Seems there's a lot of hatred out there for Adobe which, as we all know, has a pretty firm grasp on advertising's creative community. In fact, there's so much hatred, a site dedicated to that hatred, Dear Adobe, collect gripes about the company and its products. The number one gripe? "Why does the Acrobat Reader take two minutes to launch, and require updates twice a month, just to display PDF pages?"
The answer to that question? Who cares. Just use Foxit Reader (for Windows but available in Preview for Mac) and your Adobe Reader woes will be gone. That aside, there are hundreds of gripes on the site ranging from complaints about Photoshop, Adobe's installer and feature bloat.
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Imagine it: endless champagne, a lively -- but intimate -- night life, creamy white sheets, Roman baths, and sweet nothings brimming from the mouths of chiseled strangers.
What's all this? Why, "The Life You Were Meant to Live," a less-than-subtle ploy by Leo Burnett/Chicago to get your pipe-dreaming ass into Caesars. Spots include:
o "I'll Have the Bubbliest Champagne" -- for the ladies!
o "Try it Before You Croak" -- for the couples! -- or maybe just singles that enjoy morning-after intimacy.
o "I'm the Funny Good Looking One" -- for graying men still pursuing validation!
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Samsung partnered with the NFL to bring football fandom to the big screen. See a couple of the TV ads, lengthened for the 'net, at That's How I See It. A spot I've seen often is the one where a dad gives his son a Vikings helmet, heirloom-style, to wear while watching TV.
In general I feel like we've seen too much of this kind of thing before. (See fans! Fans like you! Fetch wallet!) But if you feel closely affiliated with a certain football team, maybe getting recognized by a big brand always feels fresh. Kinda like how I feel every time a rapper shouts my area code into a mic.
Arthur is among the few kid shows I still feel okay watching. It's wholesome, square and enriched with feel-good lessons.
Anywho, CVS and Hefty licensed Arthur's name and likeness to promote products, like the charming paper plate at left, to kids (and possibly nostalgic quarter-lifers). One plate by itself is friendly enough, but check out this disembodied constellation of Arthur characters, all ready to bear slices of cake on their noses. It's unsettling.
You know how Stamps.com lets you turn photos into stamps? I bet one day Hefty'll do that with paper dishware. Why eat off a fictional acquaintance when you could be scooping peanut butter out of Kid Sister's right earlobe?
Some chick sent us an email just dripping with faux indignation. It was all, "Have you seen this site? There hasn't been anything so demeaning to women in the history of the internet!" Don't be a tease, honey, just say it: DEAR ADRANTS, PLEASE WHORE ECKO MFG.
And boy is it worthy. The job ECKO MFG tries accomplishing, with almost cheesy earnestness, is stirring drama over Ecko's "SEXIST!!!" manufacturing practices: bikini-clad women stitching jeans together. It could be The Stepford Sweatshop -- if Connecticut were ruled by frat boys and not WASPs.
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- Copyranter calls it quits. Again. Don't worry, he'll still be writing for Animal New York, and he's open to sponsorship.
- Speaking of sponsorship, HBO whips out some wad for web celebs like lonelygirl15. The network is rounding up YouTube headliners for a web series called Hooking Up. Witness the lameness.
- Degourget doesn't like Esquire's first-ever digital magazine cover, which was sponsored by the "ugly-assed Ford Flex." The price we pay for bells and whistles.
- Clear Channel Radio hosted an event called Stripped, where artists play "stripped-down" versions of songs in a jammy "unplugged" setting. Why is this news? Because Miley Cyrus performed Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, that's why. Everything involving Miley Cyrus is news, especially when the headline reads "MILEY CYRUS STRIPPED."
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To facilitate the all-online launch of Kit Kat Cookies & Cream (on the record: yuck), Nestle got into bed with JWT/Sydney and RMG Connect to conceive Hans Fagerlund, whom they describe as "a cross between Jack Black and Will Ferrell."
That's some fucked-up cross-breeding.
Our little freak Hans is also a Chunga Champion, Chunga being the art of stacking Cookies and Cream Kit-Kats with his bare hands. Seriously. It's Jenga! With calories!
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For a recently-launched TV campaign, Yell.com is seeding videos across YouTube that wrap up its TV ads.
In the spot we reviewed, a bratty kid called Marcus tells party planner Fresno he wants a ghetto-fabulous fete instead of a Roman-themed party. Fresno takes on the challenge. Here are the results, complete with party footage and interviews with Fresno's assistant and Marcus's parents -- the feeble, well-to-do folk that created the monster in the first place.
Nice idea, not super-engaging though. How do TV viewers know to go online to finish the story? It's not like the spot was a cliffhanger, and I don't think anybody feels personally invested in Marcus's fate. Or even Fresno's, for that matter.
At first I thought the thing at left was a snail. But no, it was an amorous man with a French horn for a head. (Tagline: "Seeing and hearing like never before.")
This is part of a print campaign for Pioneer's KURO line of TVs and audio-video gear. Put together by TBWA\CHIAT\DAY\Los Angeles, each ad depicts a person in some state of metamorphosis, which represents the emotional heights your entertainment system should be helping you reach. Variants include butterfly girl, road carnage, trumpet man deux and trois. (But where is The Fly?)
Weird, but nice to look at. AdFreak observes the stuff Pioneer did last year was "even odder," and a lot less pretty.
In June, Visa worked with AKQA to offer $100 in Facebook ad credits to the first 20,000 small business owners that downloaded its Visa app.
The app now boasts 42,543 monthly active users, but comments on the Visa Business Network page consist almost entirely of people that never received a coupon. Others are confused about whether the credits are just supposed to appear in their Facebook Ads cache.
"I smell a scam," Johnny Premier says; Frank Horbelt shouts, "There's potential here ... (But you guys are squandering it!)"
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