Somebody, Jeremy Abbett according to Whois, went out and created a site that pits the large holding companies (Old Ones) against the independents (Young Guns). Lining up fpr the Old Ones are WPP, Dentsu, Omnicom, Publicis and Interpublic. Stepping on the field for the Young Ones are W+K, CP+B, Naked, Mother and Strawberry Frog. It's a game of strength as the Young Guns hurl media bombs (TV, Print, Net and WOM) at the business-suited Old Guns hoping to eradicate their asses from the world. While it's funny, it's also a pretty clear representation of what's going on in the ad agency world right now.
As it turns out, Jeremy Abbett is a partner at Truth Dare Double Dare, a design studio that probably hopes to eradicate the world of both Young Guns and Old Guns so it can take over all creation of the earth's marketing.
Extreme skating company Roller Warehouse hopes to jump on whats left of the MySpace bandwagon with an interesting promotion. Roller Warehouse's Rid D tells us, "We've created a news ticker that can be pasted within any MySpace page, and are rewarding any MySpacers who use this ticker with a 5% discount on any purchase. We think this is a great buzz-marketing effort, and we've already seen a significant increase in sales since implementing the program." Reviewing any typical MySpace page, it's clear members love their widgets so this Roller Warehouse widget would feel right at home.
Unilever's Sure Sport is getting Football (soccer) fans all worked up with a new video clip featuring all manner of wild animals and site that has anything and everything a football fan cold possibly wish for. Spend some time with it.
Advertising Age has a very cool new design. It feels much more contemporary and easier to dive into. It's taken on a wider width as many recent relaunches have. The headlines are easier to read. The redesigned email newsletters look great too. The contents of the print edition will be available to subscribers Sunday night. It's all a welcome change.
OK, that's it for all you teen-loving 30/40-something men. With the launch of a new stalker awareness campaign, News Corp. hopes to make MySpace teens completely aware of your shenanigans and boot you back to women your own age. Created by the Ad Council in 2005, the campaign will blanket Fox properties MySpace, Fox network, FX, National Geographic and Fuel TV. With the ever-imaginative tagline, "Don't believe the type," the ads point people to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's center website which then links to a page specific to the campaign. On that page are links to the PSAa, a game that aims to teach kids about the sketchiness on online profiles and an area with information for parents.
Blogs, podcasts, video, online photo albums, social networks, do-it-yourself ad campaigns. Increasingly people are creating more content than "mainstream media" companies. Consumers are creating ads, editing existing ones and proliferating them over YouTube and other sharing services. People are gaining more control over content and even how a company's brand is perceived. Is this a good thing? Is it a fad? Can is be managed? Should it be managed? Should brands allow consumers to "co-op" their brand? Should everything be a "conversation"? Should we completely say goodbye to traditional, top-down brand management? Are brands jumping on the social/conversational bandwagon because they believe in it, it's the latest fad or they are just trying to appear cool? There's a lively forum discussion about this topic in our forum section. Check out the discussion there or give us your thoughts in comments.
This video promoting a text messaging service is extremely stupid not to mention it making viewers wait way, way, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long for the punchline which, itself, is also very stupid. Yea, yea, we know it's a riff on that Beautiful Agony site but it's a bad one. Whatever. It's from the UK. They like this stuff.
There's a lot of different ways to promote a TV show but bloody fighting Samurai cats isn't one we think we've seen before. COG1 has created Samurai Kittens to promote IFC's anime show Samuri 7. Give it a whirl but not if you are the type that gets all weepy when a kitty is faced with certain death by decapitation or severed limb.
Taking the whole ads-in-a-game theme to the next seemingly logical step, publishers of the game Project Entropia are making it possible for players to create their own ads within the game. Because of the game's focus on a virtual economy, the bying and selling of billboards seems to be a natural addition. Current player-created ads are promoting events and actions players have created in the game. Project Entropia is also part of Massive Inc.'s gaming ad network and will serve real ads purchased withing the network.
Last night, we received this from the folks over at M80: "I think you may be of some help to me. I'm reaching out to you on behalf of Comcast and M80 regarding the Slowskys TV commercials. Since you are a fan of The Slowskys, I thought that you might enjoy and/or be interested in posting a video of the Slowskys. In addition to the original Slowskys commercial, we have a special outtakes video exclusively for those who are willing to help us out. You can check it out here.
I feel special. Whatever. Well, the rest of you don't have to be "willing to help us out" because you can just link to the site from here. But, be warned. Either it's a sick joke playing off the so-called slowness of DSL or it's a really lame promotional effort because the site is slower than an army or turtles stuck in a pool of molasses.
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