We All Bank With A Yellow Sousaphone...

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...a yellow sousaphone. Everybody! FirstBank of Lakewood, Colorado seems to be doing okay in times like these because they're spending a lot of money on free. Outdoor executions from TDA in Boulder include interstate billboards, urban locations and backlit airport dioramas. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. Online, rich media versions are also planned. Check out all the versions after the jump.

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by Bill Green    Sep- 3-09    
Topic: Campaigns, Magazine, Outdoor



Times Tough? Reward Your Stalwart Family -- with Upholstery!

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"It's funny how new furniture has a way of restoring people. Add something special to your home and experience it firsthand."

Awww. Tent cities have hardly folded up and we're already being hawked side tables. The piece at left comes from "Is it Home Yet?", a campaign/sweepstakes meant to bring gunshy spenders back into furniture showrooms.

The World Market Center Last Vegas, a showroom and exhibition space for the furniture industry, is pushing the effort, with help from collaborators like the National Home Furnishings Association and the Western Home Furnishing Association. In addition to a nationwide multimedia push, it will receive still more attention from widespread celebration of "National Home Furnishings Month" -- September, a traditional (but cozy!) period of change.

Note the ornaments of an industry calibrated for battle: a couch that, according to its materials tag, meets or exceeds "comfort and happiness standards"; and a slogan that appears on a rustic welcome mat. You can also expect to be heavily exposed to soft-touch shots of smiling unbroken families, cushy stuffed couches and other timeless accoutrements of the resilient nuclear unit.

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by Angela Natividad    Aug-24-09    
Topic: Bad, Campaigns, Online, Outdoor, Promotions, Trends and Culture



Why Paint Around it When You Can Coat it in Liquid Death?

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Clearex acne treatment gel works a lot like Clearasil acne treatment cream (or your fluoride-rich toothpaste of choice): you rub it onto your pimples at night, then pray they're dry enough to pop or scratch off by morning.

Grasping for a clever way to market the stuff, which you either do or don't have in your cabinet, agency Shalmor Avnon Amichay/Tel Aviv dreamed up this print campaign.

Each piece is an uncomfortably close close-up of a blemished individual. The offending red dots are camouflaged, age-five-at-the-boardwalk!-style, with festive but decidedly unsexy face art. Okay, the Pacman one was kinda rawkin'.

Tagline: "Don't hide it, clear it." Inelegant but straightforward.

by Angela Natividad    Aug-20-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Magazine, Outdoor



Apparently Black Sheep Drink Spiced Rum. Apparently.

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Hoping to profit from the unfortunate fact that liquor companies only focus on chic alcoholics or incurable ass-gawkers, Corby Distilleries launched a beverage for the other crowd.

Lamb's Black Sheep Spiced Rum greets life with a simple-enough print campaign featuring authoritative white wording at the foreground of a chalkboard -- where a black sheep first cuts his teeth, presumably while scrawling mediocre sentences across them as punishment.

The work's nothing special but we did cop a grin when we saw the piece that read "You think bacon comes from cows." That's not so much black-sheepy as ditzy. But that's cool, most of us are a little bit of both.

by Angela Natividad    Aug-20-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Outdoor, Poster



The McDonald's Anus Burger is Always A Good Laugh

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We know we're (actually it's just me) spelling challenged here at Adrants but our typos are usually pretty boring. While this typo (intentional or not) sent to us by a reader is certainly not the first time it's been made, it's hard to pass up a little bathroom humor every once in a while.

by Steve Hall    Aug-14-09    
Topic: Brands, Outdoor, Strange



Verizon Visits Adrants Office

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You just never know when you're going to run into a Verizon Street Team. While busy trying to get back into the swing of things today, we noticed several red-shirted types walking on the sidewalk outside our "office." We're like "Oh wait, we write about adverting and it's happening right in front of our eyes."

So we grabbed the trusty camera and headed out to the sidewalk. After listening to the obligatory FiOS pitch, we informed the pleasant gentleman we wouldn't be in town much longer and wouldn't need Verizon's services...except, of course for our phone which...we won't need much longer either since we're getting an iPhone and *have* to switch to AT&T. That is until Verizon supports the phone and we immediately switch back.

Wow, all that verbiage just to wrap around a picture of a Verizon Street Team. At least they didn't have a Verizon Dumb Dad characature lurking about trying to explain how FiOS can help with this cool new thing called the internet.

by Steve Hall    Aug- 7-09    
Topic: Outdoor



Newsflash! Rogue Potatoes Grow in Subway Tunnel!

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Yup. Those are potatoes growing out of the ceiling of Chicago's Jackson Tunnel. Lay's Potato Chips, with help from BBDO's Juniper Park, created the installation. The unit was developed as part of Lay's "Closer Than You Think" campaign which supports local farmers. An accompanying billboard on the sides of the tunnel reads, "Our potatoes are grown closer than you think."

We are told the campaign was created to show consumers that Lay's potatoes come from American farms and, likely, a local farm.

by Steve Hall    Aug- 4-09    
Topic: Outdoor



The Perfect Date: A Moonlit Evening...And A Giant McDonald's Logo

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There's advertising on rockets so why not on the moon? If Moon Publicity has its way, it'll use an army of small robots to create logos on the dusty surface of the moon which, presumably, will be visible from earth.

Now, instead of guys going all out to impress dates by professing their love with sky writing or blimp messaging, they can pay millions to have their message of love carved on the surface of the moon. Though we're thinking the lead time might result in certain professions of love becoming a bit out of date.

OK so the whole professing one's love to another on the moon is stupid but so is defacing the moon's surface with logos that will ruin its natural beauty. Did we say stupid? Yea, stupid.

by Steve Hall    Jul-22-09    
Topic: Outdoor, Worst



Newsflash! Oscar Mayer Weinermobile Crashes! Zero Injured!

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Well it was bound to happen eventually. A vehicle shaped like a giant hot dog can't drive around forever without the occasional mishap. Yes, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile's time was up and it found itself ass backwards inside the garage of a Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin home last Friday.

Oops.

Apparently, the driver was attempting to turn around and drove forward when she thought she was moving in reverse. Hey, with a vehicle shaped like that, it's hard to tell which end is the front and which is the back. Well, yea, we're quite sure the driver's seat faces in just one direction, forward, but give the lady a break., Driving a hot dog is, well, confusing to say the least.

by Steve Hall    Jul-19-09    
Topic: Brands, Outdoor, Strange



Dinosaurs Attack Billboards For Creation Museum

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We love this new billboard campaign for Petersburg, Kentucky-based Creation Museum, a "70,000 square foot museum brings the pages of the Bible to life." This particular campaign appears to promote the museum's Dinosaur Den.

Interestingly, and unlike many other museums, the Creation Museum touts the idea of natural selection versus evolution and downplays the "molecules-to-man" line of Darwinian thinking. Or at least that's how we interpret it.

The billboard campaign itself is perfect. After all, what do you think a dinosaur would do if a billboard got in its way?

by Steve Hall    Jul-16-09    
Topic: Outdoor