For the Ashlee Simpson generation, Unilever's hair care product ThermaSilk is being promoted, in Canada, with a microsite called Hit On My Guy, a dress-the-hottie site where women can create the man of their dreams all while subtly being branded with ThermaSilk. Like all dress-me sites, there's a send to a friend feature and a sweepstakes to win gift certificates, an iPod Shuffle and ThermaSilk products. It's basic. It's straight forward. Maybe it will sell some product along the way. If not, there's will, at least, be a bunch of freaky looking hotties floating from inbox to inbox.
Using the soon to be ubiquitous new online advertising unit, the New York Post has plastered Sex and the City all over its Page Six section background-style. The page contains logos, banners and a background image all designed to promote the release of the HBO series' DVD release. It's not a bad ad unit if you ask us. In fact, we dreamed up the same idea way back in 1996 but since we never did anything about it all we can do is cry in our puddle of spillt milk.
Online rep firm ICON Advertising Solutions has added eight new publishers to its roster including Savvy.com and SheKnows.com. Savvy Managing Director Jonathan Gravenor said, "We chose Icon because we share the same beliefs. It's not just about selling ad space, it's about creating dynamic new campaigns that work, and go well beyond traditional digital advertising." If an ad network can do that, then things certainly have changed. The company has also signed two night-lifestyle sites, AllNightClubs.com and Nitevibe.
Today, Weblogs Inc. blog Joystiq reports receiving a slew of emails last week, apparently from individual readers tipping the site to the appearance of the game Perfect Dark Zero at Wal-Mart's Xbox 360 kiosks over the weekends.
Joystiq tracked all the emails back to the same IP address - a dead giveaway all the emails, even though they came from different names and email addresses, came from the same place. This is standard practice for spoof/spam/sham marketers who haven't yet figured out how to spoof their IP address prior to sending their marketing spam. Would it have been so bad to simply send Joystiq and honest email from Perfect Dark Zero's PR agency or their ad agency telling the editor that, gee, your readers might find it interesting that the product will be demoed at Wal-Mart this weekend? Why bother with all the "tips" when a simple email would have done the trick. Joysiq, knowing its readers interest in this product, would have certainly written about it anyway without having to have been duped.
It's hard to grasp the mindset of some marketers who, facing a media landscape with more enthusiast and niche sites willing to gush at length about particular topics like never before, would stoop to such clandestine stealth methods when these sites are just dying to gush forth endlessly about their area of expertise. Clearly, some marketers remain clueless about weblogs, fan sites, or whatever name you want to slap on this whole new genre of consumer generated media. Wake up and smell the blog, marketers!
Tomorrow, Ford Motor Company will launch Where Will Zephyr Take You for its 2006 Lincoln Zephyr. It's a sweepstakes site with prizes such as trips to New York, Miami and LA to feats at fancy eateries while staying in Hyatt Hotels. The site will be promoted with ad banners on Sports Illustrated, CBSsportsonline, New York Times MSNBC and MSN. Offline advertising will include magazine inserts and moving sidewalk ads. Currently, the site contains product placeholder information so we have no idea how goos or bad the promo is. We'll check it out tomorrow.
Recently, Geico launched Golden Gecko, an effort to encourage people to submit their own 15 second ads for the insurance company. Here's one that's fairly funny an employs the usual "you idiot" payoff at the end.
To promote the TBS global warming awareness show, Earth to America, LA-based agency/production company Stun Creative has produced Earth to America, a 2-minute short starring Jack Black and directed by Jay Roach. It also features the Six Feet Under dead dad guy.
Currently running in theaters to raise global warming awareness, the short stars Black, doing his usual shtick, as an attorney who sues corporate America on behalf of the nation's children. Earth to America also promotes two upcoming events: a full-length comedy special of the same name that will air on TBS in November and a star-studded comedy showcase taking place on November 19, 2005, the final day of the HBO Comedy Festival in Las Vegas. The Earth to America project is Executive Produced by celeb environmentalist Laurie David.
Created by Arnold as one of its last pieces of work in its ten year relationship with the car maker and five separate production companies, Volkswagen has launched 120 :15 web films, each of which highlight an individual feature of the new 2006 Passat. Twenty five films launch earlier this month and 25 more are due next week. The films can be viewed on VW's home page.
According to Whois, his site may have been around since Summer but if it has been, we missed it. So there's our disclaimer for all your freaks who think nothing less than two seconds old should find its way to these pages. Anyway, Levi's Dockers division has launched Say No To Metro and goes to great lengths to spoof the whole metrosexual thing all while selling Dockers. The site is set up like one of those affliction sites with areas such as "Are You At Risk?", Awareness" and "Prescriptions." Prescriptions, of course, being Dockers clothing designed to cure all Metrosexual ills.
There's a reflex text in which images such as burger versus phoofy sandwiches and beer versus cosmopolitan choices are presented. There's a "Stop the Plucker" test in which the amount of eyebrow plucking determines ones level of Metrosexual-ness. And there's a "Guy-cologist" area in which a hottie nurse offers a host of exams. Even if the site was launched this past summer, wasn't the whole metrosexual thing over like a year ago?
On October 15, Scion launched a Halloween-themed campaign consisting of wild postings, billboards and online banners promoting the 2006 Scion with the headline "Trick and Treat." The billboards went up on high-traffic locations in Atlanta, Austin, Denver, Los Angeles, New York and Portland and the wild postings are now appearing in the same cities plus Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia and Sacramento. The online banners debuted on the sites on the same date and will run through October 31. The "trick" part of the trick or treat aspect of the campaign relates to many Scion buyer's desire to trick out their vehicles. The "treat" part relates to Scion's extended accessory options.
The campaign was created by ATTIK and can be viewed here.
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