Newcastle dips its toe into national print media with a gargantuan effort orchestrated by VitroRobertson. To add personality to the popular brown ale they're focusing on out-of-box interactive efforts, like these smoothie and tango ads promoting the beer's smoothness.
Billboard-to-print versions like Snake Farm and Golf Academy present the interactivity opportunity with phone numbers that, when called, allow consumers to audibly experience a smoothness authority lauding the beer.
Our local library had a similar call-in service for children who wanted stories read to them but whose parents were too busy. We hope there isn't any confusion. Imagine the potential havoc of all those latchkey kids calling beer people for a soothing morality tale.
As a guy with a girlfriend or a wife, you know you've found yourself in situations where, if you were to view them as a third party, you'd cringe and wonder what the hell happened to your manishness. That's the plight in which the guy in this Texas Rangers commercial finds himself. Thankfully, the campaign's tagline, "You could use some baseball," has the cure.
The campaign, created by Austin-based Door Number 3, consists of three television commercials and an outdoor effort (PDF).
With help from Dalla-based AdverTickets, GMC is offering free valet parking to shoppers in eight cities as part of a promotion for the car maker's new Acadia SUVation wagon crossover vehicle. shoppers in LA. Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and Tampa will be given tickets good for free valet parking. Also part of the promotion are Boom-Ads, wraps that cover the gates drivers who choose not to valet park must pass through to get into parking structures.
We think it's all well and good to help a struggling shopper out but hello? It's winter up here in the Northern half! We could certainly use the luxury of valet parking far more than all those warm staters who should enjoy walking from their car to the mall whereas those of us up here have to endure frostbite weather and the pummeling of winter winds. Something's wrong here.
While this campaign appears to be real, it wouldn't be far fetched to assume it's just another one of those drop and shoot deals where the campaign is captured photographically but never actually appears for any length of time. Apparently, Mumbai agency Everest Y&R placed what appear to be explosives inside a clear plastic bag on which copy reads, "It is obvious if your are alert. If you spot anything suspicious, please inform security. Dummy Explosives. A public service initiative by R Mall." Well, at least they stated the obvious. Still, we can't see these things making an appearance for any length of time before they get snapped up by security. And it goes without saying how Boston might react to this one.
In the pantheon of unintended hilarious road signage comes this image from Adrants reader Andy Malis who passed by a Maryland Friendly's on his way to work and simply had to turn around and capture the image for us. Family friendly Friendly's is now providing its patrons free sexual satisfaction as long as they buy five new sandwiches. We think this sign will be coming down soon.
Uh, oh. Marketers. Advertisers. Do not use this. Repeat. Do not use this. This being a technology that allows you to use lasers to put temporary graffiti on buildings from hundreds of feet away using a laser wand. If you do use it, you know what's going to happen. The entire world is going to look like Times Square because every building will be turned into a "temporary" billboard. Come on. Admit it. You know you can't resists this. Check out a video of it here.
CoolzOr features a very interesting guerrilla outdoor effort by Oklahoma Truck Supply which placed a mock up of an 18-wheeler vertically in the middle of a field which, or course, makes it stand out like a bald Britney. Yes, it's stunt marketing but, to us, it works. If you have a field and a spare 18-wheeler (or a mock up of such), why not turn it into a promotion. And yea, yea, yea, before you jump all over us telling us this sort of thing's been done before, we offer this thought. If we only wrote about new stuff, guess what? There wouldn't be anything to write about because, as you well know, it's all been done before. Thankfully, some re-hashed ideas are better than others which, again, thankfully, gives us something to write about.
Why? Why? Why? Why do brands launch these massive campaigns, spend all this money and make ads that don't say a thing about what the company does? Are there people in agencies that still think "branding" without meaningful substance works? Apparently, not after one of those day-long, mind-numbing vision, mission, essence, position self-serving mind fucks. After that, they're all sipping the Kool Aid without realizing the consumer wasn't in that meeting all day and has no idea what the hell the resulting brand messaging is trying to convey.
Sure, this Mobius award winning Bart Domination campaign for Kaiser Permanente will certainly force the company's name into the conscious and subconscious mind of everyone within eye sight but will they walk away having any idea what the company does? Oh wait. Yea. There's this thing called the Internet. Oh wait. There's no URL in the ad. Oh wait. There's this thing called Google. It helps you find stuff. Oh wait, Kaiser's name is impossible to spell. Even if one does find their way to the site, it doesn't even tell you what the company does. Not until you click in several levels or visit the far more helpful Wikipedia listing. And yes, we have heard of Kaiser Permanente before and many people in California, where the campaign is running, have as well but that's not the case with most other marketer's that go this route.
So why? Why? Why make your potential customer work when you only have a split second of their time? Why paint pretty pictures that are devoid of commercial messaging. This isn't art. It's advertising. Wallow in the beautiful non-descriptiveness of this campaign here (PDF).
Oh, and the explanation for why those tree trunks and their copy look fake: "Apparently the photos taken of the installation were not very good and someone thought they could be improved by photoshopping the copy that was on the pillars onto the already poor quality photos."
Nothing motivates like a good scare - just ask Karl Rove or mom and dad. Somebody must have tipped off the Red Cross, because based on the billboards they're posting in Buffalo, NY for campaign Prepare WNY, they're running amock with the tactic, toting arbitrary future dates (like Nov 9, 2009) as sites of terrorism.
Fortunately the zealous .org is no Oracle of Delphi. Catch Up Lady says once you get past the hype the site's pretty mundane, doling out advice on how to make survival kits and wrap gauze and such.
Everybody knows all you need to prepare for nuclear war is a pack of bacon band-aids. They don't just soothe wounds; they make you feel awesome, provide comic relief, and, once you get desperate enough, are attractive enough to eat.
As a sidenote, it's funny to us how the Red Cross of all organizations can do something so flagrantly tasteless while Cartoon Network gets penalized for a bunch of Lite Brite Mooninites. Really, what the fuck, man?
Balendu draws our attention to this promotion for Beyonce Knowles' upcoming tour in Australia, which is drawing controversy from the usual slew of anti-smoking groups and mean PC people. One such group actually contacted the Federal Dept of Health to say the ad acts as a tobacco promotion, thus breaching the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act.
We're surprised by the lifelong groomed artist's decision to use the old-fashioned cigarette holder, particularly because of strong negative sentiment about tobacco's effects (as if nobody knew before). Nonetheless, the act makes a statement and we're impressed by B's gumption. The untouchable Audrey would appreciate the political hat-tip, even if her immortal pose with the long cigarette is decidedly more chic.
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