This is just too hilarious not to mention. It's not really ad-related but nods are made to brands in this video called My Box in a Box, a song by a Philadelphia girl that's about a certain "box" nicely wrapped inside another box that pokes fun at cheesy pop videos and parodies the recent Justin Timberlake Andy Samberg SNL "Dick in a Box" skit. The song has become somewhat of a hit since its December 28 launch getting air play on New York's Z100, Los Angeles' KLOS, San Antonio's KFOX and others. The My Box in a Box weblog, with the tagline "Britney showed the world her box...but my box is just for you," claims the video has been viewed by a million people and, apparently, the girl wants Justin Timberlake as she keeps pointing to stories about Justin's reported breakup with Cameron Diaz. Of course, there's the ubiquitous accompanying MySpace page to go along with all of this.
The girl, who, with good reason, highlights her chest quite prominently in the video is, apparently, an up and coming singer who leveraging YouTube, MySpace and blogging for all it's worth. Apparently this social media shit works.
- A case is made for the implementation of browser level ad filtering.
- New York City cabs get decked out like bulls to promote televised bull riding on cable channel Versus.
- Sprint is on the hunt for a new creative agency for its $1.6 billion creative account.
- Advertising Age's Jonah Bllom likes the new Wall Street Journal.
- Qwest won't jack you up, mobsters recycle, Mini beats SUV in bullfight and more new commercial in Advertising Age's TV Spot of the Week.
- Merrill Lynch says U.S. ad spending will increase 2.9 percent in 2007. Traditional slows but isn't dead.
- In response to FOX's cancellation of The O.C., tweens and teens mourn throughout the nation.
- England has now banned the advertising of cheese during children's programming.
- The Webber Dance School is has placed footstep patterns on treadmills in health club so people can try to learn the steps while working out on the treadmill. Nifty, indeed.
To honor the titans who paint their chests, dye their hair and live by the free throw during March Madness, Coke bestows a chance to take part in their human bracket or hit the Final Four in Atlanta with their Most Devoted Campaign.
Demonstrate your own love of the hoop by telling a story about college basketball or March Madness in general. It might help to paint your chest and scream. For our part we find the idea of being in a human bracket unappetizing and would rather sit in the way-way-back, act surly and throw shit in peace.
In this collabo between Cunning and JWT, passers-by can text opinions about paparazzi and fitness fads in exchange for the chance to win a digicam or gym membership.
We've seen the live mannequin thing before and while it never ceases to be creepy we like the execution of the idea here. It has the potential to be comically obnoxious which off-sets the creepiness. And guess who this is for? Our opinion-courting friends at HSBC. Aww.
- Verizon's Giant's Stadium text message contest suffers from bad "can you hear me now?" reception.
- Looks like the pre-holiday layoffs are rolling in. Time Inc. just laid off 27 from its consumer marketing unit reports MediaWeek.
- If you just couldn't get enough of the fake Sony PSP blog, The Consumerist saved the entire site and reuploaded it to humiliate Sony even further.
- coBRANDit's Owen Mack attended the recent Word of Mouth Marketing Association conference in Washington DC last week and created several video interviews.
- IQ Interactive singing heads sing Christmas carols.
- Who knew? USA Today says the wise-ass Windex bird commercial was the most-liked ad in 2006.
- AdMashup, the site that collects submitted ad mashups was featured in the 2006 Advertising Age Book of Tens.
For a long time, everyone's been wondering who's really behind that freakish looking Burger King mask. OK, so we're the only ones wondering but has anyone seen Jack Kevorkian lately? The euthanasia dude seems to have disappeared. Oh wait, is he in prison? Anyway, we think we've found him along with the true identity of the Burger King.
This HSBC ad out of Singapore demonstrates what may be a successful attempt to re-brand a stodgy, almost rotary old player into something more contemporary. An interesting choice, though it begs the question which, between "traditional" and "trendy," is actually the positive and the negative. Smart not to paint either option in a bad light. A hat tip to the old boys - at least they know a message is only as good as its interpretation.
Some time ago, Danish comedians Wulffmorgenthaler created a comic strip that showed a frog being carried away by a fly stuck to his tongue. Earlier this year, DDB Berlin let loose a Volkswagen commercial that showed yes, frog being carried away by a fly stuck to his tongue. The usual pissing match has ensued. Some think DDB should apologize. See the strip here. Watch the ad here. What do you think?
Hey, wait a minute Ad Age. We did our survey first and it was a split decision. Oh wait. You have all those old, conservative readers and we have all the cool new kids. Now we get why the survey results differed. It seems Adrants readers enjoy working with Julie Roehm-ish drama more than Advertising Age readers. Eighty one percent of Advertising Age readers feel Wal-mart made the right move in firing Julie Roehm. What's that they say about research? Oh wait, we don't want to nullify out own survey results now do we?
Looks like the belle of the big-box ball is losing suitors. GSD&M President Roy Spence states, "I want to thank Wal-Mart for inviting us to re-pitch the business. I have decided to decline. We helped build Wal-Mart from $11 billion in sales to $312 billion. We declare victory [...] and we are moving on."
January marks the end of the 20-year relationship and GSD&M is apparently stoked "about the prospect of chasing retail accounts that Wal-Mart's business long kept the agency out of."
GSD&M remain mum on all that Julie bullshit but there's little doubt the issue is an unsavoury contributor to the slicing of the cord.
Finalists from the previous review still running for the red-hot $580 million account include Ogilvy & Mather and Interpublic's Martin Agency. Roy's image at left courtesy of AdAge. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
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