We can't even count the number of times we've been dragged to some canine haven by an overzealous pet, so this new ad by Petco, brought to us by good old Brentter, definitely struck a sappy chord.
We were jarred back into reality by the voice and branding message at the end, though. It just didn't jive well. The guy sounded like a hard-boiled narrator for an energy drink - you know, like this, except ever so slightly less intense.
That bold-ass font didn't help matters either.
Advertising Age drew some attention to an effort by Levi's to strengthen its clout in the gay community by producing an ad twice - once for the straight community, and once for the gay one. The gay one ran exclusively on MTV's Logo network (which, unless it branches out, sounds like it's probably getting less play than the hetero version).
As always with Levi's the production is clean but the concept is wrongfully credited for being the first to do the gay/straight coin toss with human beings.
Orbitz, noted by Ad Age for having done this with marionettes, also produced a set of thematically gay and straight ads with human beings.
Oops.
Visitors to the "top of the Rock!" (er, the Rockefeller building) in NYC may have noticed a really interesting spaceship-type thing on their way back down.
This strange little room, dubbed the Target Breezeway, can apparently sense the number of people wandering mystified in its midst and associates each person with a color that then generates distracting, if not dazzling, reactions along the walls.
Most of us walked around like zombies trying to place our palms on the occasional Target symbol that appeared. Every few minutes, and with enough warm bodies, the Breezeway lights up in a display that would put Times Square at New Year's to shame.
We've always maintained that the best way to ensnare a small population would be to draw them into a secluded space with shiny objects. The Target Breezeway is an ingenious way of demonstrating that possibility.
We were definitely sucked in.
To get the most out of its most current Mancave ad campaign, Alltel launches ... wait for it, wait for it ...
The Mancave.
By manufacturing a sense of animosity allegedly felt by those "other" wireless guys against Alltel, the burgeoning mobile company hopes to lend the sense that it's, if not bigger, then at least more chill than its hopelessly pre-pubescent, nunchuk-toting contemporaries.
Requisite MySpace at WirelessThugz.com. You get the picture.
It's really cool that all these online brand communities are launching to back up these funny little ad campaigns, but how does traffic actually get to any of them? How are they actually leveraged? After the death of bud.tv, we remain nonplussed.
The bitchy thing about Candystand, which has long exhausted its welcome in the Adrants annals, is their advergames are actually really good.
Take this new one called Fire and Ice. With unique characters and quirky music, the game still manages to bring us back to the Super NES days, jumping over turtles and malicious red owls while trying to sate an endless lust for floating coins. We can't trash something we just blew half an hour playing.
Our only problem with it is it lacks that classic Mario speed-running feature. Do you hear us, advergame gods? We want a speed-running feature.
- Dell's $760 million account is up for grabs and everyone wants it.
- Disney just gave the three Canadian dads who launched Club Penguin $350 million with another $350 million on the way in 2009.
- Catch Speedo King Donny Deutsch and uber political commentator Arianna Huffington at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas September 30 - October 2 when they speak at the Electronic Retailing Association convention.
- BL Ochman tells us how one brand, Kryptonite Lock, has improved its handling of social media outbursts dramatically since 2004 when it was awarded Business 2.0's Dumbest Business Moment of the Year Award.
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- If you care, Facebook's heretofore "non-existent" ad rates have been leaked.
- Pepsi's Alan Pottash, the man behind many successful campiagns such as Pepsi Generation, Pepsi Challenge and all those celbu-commercials, died July 27 in LA at the age of 79.
- Toto's Times Square bare asses have been covered - quite creatively - following complaints from Reverend Neil Rhodes of the Times Square Church.
- This is what happens when an ad agency with just ten people and three accounts has too much time on their hands.
With not so subtle environmental and political commentary, this new JWT London-created commercial for Smirnoff - sent to us by Adrants reader Scamp - just blows away any recent liquor ad - or any ad, for that matter - we've seen in a long time. With amazing special effects and bone-chilling Soviet-style music, the sea rebels against man's carelessness and penchant for war mongering by eradicating itself of human byproduct to illustrate Smirnoff's "extraordinary purification" and deliver its "Clearly Smirnoff" tagline.
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When politics and pop culture meet, it's always a little fun to watch the synergy. Adverlab points us to this spot for Louis Vuitton, which slid from the Lolita-esque Scarlett Johanssen series to a celebrity survey that includes Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's first (and last) president.
The New York Times observes that Gorbachev "appears the last comfortable [...] holding on to a door handle, as if the bag contained polonium 210."
Upon examining Gorbachev's expression, and then the bag, we've concluded there's definitely not a bowling ball in it. (Although it may well be perestroika.)
Here's an ad that's generating a bunch of icky reactions. Rekindling It phobias and sparking court jester jokes, apparently Pepsi will add a little (too much) color to lives that would otherwise fade into grayscale.
How in hell did this get past the pitch room? Maybe somebody thought lips in brand-colored trappings would be a natural nod to the distinctive Pepsi logo. And because we know somebody's going to step forward and go, "Hey, guys, obviously it worked because people are talking about it," we're going to roll our eyes in advance and STFU.
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