This new spot for Nissan (:30 and :60) immediately piqued interest: one car circulates a vinyl album. Interesting retro tones punctuate the background. The camera pans out, revealing many vehicles circulating many vinyls. It's an image that brings Warhol to mind.
What's going on? What'll happen next? Will Nissan pull a Dell?
Nah. One jalapeno-red maverick races off its track (cut to big Nissan logo!), encouraging others to do the same. (A vaguely familiar idea. Got a quote for me, Mazda?) They briefly fall in line, a tactic car advertisers seem to love, then park with a screech in haphazard fashion.
The 350Z, arguably Nissan's sexiest model, pulls abruptly into the foreground. The tagline follows: "Escape the pattern. Nissan."
Bleh.
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A commenter on Radar summed up the apparent strategy behind a new FFL Paris-created ad campaign for Wrangler, writing, "So let's connect the dots here - Wranglers are worn by cowboys. Cowboys like to shoot things. People who shoot things go hunting. People hunt animals. People are animals. Therefore, we shall all wear Wranglers and go headhunting."
With the tagline "We Are Animals," the campaign's images, shot by the oh so uber-hip photographer Ryan McGinley, depict women in the wild in various states of undress hunted, well, like animals. There's a video too.
Somehow, this high concept is supposed to sell jeans. Mostly, it's just pissing people off. In reality, it's just bad advertising that's trying to pass itself off as high art.
See all the "high art" here.
"After finding a Leatherman on the ocean floor, our hero transformed himself from clawless freak into BIONIC LOBSTER: the handiest lobster alive."
Awesome premise -- one-clawed lobster gets new lease on life -- by STICK and MOVE/Philly for client Leatherman. (If Finding Nemo taught us anything, it's that everyone loves a story about broken fish prevailing over life's hard knocks.) Happily, they went all the way with it: See spot where Bionic Lobster fends for his life, MacGuyver-style, in a seafood restaurant. And there are comic books! Three parts so far, and if you bother to download the PDFs, well-made and funny too.
Looking forward to seeing more stuff by STICK and MOVE.
Southern Comfort (with Lime!): for when you're beyond sensory cognizance. The music sucks, your conduct questionable, everyone's funny, and Ugly at left is starting to look like a Good Investment.
The spot's called "Suspended Moments" and is part of a big hard year-end push. Also, in efforts to get down with the music scene, Southern Comfort goes by SoCo now. (It worked for J-Lo, Diddy and BevMo, right?)
Beginning next month, "SoCo Music Experience" webisodes will air on Heavy, My Damn Channel, Pitchfork.tv, Complex.com and DeathandTaxesMagazine.com. I'm not sure what a "Music Experience" is, but if I had to guess, I'd say they're like trashy music videos with slipperier floors. And heavy on the indie bands for good measure.
See the new Colorado Lottery spot by Cactus. It promised instant fun but didn't deliver, although the spot probably would've been mildly amusing if it weren't buttressed by a threat to hit us with talent fees if we host the goddamn ad and don't take it down by October 6.
Fucking wet blankets.
- At left: a French mushroom ad! OMG cute. Caption: "Paris mushrooms: it's when they're in your mouth that they're the happiest." Go make them happy. Our resident expat PT Ford isn't so amused.
- Nothing starts the day off better than a kung fu drink ad.
- Dario at Invoke sent us this shot of the Newfoundland-based Hits 99.1 FM van.
- Worthless but interesting tag cloud tool. This one lets you pick fonts and colors. Pop in a URL, see what your homepage mentions most. (Adrants loves itself some Leigh.)
- Public School Intelligentsia learns us a new word: frumputante. Think cash-money bag ladies in Juicy Couture sweats. Streaky hair a plus. Ugh.
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Is sex (or the hint of) allowed to sell in China? If you are Volkswagen and Dynamic Marketing Group is your agency then, it seems, yes. Or if it isn't sex, maybe it's the realization that things have changed in Chinese culture and the country wants the rest of the world to know it.
Out with the old and in with the new as it were. Up with the hemlines and out with subservience. China wants to join the rest of the world and wallow in rampant commercialization. Welcome to the party, China.
Check out "Theatre" for Holland Casino. It clearly identifies its audience, demonstrates why casinos are more entertaining than a "high culture" jaunt ("It's more fun when you take part") and even made us laugh. I srsly almost choked on my couscous when dude was all, "IS IT A BOOK...?!"
Nice change from gaudy and cheesy. Good stuff by agency TBWA and production company Czar/NL.
In "Lighthouse," a (very!) short film by Exopolis, a wee seaside community helps light a path for ships long after technology fails them. Very cute. Created for Liberty Mutual's "Responsibility Project" by Hill Holliday.
See a previous effort, "Mandy and Lester" by RSA.
PETA sent a letter to Ralph Basham, the commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, to convince him to offset the cost of building a border fence by selling ad space.
Why? Because it's got creative ready to run. The ad at left features svelte Mexicans in their homeland and fat chunky ones on the US side of the fence. It reads, "If the border patrol doesn't get you, the chicken and burgers will -- go vegan." (The premise is that when Mexicans cross the border, they are leaving behind a "far healthier staple diet of vegetables and grains.")
Commenters said the traditional Mexican diet isn't meat-free, and the fence itself actually harms animals because it prevents wildlife from migrating for food.
Well, I'm sure if PETA didn't need the fence for advertising and the US gov didn't need another lost cause to waste tax money on (because people in dire straits are really gonna go, "Hey, a fence" and turn back), everyone would be more than happy to take it down.
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