Ad Freak contends France made serious media history yesterday when at the stroke of midnight they officially lifted a ban preventing gaudy supermarket ads from chafing the eyes of its chic denizens. The moment was consummated when, moments after the ball drop into '07, an ad for cheap Systeme U washing powder debuted on the TF1 and M6 channels.
Opinions range from optimism as France makes a friendly leap toward the 21st century, and outraged notions of culture bastardization and handicaps for small businesses.
Cheery allies for the lift include Serge Papin, chairman of Systeme U. "This is a great opportunity," he said. "We have everything to gain from it." Well, obviously.
The release of the ban comes shortly after publicized concerns over the rampant commercialization of the Champs-Elysees, a wonderstreet rapidly devolving into strip mall fare. Looks like the charmed sophisticate haven is losing ground to, dare we say it? McDonaldization? Or is that a battle that's already been lost? Sometimes we fall behind.
Volvo's Free Will campaign is a collage of consumer opinion about its C30 hatchback. While this concept isn't new, airing negative views as adstuff (er, kind of) is.
The campaign also includes video shorts that viewers can rate upon seeing. One features an audience throwing tomatoes and heckling as a burlesque woman unveils the C30 on a theatre stage.
The campaign's gone strong in the UK for a year. Ford global ad director Tim Ellis says the effort aims to get the up-and-coming 25-35 demo to do some thinking about the C30 and develop a relationship with Volvo based more on honesty than is typical in brand relationships. "In research, we learned that people feel as if we are really talking directly to them, so they consume [campaign offerings] and engage [them] differently than other typical advertisements," he explained.
Cheers to Volvo for their bravery. We look forward to seeing how it turns out even if we don't find the C30 that cute. (See? Works on marketers too.)
Since no one's at the top of their game on January 2, including us, we're going to bring you this bit of irrelevant, innocuous news to ease you into the New Year. Ready? OK. Telephone poles across the nation are suffering from a new disease caused by the hundreds of staples people use to affix fliers to the poles. It's expected tree huggers everywhere will amass the streets of America with staple removers to combat this disease. Oh wait, telephone poles are dead trees. See. We told you this was a non-news item. Move along. There's nothing to see here.
We Matter decided to start the year off right with print ads on BART featuring a girl cutting her wrists for lack of attention.
"How the hell can they wish us a happy 2007 with images like that?" snarled the teenage BART passenger who was forced to stare at it for the whole ride.
Hey, at least we know people look at ads and even take them a little personally. Maybe next year We Matter will glam up the campaign by putting one of those "HAPPY 2007!" party hats on its not-so-optimistic New Year poster children.
Read the copy here. We dig wake-up call ads, especially since cutting is a topic in suburbia that's not much addressed (and should be). That revelers came across the campaign over the threshold of 2007 was just awkward timing.
RBLM's holiday card not only greeted us personally but also cleverly showcased their new creative effectiveness tool: the Scooter Challenge.
Find out how your work holds up streetside by uploading your own ads, then getting a view of how it looks from a scooter's perspective. RBLM admonishes detail-happy ad-heads to keep it simple. We agree, we like the idea and we dig how they got it out to us. Boy are those guys smart.
For Sportlife, a chewing gum that's big in Holland, Netherlands-based Fresh Creation orchestrates a stunning promotion called "Can You Make it to the Pack?" in which a skater is beamed doing tricks across billboards, buildings and other cityscapes.
For those who lament street peace jarred by deviant boarders the beamvertised, totally heedless skater must have been especially distracting, along the lines of "Goddamnit, now they move through walls." Must have been frustrating.
We dig the campaign and envision a world in which beamvertising becomes as much a part of city life as the lights on Times Square. Can you see it now? It would be next to impossible to drive. We'd all just walk around with that deer-in-headlights look on our faces all the time.
To honor the titans who paint their chests, dye their hair and live by the free throw during March Madness, Coke bestows a chance to take part in their human bracket or hit the Final Four in Atlanta with their Most Devoted Campaign.
Demonstrate your own love of the hoop by telling a story about college basketball or March Madness in general. It might help to paint your chest and scream. For our part we find the idea of being in a human bracket unappetizing and would rather sit in the way-way-back, act surly and throw shit in peace.
Kevin at PR Blog keeps us updated on that mistletoe demonstration he saw recently. Shortly after our original post DIAGEO expressed concern via e-mail because they worried about kids' exposure to the alcohol-related event.
Impressive follow-up - we remain as gratified with the campaign as we were when we heard about the heckling children.
We're also pleased about finally getting to see the swampy mistletoe man with our own eyes, which was all we cared about anyway. He doesn't much look like he's wearing his favourite suit but everyone else seems to be having fun.
In this collabo between Cunning and JWT, passers-by can text opinions about paparazzi and fitness fads in exchange for the chance to win a digicam or gym membership.
We've seen the live mannequin thing before and while it never ceases to be creepy we like the execution of the idea here. It has the potential to be comically obnoxious which off-sets the creepiness. And guess who this is for? Our opinion-courting friends at HSBC. Aww.
If you thought this was distracting then wait until you see the largest mobile billboard in the world, though you probably won't have a choice because it looks like a big fuckin' deal.
Brought to you by Truck Ads, purveyors of classy truck decor.
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