For years, we wrote about Britney Spears here on Adrants. It was almost obsessive. Then...she met Kevin Federline and, well, things changed. No longer was she the darling of global marketers but rather fodder for Perez Hilton, Jezebel and The Superficial. It hardly seemed appropriate to mention her antics here on Adrants so we didn't.
Apart from her ill-conceived appearance on the MTV Music Awards and her recent campiagn for her Hidden Fantasy fragrance, Spears has been all but absent from Adrants for three to four years.
While we're not going to label her return as the new face for Candie's Only at Kohl's triumphant, it's nice to see the girl back in the world of advertising. Yes, she never really left but you do have to admit she did take quite a hiatus.
The deal, which puts Spears in Kohl's 2009 print, TV, online and in-store efforts. ties Britney's sponsorship role to her concert tour which kicks off March 3. And there will be all kinds of Candie's pink along for the ride in the form of VIP pink carpets and lounges.
Tonight, Spears' "First Look" tour video will debut exclusively on the Candie's website.
Everything about Viagra makes us laugh. We all know what it's for (and spam has ensured that we never forget!), but the ads are never really about doin' The Do -- they're always about love and intimacy, which in this jaded world is a lot like taking the sluggish scenic route to the same destination.
So, fingertips at the ready, we watched "Couple" with the full intention of taking the piss out of it. And get this: we couldn't. Because it moved us.
Yeah, we're embarrassed too.
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Household appliance firm Midea tapped Transistor Studios and Ogilvy/Shanghai to promote its compact air conditioning (AC) product line.
"Dream" depicts a sleek, energy-efficient AC that self-repairs, senses changes in the environment and apparently morphs like the space ship in Flight of the Navigator.
That's exciting and all, but the skeletal arms and single eye had us picturing HAL, poring over us as we sleep, breathing frosty air onto the hair on our necks before spiriting us into cruel oblivion.
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Tums manifests its antacid magic in "Angry Bear," where the aforementioned animal steals food, overeats and goes back in for one more score: the Tums.
There's something about the sight of a bear, far-off and out of decapitation range, that totally numbs us to its potential malevolence. It's like, "Aww, look at the bear eating all the pizza. Look at the bear breaking the watermelon. Look at the bear getting the Tums for its tummy."
You kind of want to curl up around it and fall asleep while it's lying against one of those gutted cars, nursing a food hangover.
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To better represent the interest of its users, whose lives "[revolve] around social and user generated media," Skittles tore a sheet out of Modernista's playbook and relinquished control of its website.
Visits to Skittles.com drive users to the Wikipedia article about the company, with navs featured in a pop-up that explains what users are looking at (Modernista has one of these too):
"Don't sweat it, this is still Skittles.com. It just has a new twist. User this as your guide to find anything and everything Skittles that's online. Have fun."
Interesting. When Modernista surrendered itself to the Zeitgeist, we thought the move was brave and forward-moving, not least because it nods to pure transparency. (We saw that earlier this month, when Modernista's "n3wz" section, which points to either Google News or Google Blog Search, was deluged with articles about layoffs at the agency.)
It also opens the label up to just general meanness. Modernista hardly had its new "site" up 24 hours before Wikipedia yanked its page. Modernista.com now points to the Facebook Fan page.
Aaaanywho, the Skittles "site" model will work about the same way. The nav bar will drive you to places all over the "interwebs," including YouTube and flickr. We like that "CHATTER" points to a search for "skittles" on Summize, meaning you can read everything Twitter users are tweeting about Skittles in real-time.
Ballsy!
UPDATE, 9:45 AM EST on 2/28/09: Skittles.com now points directly to Summize results for "skittles." Looks like Wikipedia is an equal-opportunity antagonist -- although Wiki articles are still used in the "PRODUCTS" section.
Except there's no Coke, and lots of Domos.
"Jump Rope" -- chock full of delicious images and noises -- was put together for client Nike by AKQA. Creativity Online pegged its position "the escapism of exercise." Well-said.
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- Somebody just sent us a link to KillaBanker.com, a little CafePress store where you can buy knee-jerk reactions to economic despair.
- Hanzi Smatter, a site "dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in Western culture," is hilarious. See awkward interpretation of tattoo on a model featured in AussieBum's Commando ad.
- Kellogg's brand rep suffers following Phelps fallout.
- What ho, a Dairy Queen blog.
- More jibjab over Arnell/Tropicana.
Witness with a growing sense of unease as a couple on its first date quotes lines from Romeo & Juliet.
$5 says they met on eHarmony.
"How Romeo Pulls Juliet," which vibes like a middling tribute to Baz Luhrmann's '96 oeuvre, was put together by Madeinmilan Wine. The company wanted to "tell a story about having fun with wine, indulging in intense pleasure" while incidentally promoting a suite of wines named after iconic characters, like Romeo. (There's also a bottle marked Brutus. Hrm.)
For requisite engagement purposes, check out the "wine pairing" section, where you (apparently...?) pair wine to other things, like "travel" or "chill out." (We have NO idea.)
Click on "sex" for an exciting shot of a mad couple crawling around on all fours. We're not sure why it's there, but it struck us as one of the few things worth mentioning at all.
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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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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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