Remember those Little Thickburger commercials from last year? Riffing off that, Hardee's launched an ad generator app so fans could create their own Thickburger comparisons.
The company expected maybe one or two to shine, but it turns out about 16 spots turned out to be broadcast-quality. (Though when you think about it, it's a pretty tough formula to screw up: [Big thing. Little thing.] Extra points for wordplay.) See them here.
"And we didn't even offer them a million dollars. Or anything for that matter," Hardee's added, puffing its chest out for extra effect.
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With help from Cactus, ONE Step focuses on protecting the health of young children by encouraging smoker parents to go outside before lighting up.
The narration is soothing and the message doesn't direct smoking wholesale, although the smoke dragons and flesh-eating ravens -- which malevolently circle and eventually engulf the kiddies -- make things just uncomfortable enough.
We'll step outside, and we don't even have kids. Though this doesn't provide a gameplan for what to do when little kids walk by, but hey, those ones aren't yours.*
More on this at raisesmokefreekids.com.
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DIRECTV reminds us all of its relevance (...?) with help from fictional rival Cable Corp Inc. In this latest installment of boardroom bumbling, Cable Corp decides to battle DIRECTV with a new tagline: "Get Youthenized!"
Enter creepy puns. By Deutsch/LA.
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CollegeClickTV.com hopes to encourage more kids to get a college education -- and possibly get into football? -- by broadcasting soothing pro-college messages, spoken by President Obama, on network TV.
Hear everyone's favourite political personality wax poetic about the merits of an education -- and football -- while a static image reads, "And now a message about... COLLEGE ...the best investment that you can make." CollegeClickTV's URL appears at the end of each clip.
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On Super Bowl Sunday Hyundai launched "Angry Bosses," an ad that depicted corpos all over the world angrily shouting Hyundai! in various states of aneurysm-inducing rage.
At the end, a calm voiceover goes, "Win one little award, and suddenly everyone gets your name right. It's 'Hyundai', like 'Sunday'."
Never mind the screamers in the video. That last line, "It's 'Hyundai', like 'Sunday'," has incited the righteous indignation of at least one man, "Bernard in CT," who believes the idea of rhyming "Hyundai" with days of the week was his idea.
And damnit, he deserves the cred for it.
Letter and ad below.
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For Dante's Inferno, an Electronic Arts video game, G-Net Los Angeles got into bed with Psyop. The natural result is an ad we suspect might be more lush than the game itself.
We could be wrong, though. Any English major will tell you Dante had a helluva good time describing Hell, and the work he did merits equal dedication from agencies, production firms and game developers alike. Still, this is just one more reason why future generations will be reading fewer books: you think CGI's had its way with women? It's bringing literature to its knees.*
Going back to the ad: like we said, it's gorgeous, but probably could've done without the toothy worm things. It's just too dental-visit-gone-wrong. And while we understand every good Hell scenario needs a bad-ass horned demon master, the one here looks too much like a Balrog.
Once something invites a comparison to LotR, even accidentally, it's gonna have trouble standing up on its own. Even if it is the bloody Inferno.
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- Mediaedge:cia brokered a deal that'll result in two Campbell's Soup executives appearing in All My Children tomorrow. They'll be playing themselves. (Photo cred: ABC.)
- Mohegan Sun -- you know, the casino -- debuted its Stimulus, Recovery and Rebound Package. Think gambler giveaways, deep discounts and a "Business Bail Out" program that includes free gaming lessons for corporate clients.
- LA-based David&Goliath has rebranded. Check out their new look.
Belin Crazy Rings/Tubes/Starfish are essentially drinking snacks. We'd call them beer nuts but the branding material reads "l'apero cingle" -- aperitif snacks. Classy.
Anyway, to best target its market of casual at-home cocktailers, the French company is broadcasting this ad from its website and in banners on sites like MySpace. Our best guess is that they thought, "Drunk people engage in slightly malevolent, poorly thought-out hijinks all the time, so what if our snacks did too?!", and went zealously from there.
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Remember Boost Mobile, the Nextel spin-off that spent the last three years molesting street culture under the tagline "Where You At?"
Hip-hop's run out of milkable teats so Boost's taken shelter in the ironic, determinedly awkward humor of suburbia. And Skittles commercials.
"Coroner" and "Bicycle" explain how Boost Mobile rawks, not because the value proposition is good (would you rather have "no hidden fees" or play iPhone Ocarina?), but because some things out there are worse. The problem is, you're left with little more than nausea over the still-lingering memories of unkempt armpit hair and breakfast burritos a la Poe. You will have absolutely no memory of Boost's merits.
Which I guess is how it should be.
180LA's responsible for the ads, which fall under a campaign called UNwrong'D. AdFreak's right. That apostrophe -- the whole concept, really -- is like cyanide.
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We knew a guy who got drafted into the Ukrainian military. As the day of his departure drew closer, he turned into a person we hardly knew and who sort of freaked us out. Finally he confessed he was dodging the draft and leaving for London.
"But why?" we said.
"Ukrainian military makes people disappear," he hissed, looking all wild-eyed.
Having just seen this ad for the Ukrainian Army, we have serious doubts about that and resent that he lied to us. Ukraine's first line of defense turns ordinary folk into dangerously charismatic mofos, capable of seducing women of varying hairstyles away from men with BMWs. Said women will shower you with alabaster jugs of vodka and chase your tanks while making marriage contract innuendos. (Now you know why Tony Stewart picks the Russian chicks.)
You will also get a really vivid hat.
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