Apparently, the streets of Milwaukee are vry dirty in Winter and a recent bank transit campiagn has taken advantage of that fact. For North Bank, Stir created several bus boards that appear dirty and have messages scrawled on the boards similar to scrawling a message on the back of a dirty car or a foggy window. The messages are responses to the boards' headlines that reflect what people might say after reading the headline. Our fav is "We don't hide fees" followed by "Does that cost extra?" See them all here.
We like ads that make a point. Sadly, so many don't and simply waste people's time or don't garner attention in the first place. This Truth campaign street ad (created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky...who, rumor tells us, just lost the account) consists of ice sculptures resembling pregnant women with plastic babies embedded in their bellies placed on street corners which, throughout the day, melt away leaving only the baby. A placard next to the sculptures reads, "Over 30 million (oops) children lose their moms to tobacco every day." Powerful. Of course one does have to question the effectiveness of an ad that takes hours to make its point. Oh wait, they've conveniently crammed the whole process into a :30. Smart thinking CP+B. The spots break January 22.
UPDATE: We received clarification in response to the account shift rumor that "Crispin has not lost the truth account and there is currently no agency review even planned. Also, Arnold Worldwide of Boston shares the account with CP+B."
And Google presses onward in its total colonization of our souls.
The name that changed online business relations has just leaped the cyber fence. Word on the street is, Google filed a patent for billboards of the interactive persuasion. They'll work like AdSense and advertisers can purchase ad space by computer.
The billboard system will advertise products available and in stock at local stores.
We dig this approach that Cargill took to illustrate how they create solutions for farmers. The spot is subtle, soothing and just a pinch witty: if we were barnyard animals an ice cream truck feed would get us pretty stoked too. Then again, the combination of music and food is unbeatable.
Apparently Cargill actually did travel a Polish town with a singing truck to hawk barnyard feed. That's not a job we'd want, but we salute the effort.
Direction credited to Raymond Bark of Gartner.
AllState, best known for its mild-mannered commercials and provocative slogan, "Are you in good hands?" conducts an out-of-character but well-orchestrated PR stunt with the help of Leo Burnett.
In the subsequent ad a man on a mission steals a vehicle and drives it surreally off the top of a Marina City parking garage in Chicago. And just when you're like "OMGWTFBBQ," that soothing meme of a tone takes over: "AllState. Are you in good hands?"
Nervous laughter all around.
This print ad, where a Grand Am teeters precariously over the edge of that same parking structure, follows up on the idea.
AllState, typically favouring the soberest of marketing stances, surprised us with this one. It's a little like God making a joke at our expense. We're sure they got some good buzz out of the deal and maybe even an account or two since people accidentally drive off narrow parking structures all the time.
If you felt particularly jipped after falling for Apple's April Fools joke, rest assured you weren't a total ass and space is indeed the final frontier for marketing.
That's right: for $5000 a pop, which is less than some TV and radio ad spots, convey your logo 20 miles up. We don't know how demographically sound that would be but at the very least a handful of geeky people will think you are cool.
This service comes courtesy of JP Aerospace, whose dream it is to give everybody a taste of space travel.
For their snazzy new Halo videoconferencing tool, DreamWorks and HP commission Goodby, Silverstein and Partners (who, by the way, just won US Agency of the Year courtesy of Adweek) to help make magic.
To illustrate the medium's visual benefits and the idea that people can work together without actually being together, the agency called on The Ebeling Group to create a series of vignettes meant to be played on HDTV split-screens at events and such.
The spots, directed and conceptualized by Tennant, are esoteric but pretty, which is what they were shooting for so we suppose they succeed. They also get that complex "work together without being together" idea out nicely. We haven't added the Halo videoconferencing system to our nighttime prayers, though.
One of the spots can be seen on The Ebeling Group's website. They're fun both to watch and listen to, and we can only imagine what it must be like trying to watch the ads in entirety when they're playing 20 feet above you on either side of your face. They must blow the mind. At the very least we figure people will stop, stare and do that awkward back-and-forth foot pivot for a second or two. That weird reaction on its own is almost worth putting ads up high and splitting them apart.
For client Vitae, the largest homeless shelter in the EU, McCann Portugal runs a rather unsettling holiday campaign in which people find a hollow-eyed homeless man in their trash bins with the appeal, "Help. So that no one have to come here for food."
Coming from a country in which passing change to the homeless is discouraged, we're hard-pressed to work out the call-to-action here. Do you give them a potted plant? Drive them to Vitae? Bake them a pie?
To promote their new laser-engineered series of Airmax sneaks, Nike uses laser-pierced metal as a print ad medium. Interesting idea even if the final product looks kind of like cave paintings. At least it lights up. We're in favour of anything, really, that lights up. Series credited to DDB Paris.
The Sopranos and A&E pair up for Suitcase of Cash, an intelligent though slightly labyrinthine campaign that aims both to court interactivity and get people more involved in their advertising (rather than having them turn in a bunch of manic self-aggrandizing homemade videos).
The game coincides with the January 10 premiere of the show and recalls McD's annual Monopoly contest, though it makes better use of multiple media. Users collect game pieces to arrange on a virtual gameboard.
The game pieces are banner, print and outdoor ads, which can be photographed and uploaded, then mailed to an address that uses military face recognition (kind of like MyHeritage?) to ID the piece in the photo. For online ads, users just need to click, which we're sure will generate higher numbers for everybody's media kits this year.
Our heads are spinning but it sounds like fun and a $100,000 grand prize ain't small pickin's. It would be awesomer still if there was an Assassin twist to it - knocking people off and taking their game pieces would be right up our alley and even better for the Soprano's tie-in.
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