Green coffee company Java Girls adds a kick to your fair trade feel-good cup o' joe. Think bikinis, lingerie, soapy carwashes, and girls that say "honey" (like at Hooters!). See photo gallery. It's like Halloween at Chico State, all year long.
"Sex sells," says founder Steven McDaniel in the promo video (on the homepage). "We can move in next door to any Starbucks and compete with them." Speaking of Starbucks, the coffee giant prefers to err on the side of modesty: it covered up its mermaid nips last May.
I'm more skeptical about the success of the skin-and-caffeine business model. Starbucks has a lot of high friends in conservative places (Barnes & Noble, suburban shopping malls, business centres). And anyway, would you hit a novelty T&A cafe for your sleepy cup of slop every day? Would you take your boss? Would you take Jesus?
It's about time.This sort-of-but-not-really recession has had everyone talking for, well, years, it seems. Today, we have some meat on the subject. And it isn't tasty. The Association of National Advertisers has released a study citing 53 percent of surveyed marketing executives expect their ad budgets to be reduced withing the next six months and 87 percent are already identifying cutbacks.
Areas cited for cuts are media (69 percent), travel (63 percent), production (63 percent) and new work (61 percent). Of those already planning cutbacks, 50 percent expect a ten percent reduction, 27 percent expect an 11-20 percent reduction and ten percent expect cuts or more than 30 percent.
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While Dell's Digital Nomads site has been up for a few weeks, it's only just beginning to receive press. The site is a social media offering for the increasing number of people for whom location has become irrelevant when it comes to work and online life.
Digital Nomads is a blog, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn page, a Twitter identity and a YouTube page. While it's been unclear whether or not Enfatico was involved in the creation of the work, an email to Dell Digital Nomad Enterprise Evangelist Bruce Anderson confirmed the agency's involvement. Anderson tells us Enfatico was "involved in the overall layout, design and social-media integration for the site."
With Dell's Richard at Dell having previously made mention to Adrants of work already done by Enfatico, it would seem that knowledge combined with the launch of Digital Nomads, would call for the retirement of that Enfatico countdown clock.
"Everyone has something to reveal. They just need to be unbuttoned," Levi's croons, crowning its "Unbuttoned" campaign for the classic 501 jeans with "spoonfuls of soul and swagger" (I just love that line). On personal subsites, three artists -- Estelle, Nikka Costa and Wale -- describe why they became musicians and pass on a free track for users to download.
Each MP3 has a different sound, but they all feel big and breezy. (Slightly off-topic, isn't it nice to see so many companies share downloadable ear candy? It's like trick-or-treating, except with iTunes instead of a pillowcase.)
Music isn't all Levi's is baring. Other celebs with something to share include the adorable Jamie Bestwick, who's giving away a free BMX video, and there's a Perez Hilton giveaway coming in September. (They gave us the link, but it's still doorknob-dead.) What Perez is giving away I'm sure I don't know, considering his two cents always come free.
This Zappos spot, where a smiling courier hand-delivers a little bit of happy to customers in a small neighborhood, is infectiously charming.
I like how it brings the brand offline and makes it feel down-home and local: it's your friendly online shoe conglomerate! This approach would ring disingenuous for most internet giants, but Zappos has a coupla things going for it:
1) Getting a package in the mail gives people warm tinglies.
2) Its service really is just that good. The first time I placed an order with Zappos, the shoes didn't fit, and they sent a replacement pair even before I returned the old ones. "Just drop them in the mailbox whenever you can," the rep said (I could hear him smiling!), and boy did that feel nice. Cartwheel-nice, even.
Read more about Zappos' ad efforts riiiiiiiight here.
Or not.
To harvest new users, Canadian wireless firm Fido deployed white male and female figures -- refugees of rebel bathroom signs? -- across Toronto. They've appeared as chalk art, or hanging from trees, and recently as big-ass balloon dolls, quietly coaxing viewers to text 411 to 10987.
The effort's been toted as the first Canadian use of "flogos" -- flying logos.
Rubberneckers that text 411 to 10987 get invitations to upcoming "Fido Sessions." Some, like the Art Sessions, seem infinitely cooler than the guerrilla campaign itself. See artist The Dark put up some wheatpaste art from an Art sesh. (Why Fido wants to teach art, I don't know, but if it keeps those crazy kids with knives off the streets...)
Organized by Bos, Toronto, which previously did a really neat thing for Fido where billboards threw snowballs at each other.
Planned Parenthood Ohio is using a stodgy, responsible-looking older woman to rationalize its newest campaign, "The A-Word," which from what I can tell is made up of one video and an "Abstinence" graphic in smudgy Courier. Two of the tabs, "Affordability" and "Advocacy," are still "Coming Soon..."
The site was put together by Eisen Management Group, who argues "Planned Parenthood has been characterized in a largely false and negative light for far too long" -- that is, as champions for sex, however safe, but not abstinence.
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In partnership with modeling firm IMG, Bebo's launching yet another web series called Model.Live, whose tagline, "Reality TV just got real," rings a little, well, hollow. (In its defense, episode 1 -- which consisted mainly of serious, sleepy conversation between the people representing these models -- was just dull enough to convince me it's real shit.)
The show aims to reveal the truth about how professional models live. And it's not all coke and parties. These girls field degrading commentary and make dramatic, career-altering decisions every day. Sadly, no Mama Tyra can stand over their shoulders and guide them gently to a Victoria's Secret contract.
The 12-episode series follows three wannabe-supermodels from NYC's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week to Milan, Paris and Elsewhere. It went live yesterday on Bebo and Vogue.tv. Clothing company EXPRESS -- a brand that's long affiliated itself with the runway by sole merit of its Muzak -- is sponsoring. Every week, it will air the models' responses to featured questions from fans.
- It's the best of this year's Plaid Nation tour! Diggin' the chick who says plaid is God's favorite color.
- Anna Kournikova's still around. I like how her Maxim bio reads, "Before simply being superhot, Anna was a superhot tennis player." Put "simply being superhot" on your resume next time you get shafted, then see who throws sponsorship money at you.
- Naked guy runs across America.
- Last Visa "Go World" spot by TBWA/Chiat/Day. Michael Phelps: he keeps going and going and going and going...
- Check out Google minus Google. Running a search without getting results from YouTube, Blogger, or Knol feels sort of ... fresh.
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