Remember the creative department douchebag? This is him, cooler.
Iron Creative throws together the ultimate douchey holiday card personality, a sequel to last year's snowman story. Yeah, it's another holiday card. Yeah, we're as sick of them as you are. And yeah, we're going to keep throwing them up here since creatives seem to love making them.
In Iron Creative's defense, it is amusing to think of a snowman as the next big VC. Or covered in the limbs of writhing hot cartoon women. He's ice cold, baby. Ice cold.
Ross Simons Jewelers has launched another version of its long-running marriage proposal faux paux (did we spell that right?) promotion. Back in the day, videos of marriage proposals gone wrong (or right) were physically shipped to the brand and only a few people (the judges) got to see hundreds of versions of that awkward moment in life known as the marriage proposal. Now we have YouTube for public humiliation the world over. In a promotion called Proposal Gone Wrong, Ross Simons is offering $10,000 to the person who submits the best marriage proposal screw up.
Oddly enough, the promotion is entirely self-serving (not that all marketing isn't) in that the $10,000 doesn't come in the form of cash but in store credit. It might have been nice if that $10,000 was around before the engagement ring was actually purchased. Now, the $10,000 has to be spent on other body bling whether you want it or not. Oh wait, people love jewelery. Who are we kidding?
With the help of Lowe New York, XM Radio puts together a holiday card generator that's snazzier than your average. Shucking the white snow and holiday colours that one both expects and dismisses in holiday card campaigns, cards remain a sparing white-on-black with yellow flourishes. The nav is also stark and sparing.
We thought it was a neat concept - a few equal-opportunity greetings, a streamlined appearance, clever music, twitchy animals. We doff our caps to XM and Lowe for turning a stock campaign into something engaging without embarrassing themselves or indulging in overkill. That's surprisingly hard to do.
- As AdFreak points out, Chysler may want to revise the ad it has placed introducing the Time PErson of the Year. The ad's headline reads, "You might not be the Time Person of the Year." Oops.
- The controversial PayPerPost, a service that pays bloggers to write things about brands now requires those bloggers to make not of that on their blogs. Since the disclosure is not on a per post basis, this simply calls into question the merits of every single word ever mentioned on the blog.
- Esquire gives a nod to the 2003 Pop Montreal Festival poster with its current cover featuring George Clooney.
- Looks like Channel One, the company that pretends to educate kids but is all about delivering ads to them, is in trouble. Complaints have increased. Revenue is down. Regulation looms. A sale is possible.
- Yet another spoof of Dove's Evolution.
- Greenpeace continued its efforts at calling the public's attention to Apple's apparent less-than-green approach to manufacturing its computers by shining green lights on the the company's 5th Avenue store in New York City last Thursday night.
That nasty sickness contextual advertising just can seem to shake has reared its ugly head once again. This time, those reading about how 250 people got sick after eating at an Indianapolis Olive Garden restaurant are now encouraged to experience their own sickness first hand compliments of a Free Dinner for Two at the national restaurant chain. Oh yes, Olive Garden wouldn't think of making you pay to get sick at one of their restaurants. They want you to get sick for free. How thoughtful.
It looks like the entire creative department over at JWT inhaled some sort of new drug before they went to work on the agency' holiday card. Five videos follow a teer (tear) around and...well...we have absolutely no idea. All you JWTers care to enlighten our limited minds on your goal with this little wet guy?
Oh wait. Oh wait. It's coming to us now. A tear is made of water and water "moves" around the world in the form of rain, snow, sleet, etc. Apparently, that ties to the campaign's "May the Holiday's Move You" tagline. Do we have it, JWT? Huh? Huh?
Vaseline releases a couple of ads lauding the magic of skin. There are a couple of versions; one esoteric and mystical, the other slightly more fast-paced with a beat made of babble. We'll let you guess which is which.
How or why is it that the USA versions of ads always seem crasser and dumber than UK ones or ads for Europe in general? - Contributed by Angela Natividad
For Zvue, makers of handheld whatever-the-fucks, indy SF-based agency BuderEngel and Friends throw together a hopeful viral called Feet for Hands. They warned us first that there wasn't much cash in the deal but no amount of money can compensate us for the embarrassment we suffered having to sit through this story of a man with boots for hands dancing to "Look Out Weekend."
Of course the agency says it's doing well so what do we know? - Contributed by Angela Natividad
In case the U.K. serial killer who strips prostitutes of their clothing but leaves their jewelery behind was ever in need of some jewelery, John Christian Jewelers is right there to help. In fact, they're right there in the middle of a Guardian article about the murders so if he's reading his own press, John Christian Jewelers has made a great ad placement. Oh wait. They didn't have anything to do with it. It's just a bunch of pre-programed, contextually-motivated ad servers which are incapable of rendering any semblance of common sense. Click here to see the full story with the ad
Agency T3 wishes us a "happy doggone New Year" on pup-friendly holiday cards with corny wordplay along the lines of "click here for more, dawg." Upon selecting a dog you see a little video and are invited, among other things, to see its balls.
All in all the cards are all right, no more pointless than dog judo or dogs licking their balls to holiday music. You know, people get really fucking weird about dogs around this time of year. No, they don't even get weird; they get creepy. What's that about? - Contributed by Angela Natividad
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