The discourse about ethics in advertising is getting picked up by people who'd like to help draw out that imaginary red line in a way that doesn't sound so whiny. Under the premise that society (and not just irate marketing bloggers) can now contribute to media messages, After These Messages does for the opinionated audience what Yelp did for hipsters who get their kicks bitching out posh restaurants. You log in, post an ad and then - get this - scale its ethical weight and relevance. The gauge includes questions like the following: If you created it, would you sleep well at night? Does it contribute to society? Will it bring good karma? Is it an effective piece of communication?
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To promote its new Exilm EX-1000 10.1 Mega Pixel camera, Casio has set up Too Much Detail, a sit that shows just how powerful the zooming capability of the camera is. In fact, the zooming capability of the camera is so powerful it can zoom and pan right past the couple disrobing in the foreground and onto the very old couple having a bit of their own fun in the background. The fun part is zooming and panning around the and past the foreground images to find out which of 12 pictures the old couple is in. Once that image has been located, you can enter a sweepstakes to win the camera.
The site does a great job illustrating the features of the camera, avoids boring tech and spec stuff and offers up a bit of fun at the same time. There's also a little clip that goes along with the site that reveals why finding thr old couple might be a bit embarrassing to the foreground hotties.
We all know that an agency's own website usually falls to the bottom of the list when it comes to priorities but the creators of this Indian agency's website forgot to bother with basic copywriting, proofreading, translation and, well, just about everything else when it crafted its homepage verbiage. Yes, yes, we shouldn't pick on a company for not knowing English when we Americans are the worst offenders at knowing other countries languages but a simple call to, well, anyone in any English speaking country could have helped these guys out quite a bit.
UPDATE: We've been had. Apparently, it's all just a witty promotional site for an LA-based agency called Kiwi.
Not that this particular movie needs any promotion since everyone's already sen it or they're already lined up for the DVD but Disney felt it necessary to put together, Dead Man's Mail, a "create a customized pirate and make it speak whatever you tell it to" promotion just in case the two people who haven't seen Pirates of the Caribbean 2 are aware of the DVD's release.
- OTO Trimax weight loss product demonstrates its slimming capabilities by wrapping a bus with a very creative, DDB Worldwide-created bus-squeezing wrap.
- The new Ubisoft video game is getting infomercial-style promotion in the form of John Badsky's Fifth Freedom.
- Blogging under the name "Corn Mash Whisky," this "27 year old southern born woman who fled nawth to New Yawk City in search of something new" shares with us a recent RFP she received from a cola brand which, more than most, takes itself way too seriously.
- Pamela Anderson has signed with Virgin Mobile to appear in a RKCR/Y&R-created commercial for the company's mobile TV service.
Like a clumsy butcher trying to trim the fat off a mouse, this virally-intended hack job is supposed to promote the new Nokia E-Series Smartphone by enabling one to create a personalized message from an overbearing company CEO and send it to a friend. Trouble is, like that annoying "Head On. Apply directly to the forehead" commercial, this creation is so bad...uh...oh wait...we didn't finish reading the release. OK. There it is. "The jerkiness of the clip transitions add nicely to the impersonal irony of the message." There. That explains the hack editing job. Irony.
The clip is being seeded by Rubber Republic which tells us there's an NDA that prevents them from telling us who created the piece. Hmm. A smart move. Wait until if and when it becomes popular, then take all the glory. If it fails, face saved.
While this Draft FCB Interactive-created site for Applebee's does a great job highlighting four new "Huge Flavor" dishes, the site (and every other American restaraunt site) should really be called Huge Portions since each featured dish looks like it could feed an entire family.
We know most MTV promotions are whacked but this Brazilian one whacks the ball way out of whack. Aside form potential references to Donnie Darko and that freakish bunny suit, we're guess the creative brief or this ad had two words in the "tone" section: fucking whacked. If we could read "Brazilian," we probably be able to better resolve the whole humping bunny thing with the intended goal of the spot.
Leveraging a previous commercial for its line of HDTV, Sony has released a collection of alternative endings to the original commercial so that...well...we don't know what becasue the endings are so stupid we lost track of what the ad was trying to accomplish. Oh but wait. The endings are riffs in actual movies and they choices tie into the tagline. Witty. It's always great fun to let the consumer think they're controlling things with these prepackaged, predetermined "optional endings" but sometimes it seems a lot of people forget what an ad is supposed to do: sell stuff. Oh but wait, maybe this does sell stuff but we didn't realize that until we watched the ads a few times. Oh but wait, that's why we have this thing called frequency.
- The Bay Area Interactive Group has launched its second season of its Big Sessions podcast with industry guru interviews.
- Netflix doesn't know how to improve its movie recommendation feature but it thinks there are people out there that can so the movie rental company is offering $1 million to anyone who can improve accuracy by 10 percent.
- Tokion's Fourth Annual Creativity Now Confernce will be talking place October 14 and 15 at Cooper Union in New York City.
- Here's a litte shoot the Altoids out of the sky timewaster for you.
- To promote the Sony Walkman (they still make that?) in Italy, Ebola Industries created a site, SaveYourEars, on which videos show people singing horribly out of tune in concert presumably to show using a Walkman will prevent youo from hearing this badness. We're not entirely sure since the site's in Italian.
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