American Copywriter perfectly sums up our feeling and, no doubt, the feelings of other who didn't see the value in jumping on the Million Dollar Homepage wagon. American Copywriter wallows, "Why didn't I think of it? Why why why?" we're in touch with that emotion.
Great Britain college student Alex Tew, creator of Million Dollar Homepage, has brought in $623,800 in ad revenue from selling various pixel-sized ads on MillionDollarHomepage and will, likely, reach his goal of one million dollars. Ashamedly, Tew a couple months ago, sent us a link to his page and we scoffed it off as just another Internet prank. Well, with egg on our face, we bow to the feet of the Million Dollar Homepage master and apologize profusely for not publicizing his effort way back when.
American Copywriter lists five psychological stages of dealing with Million Dollar Homepage psychosis from denial to resentment to rationalization to depression to, well, blogging about it. Tew is the man and he's even made all the way to the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
Either we suck at games or this thing just doesn't work so we'll let you give it a go. Mercury has launched an online game in which you set traps to prevent people from driving off with your new Mercury vehicle. Go ahead. See if you can save your car. OK, we did get a few points but we still suck.
Today, Buick launched a campaign, called "Beyond Precision," for its new 2006 Lucerne. Television spots focus on the exactitude with which the car is crafted which is not necessarily a new message but seems to work in this case. After all, there's not much else about a Buick that's all that exciting. At least we can be excited about the car's ad campaign.
A series of print ads will launch on Nov. 22 in USA TODAY and Nov. 23 in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal; and will run throughout the year in a variety of magazines and newspapers. Interactive inserts, coined "Buzz Prints," that feature product attributes of the Lucerne will begin running in publications in February. Additional campaign components include online advertising and promotional placements on prime time shows. Two of the spots can be viewed here and here.
more »
Of course, the edit has been fixed now, but some rogue Yahoo edit-bot saw fit to remove Vice President Cheney's first name from a Gawker Media Wonkette post that appeared on Yahoo as part of a recent content deal because Yahoo thought Wonkette was talking about another sort of Dick. We wonder if Yahoo, knowing Gawker Media's propensity to tell it like it is, slapped a filter on the deal so as to circumvent any nasty words finding their way onto its precious pages. Well, just like contextual advertising gone haywire during natural disasters, it appears bots can't handle dick the way humans can.
Promoting some kind of special plastic holiday packaging, Stockholm agency Great Works has created a microsite for Absolut featuring a quartet of singing Absolut bottles sharing drink recipes (which, as one commenter points out, is misspelled on the site) and singing about where Absolut, and the quartet's songs, can be bought. There's even a singing send to a friend feature.
On November 21, Borders Perrin Norrander will unveil a new advertising campaign for the Oregon State Lottery, promoting the new holiday scratch-it ticket, Fruitcake Cash. Yes, Fruitcake cash. The campaign will consist of television, radio and online. The spots spoof those cheesy, late night music compilation infomercials by highlighting mockeries like "The Spirit of Fruitcake Volume Four," "The Holidays Ain't Nuttin' Without My Fruitcake," and the 80s ballad, "What's That Fruitcake Doin' Under My Tree." Before the hokiness gets too much to take, the announcer interrupts the infomercial suggesting, "for a fruitcake gift they'll really love, give fruitcake cash."
We're told the fruitcake parody songs, composed and produced by Asche & Spencer, were so well received by the client, BPN created a complete CD including full-length versions of the songs featured in the commercials. So there you have it. The first of what will, surely, be a long line of spoofy, holiday-themed ad campaigns.
Not that it will necessarily curtail or make it any easier to find scumware peddlers but the Senate Commerce Committee is doing its best with its introduction of the SPY BLOCK act. The act, called the Software Principles Yielding Better Levels of Consumer Knowledge Act, was introduced yesterday to the Committee by Montana Republican Senator Conrad Burns and aims to make illegal the less than honest practices of adware and spyware companies. Practices such as endlessly looping pop ups, identity theft, changing browser settings, fake uninstalls and unclear installation information. Hopefully, this bill will less toothless than the recently signed California Spyware bill.
OK, OK. You million dollar homepage freaks have finally forced us to take notice of your silly, ridiculous, money-making schemes. We held out as long as we could, ignoring your idiocy but you've hooked us this time, tapping our weakness. For those who have been living under the proverbial rock, million dollar homepages sell individual pixels on a webpage to advertisers stupid enough to believe anyone will actually see their ad. Well, Million Pixel Booty is taking a similar approach but is luring advertisers and viewers with the time-tested, sex sells strategy and have offered up a hottie's ass on which to place ads.
So you got us. You got your press. Happy? Now go away and go back to suckering stooges with your dopey schemes.
Josh Mooney from Juxt tells us his agency recently launched a teen girl focused dynamic desktop application, called up2d8, for its client, Target. The application allows anyone to splash the Target brand all over their desktop along with photos, calendars, videos, contest, polls and Target products. Maybe it's just us but we can't remember the last time we saw our desktop what with all the open programs - which completely cover our desktop - required to actually do anything with a computer. but as we said, that's just us. Oh, and we're not teenagers anymore. Nice work, though.
While it's quite common for marketers to offer incentives to insure completion of a survey, the Hungarian office of PR firm Sawyer Miller has swept aside those less than motivating one dollar bill, Amazon coupon and free iTunes download offers for what really matters: a stripping hottie. Answer a question, off comes a piece of clothing. Get an answer wrong, no matter. Just keep clicking until you get the right answer and...off comes a piece of clothing. Of course, it's less of a survey and more of a presentation as there's only one correct answer to each question. Not that it matters but it has something to do with Hungarian economics. Have fun but turn the volume down if you're at work lest you want co-workers to think there's a lunchtime quickie rockin' your cube. Thanks, Rick.
|
|
