Today is Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. If you don't own a Mac (I don't), don't own an iPhone (I don't) and don't live in San Francisco (I don't), clearly you are a loser of gargantuan proportions (I must be).
Is it a good thing or a bad thing when a brand has so much influence that it makes a person feel unworthy (I do) if they aren't a "club member?"
I've owned a Mac in its previous heydays (No, this is not the first time Apple has been insanely cool), but there was always one annoying thing that prevented me from coming back: some stupid employer edict, a must-have piece of software that wouldn't work on a Mac, an idiotic networking issue, the prevalence of cheap (though decidedly uncool) PCs, or the fact Club Mac simply didn't have the same sway Apple stores now do.
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Antwerp residents: if you're wondering why firetrucks are suddenly ubiquitous, slow-moving and sponsored by Tabasco, it's because those aren't firetrucks.
It's just your local buses, dressed like the life-saving vehicles they never grew up to become.
The bus-as-firetruck campaign was put together by Duval Guillaume, which explained -- slowly, so we could understand -- that "Tabasco is so hot that you need a fire truck to cool down your mouth after you've eaten some."
I wonder if that ladder gets hop-ons.
I recently got to sit down with Rhea Scott, Ridley Scott's daughter-in-law. (A breathy PR guy related that trivia to me about four times, which is why I mention it in the VERY. FIRST. SENTENCE.)
Rhea once headed the music video department at Propaganda. 10 years ago she started Little Minx, a production company focused on turning ad directors into filmmakers. From what I gathered in the film reels, directors are encouraged to treat each ad like a miniature manifesto. (It probably also helps to be a surrealist art fan.)
Little Minx is able to provide the necessary creative resources -- read: king-sized budget, the ideal artist's sponsorship -- through parent company RSA.
Rhea says the company was named for her second daughter, "the ultimate little minx" and the child actress in "Come Wander with Me," part of a promotional project called Exquisite Corpse.
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Video blogebrity HappySlip has deleted her MySpace profile, including over 34,000 friends, because AdSense repeatedly populated her page with ads soliciting Filipina women.
Women are among the Philippines' most profitable exports. If you plan to do heavy Filipino-oriented blogging, expect to see a few shady sites in surrounding AdSense boxes.
See more ads here. Sponsored messages for girl-peddling sites also appeared prominently during HappySlip's Philippine tourism promotion.
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Samsung's got a new video out promoting the life-altering power of the Samsung F480's drag and drop screen. In the video, a dude tries to create his perfect world. On the beach. In the mountains. In the desert. On the moon. Until he realizes maybe his home is the best plave to, well, call home. Of course, there are cheerleaders. Viral Factory created.
CEO Joseph Frick of Independence Blue Cross, the biggest health insurance provider in Philadelphia, used his recent colon cancer diagnosis to fuel this ad campaign by Tierney Communications.
The height chart at left lends a practical, and sort of charming, picture of how needs change as the mortal coil unravels. (Nagging question: why is 5'9," "Mammogram Reminders," followed by 6'1," "Senior Fitness Programs"? I thought people shrink when they get old? Is Independence just that good?)
Tagline: "Just a few ways we're here for you every step of the way" -- a little clumsy, but it gets the idea across.
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To generate interest in a product that isn't very interesting -- office printers -- Konica Minolta borrowed from a topic that makes everyone's ears perk up: the office affair.
Print ad Episode 1, "When efficiency flirts with flexibility," ran in Government Purchasing Guide.
And while bizhub, a "quick pleaser," probably won't fit under your desk, it'll get email and FTPs scanned ... fast. Feeling flushed? Wait 'til you've heard what it does with heavy card stock.
So a guy films his girlfriend wearing nothing but a t-shirt and underwear tantalizingly gyrating her hips while playing Wii Fit and, poof, instant YouTube stardom. Nope, It's not a marketing stunt from Wii but it did come from a guy in advertising, Giovanny Gutierrez, director of interactive marketing at Miami's Tinsley Advertising. And, and, and...his girlfriend, Lauren, also works in the business. Neither, however, for Nintendo in any capacity.
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-Dior has dumped Sharon Stone as spokesperson for comments she made about China while at Cannes: "I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And then the earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?"
- Psst. "Dunkin' Donuts is one of our sponsors."
- New York's tourist campaign has been dubbed too white and misrepresents the ethnic make up of the city.
- That Coors Light Perfect Pour dude is back with even more goofy pour stunts that are...OMG...like, so totally unbelievable.
In some sort of protest against the current state of football TV rights, Burger King has launched Football Your Way with, of course, hot women in cropped tops and shorts shorts getting camera love in a video with a bit of a surprise ending. Oh, and apparently, it's to promote the Angus 6 Pack as well but the video was a bit too distracting to come to that realization immediately.
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