In this commercial, we're not sure whether McDonald's is telling us all kids have an active imagination or whether their food is an addictive hallucinogenic. Or maybe, they have to make us hallucinate in order to make us believe McDonald's is actually a place you'd want to eat. Oddly, it works. Mostly because it's not your average McDonald's spot. It was created by Leo Burnett in Sydney and the the effects were done by Fuel International.
On a semi-completely unrelated note, a friend tells us she sat next to a guy on an airplane trip whose company manufactured flavors. Flavors for everything. Every taste. The man's biggest customer? McDonald's If you have to add beef flavor to a hamburger, you know something is definitely just not right. No matter how convincing a commercial might be.
While Joe Jaffe is all excited about having been present yesterday during Coke's Experiment #214 at which the famed EepyBird did their Diet Coke/Mentos thing, we're gleefully snickering at the mammoth company's 180 on the whole thing from its "craziness with Mentos doesn't fit our brand personality" stance to its eight-months-too-late embrace of the stunt. We'd be as excited as Joe too if we were there witnessing the event but we can't forget that Coke is doing this because their ass was taunted and dragged into it. I'd be curious if the word Mentos was even allowed to be mentioned at the event. Joe makes no mention of it in his review of the event.
Related:
Mentos Loves Diet Coke. Coke Could Care Less
Mentos to Launch Geyser Video Contest
Coke Copies Mentos, Launches Own Video Contest
Coke Wakes Up, Smells Social Media
If lust doesn't do the job for you this Valentine's day, Swatch suggests voodoo. And if the voodoo fails, at least the apple of your eye will have a neat new watch and a weird-looking stuffed toy.
Swatch is running a neat little Valentine's Day campaign with love voodoo master Eddy G Lazaro. In this video he shows you how voodoo love Swatch watches are made. It's not nearly as action-packed as it sounds and there are no shrunken heads, but he does do that neat eyes-rolling-back trick. And each voodoo love Swatch comes with a bonafide voodoo doll.
What can beat that? We're at a total loss. This is just a notch better than smacking your partner on the back of the head and dragging her by the hair into your cave.
It's always interesting to see marketers take an old, familiar canvas and do something different with it. And that's probably the only reason why this paired ad for Dasani and Sports Illustrated is worth mentioning. It's certainly not as nerve-wracking as this, as exhausting as this or as eye catching as this. But it makes an effort, and it's sort of clever. Kind of. Maybe. Actually the length of the straw makes the whole thing feel a bit silly.
Candystand concocts yet another diversion called Eclipse Polarity, an odd cross between a space and a jungle game where you shoot at mechanical bug-looking things before they shoot you first. Careful, they can shoot in diagonals too.
We've died several times in our generous attempt to test it for you and we have to say ping pong remains our favourite out of all the games Candystand has sent us in its effort to sway us from our divine ad-trashing mission. So if you want to try Eclipse Polarity, godspeed. If not, we'll see you at the ping pong table.
Never cross a Linux lover. Especially if you're Microsoft touting a new operating system called Vista. Linux lovers eschew Microsoft and many other companies claiming there way of computing life is far better than the rest of the world's which uses Microsoft...oh and Apple too. It seems some Linux lovers don't appreciate Microsoft's recent plastering of the world with its Vista marketing launch and took a blade to one of the campaign's posters cutting the word "Linux" into the board. Vandalism? Consumer Generated Marketing? Geeks on a rampage? You decide.
Apparently, commercials now cause suicide. You've heard us rail against those cause groups for every conceivable issue and ailment before and we're going to do it again. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has asked GM to yank its Deutsch LA-created Robot commercial in which a dejected robot is fired and commits suicide...in a fucking dream! For fuck's sake. When will this idiocy end? When will people realize we're talking about advertising here and not brain surgery? When will people get their head out of their asses and laugh when a piece of humor is placed in front of them? It's a robot...in a commercial. Hello?
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In a twist on the usual interpretation of "friends with benefits," currently getting play on Boston Legal and because Pontiac says it's on the forefront of social networking (their words, not ours), the company is launching a Leo Burnett Detroit-created Friends With Benefits MySpace site which promises to offer awards to friends of those who buy Pontiac G5s. Pontiac tells us the promotion works as follows: - MySpace users buy a Pontiac G5.
- They register their purchase on the "Friends With Benefits" profile page.
- They start getting cash benefits through their "Friends With Benefits" debit card, all the way up to $1,000.
Umm, buying an entire car just to join a promotion? Oh sure, we can understand the post-purchase, down-the-line benefits but, whoa, that's some price of entry. Getting a free. Oh but hey, if your gonna buy a G5 anyway and get up to $1,000, what's to complain about? Oh but wait. You have to bribe your friends to get a G5 too in order to earn the dough.
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In a reversal of one of the most idiotic brand decisions in decades, two un-named Ford execs said the Taurus name will return and be affixed to the two year old, poorly named Five Hundred. In 1992, 410,000 vehicles were sold. The Taurus brand resurrected Ford and outsold all other cars old in America for five years straight. The name as retired last October after 21 years. New Ford Chief Executive Alan Malally has been high on the name since he joined Ford last year. Most assuredly, the ad campaign supporting this launch will be large and far-reaching. Whether or not the renamed Five Hundred will be remotely as popular as the original Taurus is an entirely different discussion.
Some spilled milk is worth crying over. This weird little ad from Hood Simply Smart starts out normal enough and ends in tears.
Hood is typically known for squeaky-clean happy-family ads so we're guessing some sadist in the ad department finally got his way. We're happy about it. The spot is quirky, plus we like seeing people cry.
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