We really like when business to business advertising leave behind the idiotic metaphors that so pervasively fill their advertising and, instead, opt for something, well, more fun. For power plant and air traffic control software developer QNX, Fuel Industries created The Pocket Geek, an online game whereby the player acts as manager to a developer for a five day project. In the game, a set of management tools helps the manager keep the developer fed and his productivity up. Between each day, there's an IQ quiz. Unfortunately, we blew the pocket geek up after just two days. Guess we suck as a manger. It was fun though.
After spending some time with Cheetos' new Orange Underground, a full blown movement "committed to transforming sterile order into messy mayhem," its primary purpose of urging people to do wacky Random Acts of Cheetos that don't involve eating makes perfect sense. After all, Cheetos aren't even food. They're just a bunch of man-made chemicals mixed together and placed in a bag. This campaign is much like the Mentos/Diet Coke thing whereby people were urged to perform all manner of chemical wizardry as opposed to actually consuming the products, both questionable, at best, as to whether or not they, too, are actual foods.
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We used to be fans of Michel Gondry, the father of lush Levi's commercials and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But then he came out with The Science of Sleep and shattered our childlike faith in his ability to do no wrong.
We're willing to forgive him, though. Check out the website for Be Kind Rewind, his latest oeuvre, created by Sydney and Tequila Australia.
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We're not really sure who Rascal Flatts is. But they think milk rocks, and that's cool with us.
"Milk Rocks" is a contest that will be promoted online and on milk cartons nationwide, as well as on school lunchroom posters. Impressions are expected to hit one billion.
Oh, yeah. The terms of the contest: starting March 1, fans can hit milkrocks.com and upload videos of themselves karaoke-slaughtering a Rascal Flatts song of their choice. The winner gets a private meet-and-greet, a webcast concert with the band, and a meeting with a Lyric Street Records A&R rep.
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UK-based Five.tv and FIAT Automobiles have joined forces to promote the FIAT 500 online and outdoors. This may not be a huge deal Stateside, but it's a big deal in the UK, where OFCOM recently relaxed regulations for terrestrial channel sponsorship.
Fiat seized the moment and blew a wad for a whole evening on Five. Its FIAT 500 will also be unveiled at the British Airways London Eye on January 21st at 8pm.
The launch was timed to occur exactly 500 hours into 2008, which will be docked on a countdown clock on Five.tv via 10" and 20" commercials.
Now please. Are we really supposed to believe the only phrase the oh-so-witty copywriter had in mind when developing the BFD acronym for this Domino's Pizza website was Big Fantastic Deal? Oh to have been a fly on the wall in that concepting session. We can almost hear the high school boy humor through the conference room door as the dudes at Crispin Porter + Bogusky crafted this beauty.
Aside from all that, this pizza builder site is pretty cool. It's simple to use. It gives a great visual representation of the pizza you are creating. And, after you've finished playing around, you can get the thing delivered to your door. Not that that's anything new or anything but it's a whole lot more fun than just selecting from a printed menu.
If you've ever fantasized about a trip to Scotland, now may be the time to enter what may be the mother of all UGC contests: the Current and T-Mobile VCAM ("viewer-created ad messages") Assignment. We just watched an entry called "Leader of the Pack," which bored us stupid. But it did have bagpipe music.
Entries are accepted 'til Feb 25. If your video is worthy of Current airtime, you could win $1,000 -- slave wages in the ad industry, but who are we to judge.
If the sponsors want to air your ad elsewhere, you could get anywhere between $5,000 to $50,000. And yeah, somewhere in there is a free trip to Scotland. So start recording, squares.
These videos (1, 2, 3) parody both clueless focus group victims and anal spoonfeeding marketing moderators. It's for Diamond Shreddies, which, unlike boring square-shaped cereal, is diamond-shaped.
This really isn't any less lame than Millsberry adding a new charm to Lucky Charms cereal -- and we fall for that every time.
Thanks Charles for running them by us.
After seeing this LensCrafters ad on The New York Times homepage, one has to wonder if, perhaps, it was created specifically to get a bit of added awareness because, as one Adrants reader notes, it's somewhat "Obama-esque." Or, it could just be a random coincidence. But, it's not like marketers haven't done stuff like this before. See the ad in context on the NYT page here.
During the Wednesday night episode of American Idol, The United States Marine Corps will debut a commercial called America's Marines which supports the Our Marines website that tells the stories of current and former Marines and why they serve. The site also contains documentaries of the public's interaction with the Marines during the filming of the commercial and during other encounters. It's the website, more than the commercial itself, that offers a deeper look into the life of a Marine as well as America's appreciation for them even if they don't agree with the politics behind their deployment.
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