We all know no one pays attention to political ads and so does WestWayne and the Ad Council which, together, have launched a PSA campaign to encourage young voters to get out and vote during the midterm elections. Maximizing the over usage of pointless political platitudes, the ads call attention to the very thing many political ads generate: apathy. At the same time, the ads point out the downside of apathy with the tagline, "If you're not voting then who are you electing?" See them all here.
The television PSAs are accompanied by radio ads as well as a website which will host all sorts of goodies such as ringtones, podcasts, e-cards and blogs for each of the mock candidates.
Adfreak's Tim Nudd points to a Kayak.com 13-spot campaign, one of which uses oil covered animals and the tagline "Explore Alaska. Before the big oil companies do" to promote travel to Alaska. The Brooklyn Brothers created the campaign which can be viewed here.
Most ad campaigns for poker sites are cheesy and focus on the winning rather than the elegance of the game. MansionPoker.net came to LA-based 72andSunny to change all that. The agency created a six spot television campaign illuminating the game's strategy and James Bond-ish sophistication which feature narration from actor Dougray Scott and appearances by MansionPoker's pro player Erica Schoenberg. The campaign is tagged "Welcome to the Game" and highlights the wit and competitive nature of the game. Two spots, War and Shambles broke July 2 and four more will follow over the next few months. Recently, poker seems to have gone from Dom Perignon (not Cristal you hipsters) to Budweiser. This campaign aims to change that.
While YouTube wanted to partner all along, NBC saw the existence of its content on YouTube as some sort of horrific abuse of copyright law and forced the video site to remove various NBC clips such as the famed "Lazy Sunday." Now, the net has reversed its line of thinking, realizing that keeping content off YouTube is similar to telling a 13 year old she can't use MySpace. In a deal between the two, NBC will have a branded area on YouTube where various network programming clips will be uploaded on a weekly basis insuring far better reach and distribution than the net using just its own site. NBC will also promote the partnership on-air including a contest which calls for people to submit their own promotional spots for The Office. The winner will get their submission aired in August during the show.
Not that any animal in their right mind would actually want to live in a zoo if they had the choice but these commercials for the Toronto Zoo would have us believe so. OK, so that statement was tinged with tree-hugging liberalism but would you want to live in a cage if you didn't have to? Anyway, there's three spots and they're sort of funny. There's also a website at which you can here other animals plea for a life in the zoo. They were created by Lowe Roche.
You know a company is adhering to those unwritten, politically correct rules which state "one must represent all ethnic groups in commercials" when the spots feature white people with a voice over read by a black. OK, that was crass but let's be blunt. It all sounds very forced sometimes. Maybe it's just that these spots from Pizza Hut aren't very good and that's making us get all uppity about all this PC stuff. Pardon our digression. We'll be back with regularly schedule advertising oddities in a moment.
Here's some visual beauty for all you creative types. For the first time in the U.S., Bombay Saphire gin is advertising itself as a gin and tonic ingredient on television. The campaign includes two spots. One features a martial artist carving a glass out of a block of ice to hold the gin and a second spot has an elephant gingerly stepping over and around martini glasses until she sniffs out the glass holding the Bombay. Oh sure, both are an art director's visual orgasm but they fit the brand perfectly in our humble, gin-drinking opinion. We'd buy the stuff even though recent entrants to the gin club, Hendricks and Q, are a bit more exciting to the pallet.
Oh, and just so we all understand it's not just spoiled celebs that cause "issues" on the set, Maya, the elephant in the spot, needed to have her sidekick, Methusalem, an aging camel with her at all times, .
In Slovakia, they have a unique way of informing people they should clean up after themselves when in public. It's gross. It's funny. It aired. It, albeit oddly, gets the message across. We'd love to have seen the dog trainer in action on this one.
Ah, yes. Another mysterious site with a countdown clock. Don't the creators of these sites, in this case, according to Whois information, Cincinnati Ohio-based hyperQuake, know this has been done a million times before? Do they think we will actually care what the countdown leads to? Are they so bold as to assume there is something unique about what they are about to announce? Oh wait. Of course they do. This is advertising and when we create cool campaigns like this we just know the entire world will be jonesing right along with us.
The countdown site, called Debunkify, is accompanied by a video on YouTube and billboards and TV ads in several Ohio locations. The billboards proclaim, "kill the myths before they kill you" and the site indicates all will be revealed July 10. OMG, we just can't wait. Can you? Yawn.
Hoping to achieve the ubiquitous popularity the Lance Armstrong Foundation Livestrong bracelet did, the Christopher Reeve Foundation has launched a campaign to promote its Superman Tag, a dog tag-like item with the Superman S that can be worn on a necklace, on a key chain or on clothing. The campaign, which will include print, online, PSAs, cinema ads, blogger outreach and a MySpace page, intends to leverage the upcoming Superman Returns movie to build additional awareness of the tags which will carry the tagline, "Go Forward." Proceeds from the sale of the tags will go to the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.
Warner Brothers has allowed the campaign to use the S symbol royalty free for the duration of the campiagn which will run until February 2008.Euro RSCG 4D created the campaign and is urging sites to donate ad space for the campaign. HealthOrbit and Prevention have. Adrants will be donating space as well. If you are so inclined, ad banners are available on the SupermanTag site.
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