In a clever bit of marketing, SanDisk has launched a site called iDon't to promote its new Sansea e200 MP3 player. The approach is a snipe at the ubiquitous iPod and features links to other anti-iPod sites as well as schwag, posters, templates and chat icons, all of which carry the iDon't anti-iPod message. Of course, to be complete, there's a weblog on which Da Sheep Herder will continue to spread the iDon't propaganda. No that anything's going to knock the iPod out of its top spot but this is, by far, the best marketing effort to have taken on the iPod. The site must be making the rounds because it just became unavailable. Perhaps it's on the receiving end of come Boing Boing, Digg, Fark, Slashdot action.
Our spies tell us StrawberryFrog has created an online campaign for MSN and Sprite called Exposure. It's a site the agency created to highlight work from three different groups of kids: graf artists, a basketball team and a band. Each person is making a video (or it's being made for them) about who they are, what they do, what they stand for, how they think. The video are then edited and placed on the site. We're told new content will be added to the site over the next six weeks. It's sort of a cross between reality TV, documentary-style video and a blog of sorts. Each person has an MSN Spaces blog as well.
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In February of this year, a blog called Spacecadetz launched. The purpose of the blog is to highlight some of the best MySpace content from profiles to videos to new features to events. Currently, the blog has an interview with Al Cabino, the man behind a petition that asks Nike to bring back McFlys, the sneakers featured in the Michael J. Fox movie Back to the Future II. Cabino, who's coined the term "sneaker activism" doesn't want to wait until 2015, the year rumor has it Nike will, perhaps, introduce McFlys to the public. Cabino wants the kicks now and has launched a vigorous campaign to get Nike's attention.
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B.L. Ochman has launched Ethics Crisis, a weblog for SRF Global Translations which specializes in multilanguage translations and printing of corporate compliance materials, brochures, marketing and advertising materials for multinational companies. With the launch of the blog, Ochman hopes to bring together the company's marketing, ecommerce and customer feedback. Coveroing the broad topic of business ethincs, the blog will report on global business ethics issues and offer readers the ability to anonymously confess unethical things they have done in business as well as rate the severity of other's confessions. For SRF Global Translation customer, the blog also serves as a means through which customers can obtain a quote, upload files for translation, adhere to various compliance issues under Sarbanes-Oxley, gain unifies management of multilanguage project management and pay online for these services.
Weblog sales representation company Federated Media has just released a new advertising planning tool making it easy for advertisers to make an ad buy on the company's 50 blog publishers which include Boing Boing, Digg, TechCrunch, Fark and many others. We took a test drive and found the planning tool very easy to use providing easy selection of blogs based on segmented audience profiles and demographics gleaned from readership surveys. Individual sites, groups of sites or all sites can be included in the buy, flight dates can be set and IAB standard creative units can be selected. Federated media claims its collection of blogs can deliver 70 million monthly page views.
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OK, we're back from ad:tech San Francisco, their biggest to date, and we've got piles of backlogged bits for you so here we go, once again. machine gun style.
Exopolis has created a funky website for the Nicktoons Network Animation Festival. It's a busy page with all kinds of things to do but that's what the kids love.
The Dairy Farmers of Canada have launched Mobiloke, karaoke for the the cell phone. It's part of a campaign to make milk hip.
Apparently, this is to promote Honda's new civic hybrid and references London's congestions charge.
There's a new film coming called Art School Confidential staring John Malkovich which proves to look very weird but probably not far off from real art school.
Zugara has created another site for Reebok's "I Am What I Am" campaign. Each country's version of the site will feature different athletes and artists specific to that region. For example the U.S site (www.rbk.com/us/iawia) features Mark Zuppan and Carolina Kluft while the U.K. site (www.rbk.com/uk/iawia) features Amir Khan and Ryan Giggs.
Somebody's filed some sort of patent for an Advertising Box that seems to make it easier for marketers to create online ads and for consumers to change and interact with them.
Oxygen Network is promoting it's new Ivana Young man reality dating show with a cheesy video featuring Ivana Trump.
