- Wal-Mart CEO: I'm not a big fan of marketing. Oops, I meant advertising.
- It seems Microsoft might scoop up DoubleClick for a questionable $2 billion.
- More contextual foolishness. In a Herald Sun article about two Sudanese women getting stoned to death, an ad with a man and his son throwing stones appears. Don't you love the intelligence of computers?
- Michael Eisner has hooked up with MySpace which will broadcast his online series Prom Queen beginning April 2. Eighty ninety-second episodes will be released. Check out the teaser here.
- Musician Nathan Bennett has, in one day, written a song and created a video called On MySpace which thanks listeners for finding him on MySpace. He hopes to use it to promote himself.
- Even prostitutes advertise.
Sears wants better "efficiency and effectiveness" in its media buying and, apparently, incumbent MindShare and MEC Interaction aren't delivering. A review for the $780 million piece of business will be opened. Aiming to complete the review by second quarter, the retail giant has not named the consultant that will handle the review nor the names of any considered agencies. At this point, Sears' creative agency Y&R Chicago seems to be on safe ground.
In early March, Hyundai began accepting applications for its Mash and Seek Challenge, a game somewhat similar to a game developed for Budget car rental, which will, on April 30, place 16 finalists in teams of four with a single photograph mashed up with the faces of the team members. The first team to find another will win four 200y Hyundai Elantras. Quizes will be administered every two weeks and those that answer correctly will be given clues to the location of other teams. Check it all out here.
Coolz0r draws our attention to this Post-It ad that reminds us a lot of this ad here. Ironically, it might lend the leery a bigger excuse for staring down yonder instead of encouraging them to aim for eye level. We know we were staring, but that was exclusively for research purposes.
The ad is running in South Africa and was made by The Jupiter Drawing Room.
This 2005 ad, in which some call center members sing to one another with their mouths full of KFC, would probably have been more appetizing were it not for this.
Oh, ick. By Bartle Bogle Hegarty in 2005 for Kentucky Fried Chicken, the British made a record number of complaints about the spot, according to AdFreak. It would be hard to molest our own sense of propriety but the recent rat scandal pushed the envelope just enough for us to understand how they must have felt.
Apparently the Apple TV nervous system isn't as resilient as their computers. Post first day of shipping, ZDNet spills the beans:
Non-Apple TV owners can enjoy the out of box experience by viewing the opening video which one crafty person ripped from the hard drive and posted in all of it's 720p glory. You can also download the Quartz Composer Screen Saver and the Now Playing Screen. And if you're truly hard-core you can download the entire Apple TV OS, and (conceivably) install it on another Mac.
And apparently that was just the easy stuff.
First generation Apple TV = FTL. Here's to hoping the almighty iPhone fares better.
Over the weekend in Times Square, the Kleenex Let It Out campaign in which people let their emotions out while Kleenex films them was infiltrated by Greenpeace which is irked Kleenex manufacturer Kimberly-Clark uses "ancient growth" forests in their tissue products. Greenpeace activists, posing as distraught individuals complained about Kimberly-Clark's apparent deforestation tactics while Kleenex PR people had nothing much to do except let it happen, even when some activists unfurled a banner for Kleercut, Greenpeace's tree hugger effort.
It's classic surprise marketing at its finest. After all, what could Kleenex people do? The entire promotion is all about providing people a platform to air their grievances. If you are concerned about a company's supposed less-that-nice use of foresting techniques tan what better place to air the grievances that on a couch to an understanding listener. Or at least one that's supposed to be understanding.
We are at a loss at coming up with an explanation as to what a beaver and a buffalo have to do with highlighting Alamo rental's new kiosks other than for pure "odd factor." In two Fallon-created, Moo-produced commercials, the two animals get all buddy-buddy-like with the beaver taking on the smart guy role and the buffalo the doofus role all to explain why Alamo's kiosks aren't being used as much as they should. See the spots here and here and tell us if we're right or full of...excrement.
Here's what a Wal-Mart ad would look like if it were to encompass all the Julie Roehm/Sean Womack drama which culminated last week during the endless legal wranglings that have transpired since Roehn was fired from Wal-Mart and it was revealed she was having an affair of sorts with Womack. It comes courtesy of the New York Post which published a column on the matter today.
Oh, and about that morning at Starbucks in their pajamas, check this.
Because bodice-ripping is so last-century, Harlequin struggles to make the grade as the ages of readers increase slowly.
In addition to reworking the hot-sex-for-lonely-girls formula for today's woman under Red Dress, they're also trying to reinterpret the face of today's man candy, launching another cattle call in desperate pursuit of a man who's neither Fabio nor gangly model.
But what do you feed a woman all hopped up on Sex and the City steroids? A dumb but loyal cook? A mascara-sporting emo rocker? A Silicon Valley hipster? A vegan cowboy?
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