Apparently, the Japanese have a substantial interest in several Australian beer brands and that's tightened the underwear of the conservation group Sea Shepard Society and Australia's Bluetongue Brewery who want the public to know which Australian beers are "whale safe." Apparently, the Japanese kill a lot of whales under the pretext of research. In a video found on YouTube and on the Whales Safe Beer website, a fat Japanese business man, in response to ordering the "full whale experience" at a restaurant, is served just that but we're sure it's not at all what he was expecting.
Listed on the Whales Safe Beer site are the beers Bluetoungue and the Sea Shepard Society say are not whale safe. These include Castlemaine, Emu, Hahn, James Squire, Southwark, Swan, Tooheys, West End and XXXX.
There's nothing sweeter than a holiday pairing between a monolithic moniker and the scruffy new brand whose platform lies in user appropriation of copyrighted material.
Yet somehow Coke and Youtube make it work for their "wishcast" vGreetings, a touching dual effort to spread goodwill among mankind.
Send video greetings with Coke-oriented staples of Americana like the polar bears. And if that's just not your hype, maybe a greeting from Youtube personality Geriatric1927 is. Big ups to nalts for pointing this in our direction. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
To milk that cocktail-soaked troupe orgy for all its worth, the teases at Impact Theatre are releasing monthly calendar pin-ups as desktop wallpapers. While we're forced to retract our admiration of how their cocktail book idea was so much better than the dated calendar idea, the troupe is redeemed by the fact that they're only releasing the calendar one sheet at a time. Baring it all slowly is a fine art.
The pin-up girls are real-live Berkeley women so arm yourself with airbrush if you can't roll with it. Then again, Dove pushed the crap out of that Campaign for Real Beauty thing so this could work very much in their favor. Be the judge for January. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
This has Wexley School for Girls written all over it. Oh wait, of course it does...because they did it. They created it for MSN Search. Using the kooky infomercial format and several of its stars, Anthony Sullivan, Matthew Lesko and Tony Little, Infomercial Madness pumps up MSN Search informercial-style and offers visitors the chance to make their own promotional informercial. It's all a bit cheesy but, then again, we're talking about the cheesiest form of advertising here.
In Altoids Factory, which looks suspiciously like a Chinese sweatshop, assist two little men in the hefty task of turning plain Altoids into sour ones by creating clusters beside the proper packaging. The game is mystifying as we couldn't begin to guess what some of the packages are supposed to represent and thus wasted a lot of time putting 'toids beside the wrong containers resulting in no transformation of any kind.
Keep your dirty dealings to yourself, PR guy Al Toid. We will not take part in your shady time-wasting practices. Oh, and your music sucks too. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
- Kid runs away from home, forgets passport, TV show promoted.
- Alex Bogusky gets his elf on over at Office Max.
- If you're going to spoof a Mac/PC ad for your holiday card, the least you could do what make it good. TM Advertising didn't.
- Joe Jaffe examines the long, slow death of the portal.
At this week's Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago, Jim Hedger from Webmaster Radio detailedhow Google is serving AdWords ads to terrorist sites within the company's social networking site Orkut. Some think it's malicious. Others think Google can't possibly monitor every single site in the world for content. Hedger also discussed how money earned from click fraud on these sites is "supporting" terrorism. You decide. Is there anything Google can or should do to minimize this?
In another attempt to keep Canada busy, Ontario-based Fuel Industries creates the following advergame for Johnson and Johnson.
Mr. Reach and the Mouth of Mystery has our hero Mr. Reach pursuing danger of all sizes and shapes to save his buddy Jerry the narrator. Both are dormant TV personalities from the 80's and 90's. The site calls this "a story filled with secrets, romance, and adventure that dates back almost three hundred years... a story that could actually hold the key to the very answers you are seeking."
Our only question is whether all this romance and adventure and shit takes place inside our mouths. Because that's normally where toothbrushes fight injustices of all kinds - in our mouths. And if the answer is yes, this takes place in our mouths, oh man. That's a porno spoof just waiting to happen. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
With the appropriate acronym, S.H.I.T, Via's Santa Hunters Investigative Team is a collection of videos that documents the agency's search for the elusive Santa Clause. It's the agency's version of its holiday card for clients and friends. Our favorite is the downloadable "We are the S.H.I.T" buddy icon.
Best Buy has done a fantastic job making it easier for people to choose the right gift this holiday season. Called the Wow Factor Finder, this website offers gift ideas based on a short survey about the person the purchased gift will be for. There is also a large collection of videos that have been placed on YouTube that detail particular products and for whom they might make a good gift. It's well thought out. It's not fancy. It's just straight forward advice many people need at this time of year.
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