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Two Untamed Unveil New MINIs Oh wow. Way to introduce a new car! To hype the new MINI convertible and coupe, two twins who are referred to as Two Untamed prep us for the vehicles, unveiling at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The pair have done several other videos leading up to this one which tease and don't show the vehicles. This last one shows us the goods. Sweet ride. Newsflash! Brands Still Making Virals! Yawn. Sorry. We just can't help it. Viral. Viral Viral. It just makes us wish the word never existed. Well, at least for describing advertising efforts otherwise known as videos. Yes, people, videos. They are, after all, just videos. THEY AREN"T VIRAL UNTIL A SHIT TON OF PEOPLE VIEW THEM! OK, sorry, we tend to off on that one. Anyway, Audi's out with a collection of new VIDEOS (oops, sorry) that depict freakty electrical happenings like a lawnmower gone crazy, static electricity that sends a kid across the room and a lightning storm that attack Frankfurt. All to promote a new car. Yea. A new car. Makes one long for those boring winding mountain road commercials that just, well, show the car. Which is, after all, what everyone wants to see in the first place. ad:tech Chicago: Sharpie, Ben & Jerry's Squeeze Merit Out of Social Media Sphinx My last ad:tech Chicago session was the Social Media Industry Forum, presented by Geoff Ramsey of eMarketer. The sesh had a festive air for many reasons, not least that it was Ramsey's birthday. ad:tech's Warren Pickett burst in near the end to furnish him with candle-lit cupcakes. But the company was also lively: we had a frothy, sometimes cynical and perennially candid band that included Digital Marketing Manager Katie O'Brien of Ben & Jerry's, President Rick Murray of Edelman Digital (which does interactive stuff for B&J's), PR/Social Media Manager Susan Wassel of Sanford Brands (here to rep Sharpie), and Digital Strategist Akash Pathak of DraftFCB, which worked with Wassel to bring life to Sharpie's label.
by Angela Natividad
Sep- 8-09
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Creative Commentary, Events, Industry Events, Social ad:tech Chicago: Weighing Hearts and Brands on Ancient Scales ad:tech Chicago's "Love for Sale -- How Great Creative Seduces Its Target" session was broken into two discernably useful parts: statistics on online dating, and seduction as a metaphor for marketing. We'll begin at the beginning. The Online Dating Crowd Accompanied by Liz Ross of Digitas US, Fusion Idea Lab's Matt Brennock regaled us with both statistics and close-to-home anecdotes -- the kind that's fueled many a romantic comedy. I heard one guy say the pair had great chemistry, and he commended them for "[opening] the kimono" the way they did. Given the topic matter, and Brennock's zeal for reminding us (first once, then twice, then...) that men really do just wanna get laid, the geisha metaphor was oddly appropriate. Some stats:
by Angela Natividad
Sep- 7-09
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Creative Commentary, Events, Industry Events, Opinion New Yorkers, Bagging Kenny Cole, and Party Pic Greatness- Ken Cole. Patriot. - Jetpacks still not quitting. - All black ads look alike. - New Yorkers shooting New Yorkers. Levi's Stops Costumed Volleyball Antics to Honor Sen. Kennedy Adrants reader Gareth sent over Levi's tribute to Senator Edward Kennedy. It appeared in the Sunday editions of the Times and the Globe and sports a rambling and whimsical quote from the Sen. ("The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die"), then a message from Levi's itself: "Let us continue his legacy of faith in the people and faith in the work that has yet to be done." Wordy but loaded with gravity. We like that it remains sparing and casual; apart from the text, a hand-sketched version of the Levi's logo appears over its current tagline: "Go forth," part of a campaign primarily targeted to meatheads at uni. The ad reminds us of Kenneth Cole's "Different Shoes" campaign, and it's a wonder to us that KC hasn't seized this opportunity to add Kennedy to its list of creative-friendly quotables. It could just be that we didn't look hard enough though, so if we're wrong, send that bad-boy over. This Season's Trend in Gamer Marketing? Necromancy. A spankin' new ad for Beatles Rock Band features the Fab Four alive and well, loitering with fans on Abbey Road. There's even an almost-convincingly-cut scene of George Harrison strumming alongside a kid with a Rock Band guitar. The frothy setting -- utterly devoid of the angst that made them not-a-band-anymore -- melts into animated versions of the Beatles themselves, beating their instruments over the coloured Rock Band bars that tell you what string to hit. Song featured in the ad is Come Together off their Abbey Road album. No strong feelings of disdain here; it's certainly a lot less callous than that one time Saatchi used All You Need is Love to sell diapers or the time Ben & Jerry's distilled the spirit of John Lennon in a hippie ice cream. Oddly -- and we might change our minds about this later -- the ad made the notion of bringing the Beatles back as an animated pleasure-band a lot less traumatizing than watching a stilted cartoon Kurt Cobain play marionette for Guitar Hero. It's cheesy, sure, but it could have been a trainwreck. Identity of the agency behind the ad remains a mystery for now. Word has it there'll be a reveal after the game comes out. Anyway, whoever you are, nice job; we'd be liars if we said the work lacked charm.
by Angela Natividad
Aug-31-09
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Celebrity, Commercials, Promotions, Television Captain Morgan Calling, Bumping Business Cards, BBDO Loses Chrysler - BBDO loses the Chrysler biz-nass. Read the detailed sitch and the straight-up tear. - Political sand artist wins Ukraine's version of America's Got Talent. People in audience cry. - iPhone users, Bump your way out of business card purgatory. - Twitter penetrates network TV. (*sigh*) Via Make the Logo Bigger. - New Bogusky/Winsor propaganda: Baked-In: The Power of Aligning Marketing & Product Innovation. - Dictionary.com hipsters out, loses mind. - "People with hangovers love Captain Morgan." - Bloggers talk crowdsourcing on the BeanCast. O, Hell No; Three Olives Brings O-Face to TV Three Olives Vodka, the folk that pimped the nation for its best O-face, is back with a triage of TV spots. Each scenario is the same: a bespectacled male is subjected to pain. He doesn't react. Then he downs a shooter of the vodka, squeezes his little shoes together and O's his little heart out. NBC New York Plugs Local Cred with Quirky Shut-Ins We're not really sure what New Yorkers read to give them that Big City somethin'-somethin', but NBC New York wants the crown for itself. So it turned to Mother, which in turn conceived "Locals Only," a campaign that spotlights the website's granular take on the city. It's the spots that compelled us to visit the site, where we discovered it's a lot like HuffPo for deep-Manhattanites with a PG palate (more for NBC's sake, wethinks, than for the city's). Yesterday's big story was a taser-toting robber grandma; today you've got a happy ending to a very old kidnapping story. We also think the changing header -- "NBC New York [is intrigued by nude models]" -- gives it a personable touch, lending sass to a rag that, while not as gritty as NEW YORK POST, may well hold its own in the city's dense circle. But enough about the site; let's move on to the weirdos. The punchline's cheap, and the news tidbits at the end feel a little shoehorned in, but the caricatures are wicked. 
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