Not necessarily sure what to make of all of this but, if anything, when Joe Jaffe is involved, it's bound to be a gleeful tempest in a teacup though one which manages to capture quite a bit of attention as well as achieve marked significance and success. Jaffe asked everyone who was planning to buy his new book, Join the Conversation, yesterday on Amazon so that the book would climb the daily sales charts. And climb it did.
At 8:52AM, the book was listed at number 4,840. By 6:23PM, the book has risen to number 26 overall and the second most sold business book of the day behind Alan Greenspan's book. Whether or not cramming all his book sales into one day will make him more money is unclear but that doesn't matter to Jaffe. He wants to get people involved, more so that they normally would. He's turned the mundane process of buying a book into a communal event of sorts which is in complete alignment with the subject matter of his book.
Photobucket is running a slideshow contest called Freakin' Friends for Halloween.
The object is to create a photo slideshow of your and your friends embarking on the festivities. Here is a slideshow the PR girl created. Lots of pretty people. We're sure this would be really neat and funny if we knew who any of them were.
The prize is a TiVo HD Digital Video Recorder with a wireless adapter and three free months of service. (Here's to hoping that when the bills start coming, you don't remember where you got it from.)
Getting cheeky, the usually highbrow British Airways campaign goes for camp with a new site featuring comedian Pam Ann. Like that flight attendant you'd wish would wipe that annoyed look off her face, Pam Ann lightens things up a bit with mumbles, stumbles and pratfalls and she "auditions" to become a British Airlines flight attendant. Of course, she fails miserably but not before offering up a few laughs.
How do you promote a John/Joan Cusack movie about a kid who lives in a box and thinks he's from Mars? You launch a virtual time capsule project, of course. What time capsules have to do with the movie, we know not but the site lets you upload pictures and other family goodies to, supposedly, be stored digitally for another generation to view.
And the movie? Well, anything that puts siblings John and Joan together is usually pretty good. Add a dollop of Amanda Pet and you can't go wrong.
Now you can go green in everyday life without using Blackle or looking like a poser. (No offense to people who are actually craaaazy about the Gap Red campaign.)
Marketing for Good, a blog that author Drew Neisser hopes will give marketers a conscience (eh?), drew our attention to the Green PC initiative by iYogi.net.
Green PC is like an Ayurvedic cure for computers. For $9.99 these people assess your unit, develop a special plan tailored to your computing patterns, and furnish you with tactics and setting adjustments for maximizing your PC's energy efficiency.
Sounds easy enough. As long as nobody's trying to force our chakras open, we're in.
This short video was gleaned from Nokia's Go:Play press material.
Under the premise that three screens have dramatically changed human interaction and understanding, Nokia contends that its Nseries represents the fourth such screen. Charming (could be the organ music, though). Definitely more compelling than what came out of this, and let's not even talk about that maiming-computer thing they had going on.
Props to Fresh Creation for pointing it out.
OK, so we guess it's just like old school radio so we really shouldn't complain but do we really want to listen to short audio ads placed in front of the music we download? Music site We7 thinks so and has based their ad-supported music download service on it. As explained on the We7 site, audio ads are dynamically grafted onto the front of music tracks and albums based on a person's demographic profile.
Just yesterday, We7 announced a deal with the producers of the Michael Moore film Sicko which will be released in the UK October 26th. Audio ads for the film will preface downloaded music tracks.
We took issue with Evian's use of language in the last ad of theirs we covered, but the words on its virtual vending machine are just too weird not to pick at.
The machine reads, "Bring your skin to life." and "Get FREE skins!"
Not sure how it's possible, but before Evian, we haven't seen anybody talk of human skin and online skins so closely together.
Strange. And somehow very uncomfortable. (We're thinking Silence of the Lambs, except without the moths.)
Anyway, Evian actually is giving Second Life residents new skin when they buy a bottle of Evian water. According to the pressie, "the bodily presentation of the character then becomes more defined, having a better texture and is lit in a more flattering manner."
This is part of a mailer we received for Apple's corporate gift and rewards program, which, with lots of other catchy slogans, admonishes execs to "get results. Give Apple."
Few companies can ride unconditional youth acceptance of costly lifestyle products while simultaneously suggesting that enterprises also buy the same products en masse. And engraved!
But Apple will be the first to tell you it's the exception to many rules.
OMG. Just when we thought we'd written this line for the last time, we're gonna write it again: "Just when you thought every last inch of space had been covered with advertising, yet another appears." Most recently, it was the front of washing machines in laundromats. Now, it's the front of plows to promote Audi Canada's Quattro event which aims to get people into dealerships this week to try ot the vehicle.
Accompanied by radio, print and online, five snow plows were outfitted with signage and painted plows which read, "Winter is Coming" along with the dates of the event. As we've said every time before, it's only a matter of time before someone offers to paint our house for free as long as they can paint a giant logo on the front of the house. Lowe Roche created the campaign.
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