Last week, writer Stephen Baker of BusinessWeek wrote a collaborative article with Twitter users. The compilation took several days and generated more than 250 contributions, including quotes and citizen reporting.
The result, "Why Twitter Matters," was published today. (Expect tons of linkbacks to individual tweets, not to mention gratuitous use of "tweet" itself.) Looks like the stream-of-thought community just won a new convert.
Hey, Baker. Think Twitter ex-architect Blaine Cook looks anything like Jesus?
In the course of his Presidency George W. Bush has both enraged and made us laugh, often at the same time. We've seen plenty of ways where his unique talent has manifested in reactionary advertising. Sometimes the results are funny, sometimes they piss us off, and often they do both at once.
Either way, it's become impossible to leave the States without a good sense of humour -- or an iron-on maple leaf.
Ivan of CreativeBits put together an invaluable collection of print ads where Bush is the star. This close to November, it almost makes us fond of the guy -- the way you grow fond of a stooge you're about to screw over in a drug bust.
more »
In specific, the Honda Pilot will steer you into the path of geriatric ballooning nudists, jetpack users and at least one guy trapped in a cement block. All will be male, and all will be slightly left of your comfort zone.
These unlikely Good Samaritan scenarios highlight the Pilot's merits: rearview camera, navigation with voice recognition and "surprising" fuel efficiency. None of that is terribly unique, but all of it is now lodged in my brain, if only so I can turn the ads into slow-night bar fodder.
But wait! There's print stuff too. See Youtility and Ride Ready, which are less creepy, but also less interesting. Agency: RPA.
Maybe because it's not hip to the existence of guerrilla gardening, Miracle-Gro is using '70s pop and a catchy new slogan to staple a sense of cool to its 60-year-old plant food product.
Under the wince-worthy slogan "It's Gro Time," this dated spot jams in print-supported phrases like "dirt manicure" and "tomato mojo" while gardeners jiggle bare midriffs and mist plants to "I Believe in Miracles (You Sexy Thing)."
God, how hopelessly lame. Thanks to ML Rogers, New York for all this quiet angst.
When I think of heading over to Borders or Barnes and Noble to pick up the latest copy of What Mobile Magazine, the first thing on my mind is always, always, always hot, sexy blondes with a Gwyneth Paltrow-ish come-hither look (which, much like Gwyneth herself isn't, though beautiful, all that come hither-ish after all) holding a mobile phone. Seriously. Doesn't everyone have that thought? (Thanks, George)
Oh look! It's yet another blah, blah, blah with a mini-skirted girl with blah, blah, blah, hiking up her skirt to blah, blah, blah, so we can see her legs to blah, blah, blah and to see the message on her thigh that blah, blah, blah for Dextro Energy which blah, blah, blah.
more »
And now, for the final act, Fiat will pull a rabbit out of a...tortoise shell? Damn. Why do marketers always have to go a mess with magical metaphors just to create strange looking ad campaigns? Oh well. All in good fun. Oh and to sell a few cars as well.
Along with a rabbit shacking up in tortoise shell, the campaign offer an owl sprouting peacock feathers and a spider sporting a beetle shell. Somehow this sells cars. Giovanni + DraftFcb, São Paulo created.
If you're one of those beach police dudes, you might want to make sure you take your keys out of your little beach cart before you inform a beachgoer they're on a private beach lest you want an angry walrus to drive off with it. That particular scenario is part of a Saatchi & Saatchi LA-created campaign for the beach protection cause group Surfrider.
Along with an amateur-style video with the walrus antics, which, let's be honest, is pretty lame, comes seafood packaging placed in local farmer's markets which don't contain fish, rather various collections of trash collected from the beach. Not exactly the sort of thing you'd want to see when digging through the cooler for that prefect cut of fish.
more »
American Shelf Life's Amanda Mooney sent in this ad seen on Ads of the World which she described as "creepy." And creepy it is. Often, nature's delicate balance isn't top of mind; particularly when it has to do with frogs and their affect on the world.
The ad, from Vancouver's TAXI, is for the Vancouver Aquarium and illustrates quite graphically what a world would look like if frogs suddenly disappeared. You see, frogs eat insects. Lot's of them and without frogs, that relaxing evening bath might not be so pleasant.
The Calgary Zoo is running a warped print campaign that depicts how animals must see people -- and their drool-worthy spawn -- from within the steel cages.
Might make you think twice about parading your kid around all the lions, tigers and bears. Ads of the World has more.
|
|
