Here's a new commercial from GM Desedo Film's Raafi Rivero promoting the company's Hummer H3H Hydrogen vehicle which is supposedly set to arrive in Spring 2008. In the commercial the Hummer traverses across National Geographic and National Geographic-like vistas. The Hummer is being branded the National Geographic Edition. Teenage boys (from the seventies and eighties, of course, as one commenter bashes us for daring to make a joke that's relevant to anyone over the age of 30) world over are now wondering if the truck comes equipped with leather seats emblazoned with images of naked African and Aborigine tribeswomen for their viewing pleasure.
This is completely left-field. Eager to associate itself with Who's Next '07, an international fashion show, Wrangler (yeah, did you see that coming? We didn't) somehow deluded itself into thinking that setting mannequins all over Paris would be really clever and avant-garde.
We are overwhelmed by deja-vu.
Why do people think mannequins in human settings are going to be a big deal-maker?
Whatever. See the video here. It's a little long. The effort took 60 dummies, disseminated through the city in the wee hours of the morning preceding the September 7-8 show. We kind of think this one is sexy if you ignore the fact that Wrangler's logo is in desperate need of some contemporary TLC.
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72andSunny and Goldfrapp give us Meltdown for the Zune. It takes place in the desert with an ice cream cone and two cobras, which share the sweet instead of fighting for it. At some point their scales get all disco fever, and shortly thereafter, a shitload of other ice cream cones fall out of the sky.
The ad vibes like something off Cartoon Network with the '80s sex music and gyrating cobras and whatnot. We also can't help but wonder, are the ice cream cones metaphors for the now-ubiquitous iPod?
According to the press release, the ad is supposed to illustrate sharing (as in, filesharing) between the cobras, which is rewarded by all those other ice creams falling from the sky.
Wait - is this the same Zune that actually discourages sharing by restricting users to the Windows platform? Half the time it doesn't even play music purchased from the MSN music store. Don't give us this schlock about sharing.
Neat ad, though. Weird, but neat.
- WPP New York is reportedly not going to defend its $70 million Jenny Craig crative account which has been placed in review handled by Blank and Associates.
- The New York Post is expanding its Page Six gossip section to a full blown Sunday glossy magazine section debuting this Sunday.
- Walter Kronkite is returning to television and will appear on the newly launched Retirement Living TV.
- In an interesting mashup, the Polygamous Marriage conference in New Orleans October 26 brings together media, account planing and creative to hear speakers such as Modernista's Gareth Kay, Fallon's John King and Naked's Paul Woolington.
- As if there weren't already an overabundant plethora of awards shows, AdWeek now wants to honor supposed future creative geniuses before they even become geniuses with its "10 Best Creative You Don't Know" showcase.
Last week, Hardee's received complaints about their Flat Buns ad in which a class full of students rapped about a sexy teacher who danced in front of the class. Hardee's reacted the the complaints and modified the ad to remove the teacher.
Should Hardee's have listened to complaints and changed the ad? Give us your answer here.
Life lessons from Hennessy on looking ridiculously rich - er, tasteful:
- Appear bored
- Toss expensive shoes around like it ain't no thang
- Drink plenty ... in a suit!
- Carry a ... protractor? -- and possibly some old maps upon which to "protract"
Hennessy's launched a new campaign called Flaunt Your Taste alongside Pharrell, known for his beats that cost six figures.
Original beats are hidden all over the microsite. The most amusing page by far is MANIFESTO, which is flanked by a classy-looking black dude holding a protractor. Random throwback to Ogilvy's eyepatch man? Maybe.
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- Hitwise reports Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson's website, www.fred08.com, was the most visited website among all presidential candidates for the week ending September 8, 2007. Fred08.com received 34 percent of US visits amongst all the presidential candidate websites for that week.
- Cynopsis reports, "Coming from executive producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the brilliant minds behind Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life, is the web-based advertiser-supported series Quarterlife that will "air" exclusively on MySpace.com, and will have its own social networking site at quarterlife.com."
- Walmart is dropping its smiley face and the tagline "Always Low Prices" for the new tagline, "Save Money. Live Better." A TV campaign will support the change.
- Disney's High School Musical 2 helped Disney.com pull in 23 million unique visitors in August, an increase of 24 percent over last year.
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ABC and TV Guide are mailing out a branded hospital gown alongside the September 24 issue of TV guide. This is so everyone will get all hyped about the season four premiere of Grey's Anatomy, which rolls back around on the 27th.
Hopefully nobody misinterprets the gesture as a cry for help on the Guide's part.
When selling men's fragrance, most marketers rely on artist but meaningless photography of alluring situations meant to capture what they believe to be some ethereal state of being obtained only by using the marketer's fragrance. But not Tom Ford.
Ford removes all pretense in his latest fragrance campaign and celebrates what every man wants: to fuck. In this ad, Ford less than deftly places the product in the place all men hope the it will get them: snatch. Crass? Certainly. Objectifying of women? Sure. Attention getting? Most definitely.
Of the campaign, a Tom Ford Beauty Spokeswoman told Women's Wear Daily, "We loved the original Marilyn Minter images, but while on a shoot with [Richardson] in Milan, we decided that a sharper, more graphic approach clearly communicated the bold and provocative mood of the fragrance." Sharper and more graphic, indeed.
Hoping, perhaps, to bring back the days of Mia Hamm, Wieden + Kennedy just launched a new Nike campaign for the Women's World Cup with the headline, "The greatest team you've never heard of," which introduces women's soccer's next greats. Illustrating the dedication of the team, the copy in one ad reads, "Together [they] have missed out on 13 proms, 74 birthdays, 21 Thanksgivings and 989 boyfriends." And in an effort to familiarize us with the team, copy in another ad reads, "[the team] includes a tattooed surfer, a scholar, a college football fanatic, a humanitarian and a trucker hat-wearing scuba diver."
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