Clinging for it its own life at the expense of the lives of others whom it feels should perceive smoking as a glamorous activity rather than the killer it is, R.J. Reynolds in launching a fancy new brand of cigarettes called Marshall McGearty and supporting the brand with a hipster lounge in Chicago. As if completely oblivious to the past 20 years worth of research highlighting the killing qualities of cancer sticks, Larry McGearty, CD at RJR agency Gyro Worldwide told Ad Age, "No one has done this before. Nobody has tried to create romance in the industry and take it to the next level." McGearty and the other pompous soul who's name is on the brand, RJR stench guru Jerry Marshal cooked up the idea several years ago realizing many other categories of social vices had high end brands that were successful and figured why should cigarettes be left out of that game.
Oh sure, everyone should be free to choose their on manner of death but at least in American society, the whole smoking thing is over. It had it's day. It's done. Clearly, it's not a healthy thing to engage in and eradicating it from the earth wouldn't be such a bad thing. Oh wait, then everyone will want to ban alcohol, coffee and all those other pleasantly mood-altering but health challenged substances we all enjoy from time to time. That said, we just don't think this one's going to go very far. You can see two of the ads here and here.
Ever the guy's guide to being a guy, Maxim is unhinging itself once again to the Super Bowl hoards with its Maxim Rock City Super Bowl party. Coors Lite will have the beer. Cadillac will have the cars to drool over. Absolut will get you drunk with The Who's Tommy and Reebok will clothe you with tee's, roller skates and sneakers.
Sporting News and Fox Sports Net have teamed to create the "Best Damn Guide to Football," a guide to all things football, sponsored by Coca-Cola North America's Full Throttle Energy Drink. Starting this week, three million copies of the 12-page, 4x6-inch guide will be distributed for free at convenience stores across the country when customers purchase Full Throttle. The booklet features short items and articles that range from Super Bowl history to best player nicknames, tailgating recipes and advice for throwing an "estrogen-free" Super Bowl Party.
The "Best Damn Sports Show Period" hosts Chris Rose, John Salley, Rodney Peete and Rob Dibble also share their opinions about the most important football facts, as well as the hottest cheerleaders. The guide will also be inserted in Sporting News magazine's February 3rd Super Bowl preview issue, hitting newsstands on January 25th.
AdPulp points us to an ad placed in AdWeek by Exclusive Resorts outlining the success of its recent advertising and thanking its agency, DDB Seattle, for the work it did on the account. AdPulp hopes, as do we, that our industry isn't completely made up of selfless, ego-driven cretins and that this isn't some sort of prank by DDB to achieve a clandestine, third-party high-five by placing the ad itself.
When the Magazine Publishers of America launched an ad campaign that illustrated even though life would be very different in the future and that people would still be reading magazines, online magazine ZOOZOOM spoofed the campaign and talked about how life is right now and that people are reading magazines online right now. ZOOZOOM has extended that spoof into a real campaign, taglined "Doing It," which shows people online in various scenes. There's also a video that illustrates how magazines aren't even good at killing a fly anymore.
In a perfect alignment, Budweiser has signed on as exclusive promotional sponsor of Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit issue and will also team with SI supermodel Molly Sims who will appear in the brewer's point of sale material. Budweiser will host pre-issue promotional parties in 50 cities on February 13. Budweiser will also place a six-page fold out in the issue featuring FOX Sports Best Damn Sports Show Period hottie Leann Tweeden.
Taking over for Nicole Ritchie and DJ AM, the cast of MTV's Laguna Beach will be featured in the Spring 2006 ad campaign for fashion label Bongo. Cast members Alex Murrel, Jason Wahler, Lauren Conrad, Stephan Colletti, Kristin Cavallari and Tallan Torriero will begin appearing in print ads in Seventeen, Teen People, Us Weekly, Star and Teen Vogue among others. Online will accompany print.
Dari Marder, Creative Director, BONGO, explains the campaign, "The Bongo demographic is the MTV viewer, so we could not think of a better way to reach our consumer. The concept behind the campaign is a party. So we rented an amazing mansion on PCH in Santa Monica, hired an Orange County band, 'The Colour' and let the gang do what came naturally. Alex, Jason, Lauren, Stephan, Kristin and Tallan had a blast on set and it comes through in the campaign. Alex who has an album coming out this spring got on stage with the band and sang, while the boys got a little carried away by pushing each other in the pool."
We know Lynx. You know Lynx. Oh, maybe you don't. In the U.K., it's Lynx. It's Axe here in the States. But you know their deal. Hotness sells. Now, we guess dirty women do too.
Advertising Goodness calls our attention to a couple self-promotional ads that McCann-Eriskson created. With imagery that features well known icons, the ads, very simply, make a powerful and convincing statement. We like.
Time Magazine is promoting its Person of the Year issue on the Reuters board in New York's Times Square. As part of the promotion, developed by Fallon, the first 50,000 people who submit their photo will, after review, be shown on the 45 foot tall electronic display at 43rd Street and 7th Avenue. There will also be photographers, who will beam photos of selected people to the board, roaming Times Square from 12 Noon until 3PM each day until December 8. Each headshot will be framed in Time Magazine's Iconic red border on a mock Time Person of the Year cover.
People don't have to actually be in Times Square to see their headshots displayed - a digital camera will snap photos of each new image as it is displayed, and will place these photos in a searchable database online at www.impoy.com. Photos can be emailed, printed and shared with friends and family. 50,000 headshots will rotate through the display along with real Person of the Year candidates such as Lance Armstrong, Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, Bono and J.K. Rowling. The display will ask passersby who they would choose to be Time's 2005 Person of the Year.
The promotion, presented by Chrysler, will run for a total of 6,000 minutes from Dec. 1 - Dec. 19 on The Reuters Sign in Times Square. We submitted our photo. You should too.
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