard-ons on the promenade
o Dent-resistant elephant tusk
o Length isn't everything
o Warholian meter maids. Got a quarter for the big boys?
o Leaning tower of indefatigable self-esteem
o "...I guess I'm just lucky, Tad. As far as I can tell, I'm the only man capable of hugging my best friend."
The campaign started running in San Francisco at the beginning of June. They also appeared in Paris' Marais, a big gay hot-spot, last weekend.
Thanks to in:fluencia for the tip-off, and to Adrants reader Chris for the video of the Parisian wheatpasters (linked above).
Antwerp residents: if you're wondering why firetrucks are suddenly ubiquitous, slow-moving and sponsored by Tabasco, it's because those aren't firetrucks.
It's just your local buses, dressed like the life-saving vehicles they never grew up to become.
The bus-as-firetruck campaign was put together by Duval Guillaume, which explained -- slowly, so we could understand -- that "Tabasco is so hot that you need a fire truck to cool down your mouth after you've eaten some."
I wonder if that ladder gets hop-ons.
Who says your trade show booth has to be perfectly complete by the time the first conference attendee walks in? Not online billing service Freshbooks which hired Boston artist Jazz Martin to paint a mural on the booth during the HOW Design show in Boston. It's a bit long, but here's a time-lapsed video of the booth's creation over the course of the conference.
Trend Hunter has put together a stellar list of the top 40 publicity stunts. Broken into categories such as Shock, Big Stuff, Web 2.0, celebrity stunts, Fake People and Improv, favorites such as Honda's skydiving escapades, PETA's body parts, Improv Everywhere's blue shirt Best Buy stunt and Papa John's Pizza peep hole thing are featured.
But, but but...where's Cartoon Network Adult Swim's Aqua Teen Hunger Force Boston Bomb Scare stunt? Surely, that's got to top a list such as this one.
Tonight, at 8:10PM on London's Channel 4, 19 skydivers will spend three minutes and 20 seconds attempting to spell out the word Honda in Britain's first live commercial. part of Honda's ongoing skydiving campaign, the ad will appear during the reality show Come Dine With Me and, as Honda Manager of Customer Communications said, "If it works, people will know who it's for. If it doesn't, they won't." Brave simplicity. Nice.
Here's hoping all 19 parachutes open successfully after the crew finishes its spelling exercise. Damn, it's almost that time there right now! Someone send us the video!
Here's the video.
Quebec's Federation of Milk Producers enlisted Touche! PHD to stock showroom refrigerators with milk cartons.
Mooooo.
See more shots of cartons in fridges. (If you wondered, the cartons say "lait." That means "milk.")
Design agency Sharp Communications is using temporary tattoos to promote how it "seamlessly blends HIGH OCTANE CREATIVE THOUGHT WITH BLUE CHIP STRATEGIC RIGOR." (Yeah, it was written just like that.)
The tats are objectively horrible. See the other two in the text below.
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