VH1's reality series I Love New York gets pretty for its debut with agency Version2, which positions New York as a bachelorette and, in this representative spot, guides Lucy-in-the-Sky-eyed viewers through a menagerie of NY-loving suitors up to a mansion at its heart, where eager young guns will aim for penetration. Federico Saenz-Recio of the "Flavor of Love" series is credited for lead design and animation.
We dig the harmonious marriage between the ghetto fabulous and psychedelic qualities of the campaign, even if we doubt the show will move us education-wise. But hey, reality TV is just another way of saying the consumer is king, so what do we know?
Yahoo and Doritos marry up for a consumer-generated-media contest in which the best Doritos video to hit their site by mid-January gets aired on a coveted Super Bowl spot. A crass man at the bottom of the screen repeatedly shouts, "Watch and vote for your favourite Doritos commercial NOW!"
We were really into Doritos for a minute because they had that Japanese nut-crushing thing going on, but then they started littering and now they resort to the all-time laziest but most prevalent campaign style of the web 2.0 world: begging.
We're embarking on a new horizon in which we were supposed to work with consumers, not beg for creative at every open opportunity. Are we just going to hand over our cushy jobs and Foozball-ridden offices like that? Just like that? Come on, guys.
- The networks never saw a meme they didn't want to jump on so it is without surprise they're all slapping ads for their shows up on celeb site PerezHilton.
- Dammit, online customers are good for the music business!
- This Fall, New York City taxi cabs will begin showing NBC programming. Come on! We don't want to be distracted from the city's eye candy now do we?
- Anyone with the name Hamish McLennan is bound to attract attention and the Hamish McLennan that is the CEO of Y$R did just that with the terse firing of the agency's vp world creative director Michael Patti who was said to be under delivering.
- Conde Nast is going after brides-to-be on MySpace with a page offering Brides.com video and photo content.
You'd think a vehicle mark notoriously known for lacking originality would make at least a slight effort to step their game up if they've got major marketing dollars to throw behind an idea. Any mediocre idea can be prettied-up with cash. Even cutting another project up, tossing it in the air and making it slightly unrecognizable would be fair game, and it would only take five or six more minutes. But maybe that asks too much of Suzuki.
Make the Logo Bigger unpacks a delectable rant on Suzuki Films, a Suzuki marketing effort aimed at inspiring audiences to move from television to the 'net to find out what happens next in a sultry French Connection-style multi-platform drama called "The Briefcase," which suspiciously echoes BMW Films' "The Hire."
"Maybe it's fitting they copied [BMW] since Suzuki is an imitation of a real car," Bill snarls.
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- A case is made for the implementation of browser level ad filtering.
- New York City cabs get decked out like bulls to promote televised bull riding on cable channel Versus.
- Sprint is on the hunt for a new creative agency for its $1.6 billion creative account.
- Advertising Age's Jonah Bllom likes the new Wall Street Journal.
- Qwest won't jack you up, mobsters recycle, Mini beats SUV in bullfight and more new commercial in Advertising Age's TV Spot of the Week.
- Merrill Lynch says U.S. ad spending will increase 2.9 percent in 2007. Traditional slows but isn't dead.
- In response to FOX's cancellation of The O.C., tweens and teens mourn throughout the nation.
- England has now banned the advertising of cheese during children's programming.
- The Webber Dance School is has placed footstep patterns on treadmills in health club so people can try to learn the steps while working out on the treadmill. Nifty, indeed.
Blurry red squiggles are infected with wit in an episode of Budweiser's weird new Crowntown TV effort. We don't totally get it and even entertain the thought that it might be blinding us slowly, but we can't seem to stop watching. It doesn't help to wonder what passers-by must think as we snicker irrepressibly in front of a monitor of what looks like wiggly Rorschach testing units.
Asking for consumer opinions and airing them as ads is super trendy, and Monster hops on the clue train with Monster Works for Me, a campaign running on just about all iterations of traditional media to ask us why we do what we do.
Created by Brand|Content out of Boston, it "recognizes the multiple reasons why people work and the passion that drives them," says agency CEO Doug Gladstone. "In short, no matter what you do, or what you'd like to do, Monster has the tools and resources that can help you find the right match, so you can be successful at whatever you pursue."
While we can't claim it pulls much creative weight it certainly moves the long-dormant Monster in the right direction as people are more interested in what they have to say than what companies have to say anyway. And it definitely helps to play mirror. So cheers to Monster.
If you're into the whole cowboy-up, redneck, git 'r done scene and want to assume Danny Griego's new Wal-Mart Girls single is just a marketing ploy by his record label, Miramonte Records, to get his new album into Wal-Mart, you just might like this music video (does not seem to work with Firefox) featuring the sort of Wal-Mart girls you will certainly never see in an actual Wal-Mart. Except for the ones that dolled themselves up for Playboy. Ad Age couldn't help themselves.
The video aired twice as an ad during last week's Independence Bowl and is said to be a ploy to boost consumer demand at Wal-Mart forcing the overtly conservative retailer to allow hotpants and boobs onto their CD racks. Of course, the record label denies it's a ploy, Wal-Mart has distanced itself but did say it may carry the album if demand warrants.
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.
AdTunes, the site that tracks music used in advertising has highlighted what it believes to be the Top Ad Music of 2006. From the odd combination of that haunting Gary Jules rendition of Tears for Fear's Mad World featured in the movie Donnie Darko with a Gears of War commercial to that elevator music-ish tune by Royksopp called Remind Me featured in the Caveman Geico Airport commercial, the list brings together some of the best musical choices of the year.
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