In a recent DirecTV spot featuring footage from Star Trek VI William Shatner's reincarnation as a die-hard DirecTV enthusiast gets Trekkies all bent out of shape. Sure it's a fun ad, but what about the ethics of modifying his uniform, making Shatner slimmer and turning a DirecTV plug into a new generation's last impression of him?
This is way too lame - er, heavy for us but Adfreak does a good job of digging deep into the psychology of the Trekkie dilemma. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
The American Legacy Foundation, fresh out of its legal battles with the tobacco industry and in partnership with Arnold Worldwide, and Crispin Porter + Bogusky, has launched a new campaign entitled Infect Truth. The campaign consists of TV spots - airing on MTV, Comedy Central, G4 Tech TV, BET and others - and print as well as a host of digital elements including "Infections" in the form of screensavers, video, desktop themes, games and stickers all filled with juicy facts such as cigarettes containing sodium hydroxide, the same ingredient found in hair removal products. An email widget also allows people to send message written in back hair.
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While there might be some situations in which it's perfectly acceptable to impress one's girlfriend by saying, "Babe, this thing gets hard in 12 seconds," one might want to choose one's words a bit differently when explaining to a non-girlfriend the hard top of one's new Mazda MX-5 opens in 12 seconds. That concern didn't seem to bother Mazda Europe, it's agency JWT-Dusseldorf nor Maverick Media, the company that created three videos touting the 12 second closing time of the car's convertible hard top.
The campaign, called 12 Second Thriller consists of videos (with agonizingly slow load times), posters, wallpaper and tools to create your own non-sensical 12 second trailer. While the speed of up and down times may be fun to celebrate, it's the lasting durability that counts most.
GSD&M, working with Zugara along with WINDOWSEAT Pictures, has launched a website for the US Airforce that, through the use of training video footage, aims to demonstrate a typical day in the life of Airforce personnel. Called Do Something Amazing, it's hard hitting and enjoyable to watch. We especially like the navigational sound effects.
Maybe some of you remember that thing called CueCat which made it's appearance about seven years ago. The purpose of the device, a plastic, cat-shaped object that plugged into your computer, was to scan bar codes in ads and, if connected to the Internet, take you to a page that would deliver more information about the advertised product. It failed. Miserably. Now, we have AdLink, a service that does the same thing yet without that cumbersome plastic cat. We predict it will have about as much success at the CueCat did.
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"You Stank!" Or rather, "No Stank You!" is the rallying cry in a Washington State Health Department ant-smoking campaign that focuses on the negative social and cosmetic aspects of smoking. With lots of weird videos, interviews, TV spots, radio spots and a huge collection of downloadable, spreadable messages, the campaign is way more fun that the TRUTH campaign by far. Scare tactics ain't everything my friends. This one works.
That agency with the strange name - Wexley School for Girls - has come up with an interesting promotion for Microsoft's Windows Live Expo.Through a partnership with the band Presidents of the USA and MercyCorps, the program will also raise money for various global communities. The Presidents have created a new video based on their new song, "Zero Friction," with the help of Windows Live Expo. Every item featured in the video will be available on Live Expo for sale. All proceeds from the sales will benefit MercyCorps. Neat.
Random note. The mermaids in the middle of the video and pictured here work at Wexley School for Girls. Kinda makes us want to work there too.
- HP's "Personality Profile" in which profiles NCLS players cuts a bit too close the company's "profiling" company executives and journalists.
- Ariel, and all of us here at the "what the fuck is up with all this web 2.0 shit?" Adrants offices, wonders why two grown men spent almost an entire month bitching about giving proper "link love" and why they thought anyone would care.
- Boston-based dairy Hood just launched two :15s, created by VIA which you can view here.
- Marketers are stepping up efforts to plant ads in decoy files found on questionably legal peer to peer sharing sites.
- George Parker says of the new Lexmark campaign which has placed printers in public places, "I don't need a fucking printer in the middle of the Santa Monica freeway."
- One of the largest advertising discussion group lists, i-advertising has relaunched. Check it out.
We all know how closely politics is tied to sex. Using that interviews-out-of-context trick with a bunch of television actresses, this PSA plays on the gutter our dirty little minds like to visit when we hear the phrase "doing it." Then it pulls the punchline that of course none of us knew was coming by encouraging us to get out and vote.
Clever. We guess. Though we echo Adfreak's sentiment that there'll probably be little to get all creamed about come November 2008. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
- Brandweek interviewed Toyota Group VP Jim Farley, named the publication's Grand Marketer of the Year, who shared his ideas on what Toyota is dealing with from a marketing perspective and how he plans to move the car maker's marketing forward.
- Moe's Southwest Grill has hooked up with ViTrue for a make your own commercial contest which will be hosted on Sharkel and on the restaurant's site.
- "I am not satisfied with our current financial performance, and we intend to improve it," Yahoo's Terry Semel said. "We are not exploiting our considerable strengths as well as we should be, and we are committed to doing better."
- With interstitial comes ons and embedded text ads, job sites such as Monster and others are implementing ever more intrusive forms of advertising to keep their business model afloat.
- Running for governor in Texas is a kinky business.
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