We have no idea what this is but we're sure it has to do with some sort of heartwarming organ donor list thing. We could be wrong.
Ad archive site Ads of the World has launched a forum section.
Lethal has launched a campaign in London for the Honda Civic Hybrid that involves the hanging of air fresheners from trees around the city to connote the vehicles environmentally friendly emissions.
Allegiant Air is allowing its planes to be wrapped with logos and commercial messaging. InterAir Media is behind the move.
Here's an ad from a tech retailer called TekServe that used $60,000 worth of iPods dominos-style to deliver its message.
Dieste Harmel & Partners has taken Gold at the 2006 FIAP show in Buenos Aires for an Anheuser-Busch spot titled "Mini Mouth."
For you art directors with some spare time on your hands, a site called TheBroth is a place where multiple players can move 1,000 colorful tiles to form collaborative mosaic artworks.
It's not exactly the most beautifully produced commercial, but this PSA advocates the hiring of those with disabilities and makes the argument that doing so is better for all involved.
Apparently, Subaru felt the need to respond to the VW My Fast ads.
It seems queers need financial advice too.
At ad:tech, ad serving company Atlas had a Truth Booth into which conference attendees would share their inner secrets which would be edited and emailed back to them. Wexley School for Girls created.
Here is a seriously whacked video promoting a cereal called Jelly Filled Frosted Sugar Balls. Actually, it's a twisted promotion for Mercury's twisted The Neverything.
We have no idea what this is. We're too lazy to find out. But, someone sent it to us so it must be something. Oh, it has something to do with advertising during the World Cup in Germany.
This thing promotes Sprite 3G...and a woman lays an egg. Don't ask, just watch.
This ad does a really nice job demonstrating the human touch Toyota imbues on its vehicles. A little too much human touch for us though.
Jeff Kling has a new book coming out. We think.
Ford' Your Ticket 2 Drive has Music 2 Drive 2. Good tunes.
Captains of Industry has created a podcast series for its client Arbor Networks that brings radio-style drama to the podcast. It's all about securing the net.
In reaction to a recent Burst media study that concluded the web to be the primary resource for information among the affluent, life insurance company AccuQuote, on their new weblog, wants to know what makes a good online life insurance ad. Not that AccuQuote uses them, but we'd recommend any life insurance advertiser to ditch pop ups and spasmodically flashing ad banners as a start. We'd also recommend creating banners that have price quote capability built in. So help a brand that honestly wants to know how to better its advertising.
Animal Magazine, the yardstick by which all New York culture is measured, has re-launched its website blog-style. Already, Animal's got high-jacked Facebook pictures of Moby hanging with a bunch of college hotties, a nod to Chelsea's apparent fixation with the male appendage and one of New York's finest mouthing off as only the finest can.
Perhaps finally acknowledging the pointlessness of printed (or even online) TV listing, TV Guide has jumped full force into blog land with the launch of 65 weblogs. The blogs, written by magazine and web editorial staff, focus on individual television shows, movies, soaps and just about everything else that has to do with television. This should stir things up among the already hundreds of TV focused blogs already in existence but, as many bloggers know, it's not seen as competition but rather more fuel to fire the conversation.
We almost forgot that the Pink Panther has, for 25 years, been the Owens Corning mascot so we were scratching our heads when we saw AdFreak reference a press release announcing the launch of the Pink Panther Energy Blog. Like all marketers jumping into this blogging thing, Owens Corning will use the blog to "address hot button energy issues and provide information on energy-saving tips and products - all while
having a little fun." And we thought the whole character blog thing was over with the Barbie Blog.
Oddly, Owen Corning chose the very unfreindly URL saveenergy.owenscorningblog.com for the blog when, it seems, the more appropriate thepinkpantherblog.com and pinkpantherblog.com appear to be readily available. The Pink One will take on the persona of Chief Energy Officer on the blog and spout snarky witticisms about how to save energy....by using Owen Corning products, of course.
