Captain Morgan's Liquors Up Kid's Holiday

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We're sure this Captain Your Halloween promotion and accompanying cheesy DRTV-style commercial are supposed to be kitsch-filled fun but, we just don't see it. Perhaps it's seeing grown adults in Halloween costumes meant for kids. Perhaps it's a liquor company's trying to make a kid's holiday into an adult's holiday. Perhaps it's just Captain Morgans' attempt to be dumb in order to be seen ad funny when it's really just dumb in the first place.

by Steve Hall    Oct-16-06    
Topic: Bad, Commercials, Online, Strange



Google's YouTube Acquisition Kills uTube

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While everyone's fawning all over Google's purchase of YouTube, the poor guys over at pipe and tube equipment company Universal Tube whose web address is utube.com wish the party would end because, apparently, several million people can't tell the difference between YouTube and Utube causing the company's president Ralph Girkins to tell CNN, "It's killing us." Indeed it is. The site is currently available. Hey Google, help a little guy out. Send a spare server or three over to these guys so your $1.6 billion party doesn't put this guy out of business.

by Steve Hall    Oct-14-06    
Topic: Bad, Online, Strange



Borat Threatens Country's Image, Creates Myspace Ridden with Typos

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Borat, an anti-Semitic journalist personality invented by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, has riled up Kazakhstan with publicity attempts to generate interest in his upcoming movie. An irate President Nazarbayev, concerned about Westerners taking Borat seriously, assures us all that "contrary to Borat's claims, [Kazakhstan] is not a nation of drunken anti-Semites who treat their women worse than their donkeys." We're not really sure why this kind of thing is a political issue considering Fez has made us laugh over stereotypes for as long as "That 70's Show" has been around, but whatever, every country is different and has the right to decide what kind of news should be a diplomatic priority.

more »

by Angela Natividad    Oct-13-06    
Topic: Online, Promotions, Social



Photobooths, Tongues, Giggling Make Ice Cream Hot

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Ariel points us to the oddities of ice cream marketing in Europe. Ice cream company Magnum (and yes, there's all kinds of fun stuff you can read into that name) has set up a kind of photo booth for people (mostly attractive young women, natch) to film themselves eating a big ass Magnum ice cream bars...seductively and teasingly, of course. Sweet. Hmm. Makes Hood look positively church-going.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Good, Guerilla, Online, Strange



Viral Video Aggregation Site Keeps Tabs on Top Videos

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If your one of those people who just absolutely, positively has to know what viral video are the hottest at any given moment, you might want to give a service called Ulmo a try. UMLO, created by asabailey, crawls the web and tracks linking behavior to various video sites to produce an aggregated list of what's hot. On top right now is, of course, the goofy video of giddy YouTube billionaires, Chad and Steve, telling us how wonderfully happy they are and how YouTube will continue to be great and not change too much because of the Google acquisition. Um, yea.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Good, Online, Video, Viral



Play With Cheerleaders, Make Your Own Commercial

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If you work in advertising, love cheerleaders and think the Super Bowl rocks, what's not to like about CMT's Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders make your own commercial promotion for the network's Dallas Cowboys Cheeleaders Making the Team reality show? Right. Nothing. So have fun crafting your creation by dragging a droping cheerleaders arond the page until you have your masterpiece.

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Consumer Created, Good, Online



M&Ms Goes Dark, Cat Powers Chanel, Gen Y Spends

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- To promote it's Dark Chocolate M&M's, the company has launched a site one which 50 movie titles are hidden in a large image and represented by visual riddles.

- Karl Lagerfeld has signed singer/songwriter Cat Power (Chan Marshall) to front his line of Chanel jewelry.

- Night Agency has created an 80's style "adverband" RockdotRocks which will perform original songs with lyrics that praise its client, security software company Symantec.

- Gen Y (born 1980 to 2000) are spending more than any same aged generation before them.

- Deep Focus just snagged the PROMO Magazine PRO AWARD for Best Use of Interactive Media for The Sopranos: Crime. Organized. promotion (the Google Maps mashup).

by Steve Hall    Oct-12-06    
Topic: Celebrity, Online



Talent Zoo Unleashes Ad Industry's Pent Up Skank

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If you want to check out who's having office sex at the agency next door or who's grabbing ass to win new busines, check out TalentZoo's new section called the break room, a place where all the industry's nastiness can be shared by all. We particularly like the story from Becca who said, after a certain office activity, "My pumps made black marks on the wall."

Nice touch with the martini glass. Hmm, where have we seen that before?

by Steve Hall    Oct-11-06    
Topic: Agencies, Online, Racy



Edoc Laundry Scores Product Placement Coup on 'CSI:NY'

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Seattle startup Edoc Laundry, maker of coded t-shirts that give clues to episodic stories, will be the major storyline in tonight's episode of CSI:NY. The "placement" was not paid for. The producers found the Edoc Laundry concept so intriguing and appropriate for CSI, they just organically worked it in to the episode.

Launched in March, Edock Laundry uses coded messages hidden in its line of shirts to tell a covert story which is told on the Internet on the website and through forum postings. The premise for the CSI: NY show, titled "Hung Out to Dry," concerns a serial killer who uses trendy t-shirts to hide clues to his identity and motives for his killings. Edoc apparel is named and featured throughout the show, and designed four specially coded shirts that the episode's victims wear. Check out a clip of the show here which concisely explains how the whole Edoc Laundry thing works.

by Steve Hall    Oct-11-06    
Topic: Good, Online, Product Placement



GooTube Delivers Eyeballs, BBH NY Gets Makeover

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- Media buyers don't give a crap about the social media implication of the Google YouTube acquisition. It's just more eyeballs and one less insertion order.

- Toy designer enthusiast, painter, and Thunderdog-founder Tristan Eaton has decorated ad agency BBH's new headquarters in Tribecca.

- The American Association of Advertising Agencies has hired Golin Harris to provide PR support for the advertising industry. Good luck.

- Ironic Sans has a very creative twist on the political advertising requirement, "I'm Joe Politician and I approved this ad."

- Here's your opportunity to drag out that great ad you did that the AE or client killed and win an award for it. Because, after all, we now killed ads are much better than ads that actually get approved. On November 9 from 6P to 9P, the One Club Gallery will host "2006 Night f the Living Dead," an appreciation of the best killed ads.

- Stewart Rogers wonders whether Yoda was the copywriter on this nav-side ad.

by Steve Hall    Oct-11-06    
Topic: Agencies, Online, Video