A valuable lesson from Cisco: it doesn't matter who you are or what you're selling. Like Hallmark and Disney's made-for-TV movie department, you can turn any holiday to your advantage.
In this case, Cisco takes cheesy expressions of Valentine's Day love and wraps them around its ASR 9000, "the first in a new series of edge routers in nearly a decade" -- and more importantly, the fourth way to say I love you.
The video is presently circulating YouTube with FIVE out of FIVE stars! so far. It's the culmination of a months-long campaign in which pseudo-reporter Ira Pumfkin roamed Cisco's halls in pursuit of a big story. See the blog at Tech Edge Weekly (the link also appears at the end of the vid).
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New Dolce & Gabbana ads, brought to us by Jeremy Dante. In this fresh rendition of West Side Story Meets the Park Avenue Chippendales!, a confrontation simmers between two well-coiffed wolfpacks from different sides of town. Or maybe just different sides of the same yacht club.
Alternatively, each print may feature the same group of guys, dressed in their afternoon vs. evening duds. (You know what mama said about wearing sandals after 7pm. It's just not done.)
Heh. To promote the "extra strong" qualities of Alrin nasal spray, Young & Rubicam/Tel Aviv nailed it with "Umbrella" and "Newspaper" -- two spots that demonstrate what happens when your nasal passages get too liberated too quickly.
The human vacuum concept also makes a lot more sense here than it did that one time Justin Timberlake got sucked across town by a Pepsi drinker.
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- "Twitter for sports." And then our eyes rolled back in our heads, and then we died.
- BFFs with the Wicked Witch of the West. She seems fun. DDR, your house or mine?
- The question we all must ask. Sometime.
- Shepard Fairey, the guy who did that Obama/Hope poster we all love to wheatpaste on walls that don't belong to us, gets arrested before his first solo art show. Duuuude. Sux.
- Scroll down to the part that reads "cb with a Flair."
- Intern sweatshop haiku.
Young female online gamers are probably a good market for Gwen Stefani. She vibes kinda like a gamer, and her creepily coquettish Harajuku Lovers label has a decidedly Bejeweled-friendly aesthetic.
Soooo, from January 20 to February 1, Harajuku Lovers partnered with SPIL GAMES to organize an online scavenger hunt on GirlsGoGames.co.uk, a site targeted to casual girl gamers from ages 8-15. Users had to hunt down five different Harajuku girls/fragrances -- Baby, Love, Music, Lil' Angel, and G* -- on HLFragrance.com, then enter codes for each to win a shopping spree at Topshop.
Following up from that, Harajuku Lovers re-skinned GirlsGoGames between February 2 and February 4. Users could watch videos, learn the Harajuku Lovers theme song or play branded games that make it okay to seem jail-baity because everything is animated in pastel and written in bubble letters.
Example: Are you girly and sweet? Don't you just love yourself a pair of Mary Janes? Then by all means dive into Baby.
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Because really, three cyclopses and a wheelbarrow of cash should be all it takes to convince you H&R Block is the tax refund brand of choice.
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Here's something we didn't know: Allstate was founded in 1931 and has weathered nine recessions.
Taking advantage of this illustrious history in "Back to Basics," baritone spokesman Dennis Haysbert tells dollar-skittish viewers that recession is a cure for frenzied overindulgence. Now is the time to have meals at home, that kind of thing. Later it all ties back into Allstate's "in good hands" tagline.
Work by Leo Burnett and production firm GARTNER.
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From Kellogg: "Michael's most recent behavior is not consistent with the image of Kellogg. His contract expires at the end of February and we have made a decision not to extend his contract."
How fickle is sponsorship. You win all those golds and everybody loves you, then you smoke one joint* and those self-righteous cereal-peddlers won't even look you in the eye.
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Hello Kitty is the ultimate licensing whore. Her oblong, be-ribboned visage has been plastered onto everything from toasters to credit cards to vibrators -- er, massagers -- to brassiere.
Now you can find the world's most ubiquitous cat in your Happy Meal. Through February 26th, McDonald's is stuffing them with one of eight Sanrio watches.
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Cenergy/East Aurora recently put together "In the Game," a triage of spots for the Pitsburgh Penguins. Each depicts a Penguin fan testifying to the degree of his/her loyalty in random, occasionally inappropriate places.
Once in awhile the characters toss in a statement meant to make them relatable to tech users, like "I will sign off Facebook!" and "I will ask complete strangers to check their PDAs!"
Each breathily concludes, "...because no matter where I am, I'm in the game." Around this time you're supposed to be so into the Penguins that you wanna buy tickets, so a cinematic voiceover invites you to visit pittsburghpenguins.com.
We're not convinced sports fandom is really an impulse-buy kinda thing. And the fans are so ordinary that the incentive to follow them into Penguinsville is totally lost. Probably would've been a better campaign if the camera eye focused on the unique merits of the team and players; less so on three forgettable groupies.
Ads below.
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