In specific, the Honda Pilot will steer you into the path of geriatric ballooning nudists, jetpack users and at least one guy trapped in a cement block. All will be male, and all will be slightly left of your comfort zone.
These unlikely Good Samaritan scenarios highlight the Pilot's merits: rearview camera, navigation with voice recognition and "surprising" fuel efficiency. None of that is terribly unique, but all of it is now lodged in my brain, if only so I can turn the ads into slow-night bar fodder.
But wait! There's print stuff too. See Youtility and Ride Ready, which are less creepy, but also less interesting. Agency: RPA.
Um, open your mind? Facial reconstruction? Experience the beauty of music? Be kind to animals? Kill your kid by blowing off his head? Some campaigns occasionally cause a serious case of WTFness. This one from Bilioteq Creative books goes so far beyond WTF that after seeing them maybe, akin to the ads themselves, you'll tear off your face and rip out your brain forever leaving behind any chance you'll ever again have to be faced (ooo...was that a pun?) with the challenge of harming your brain cells interpreting WTFness such as this ad campaign from South Africa's FoxP2.
Looks like Brian Collins' brand experience manifesto has made converts in the Parisian hospitality industry.
Hotel chain F1 (formerly Formule1), which targets tourists between 18-35, is promoting its "new generation" brand with the Crazy Room Tour. Bearing the slogan "Tu dormiras plus tard!" (roughly: "You'll sleep in!"), the tour will hit 18 cities with branded deejays, video games and group activities.
more »
Maybe because it's not hip to the existence of guerrilla gardening, Miracle-Gro is using '70s pop and a catchy new slogan to staple a sense of cool to its 60-year-old plant food product.
Under the wince-worthy slogan "It's Gro Time," this dated spot jams in print-supported phrases like "dirt manicure" and "tomato mojo" while gardeners jiggle bare midriffs and mist plants to "I Believe in Miracles (You Sexy Thing)."
God, how hopelessly lame. Thanks to ML Rogers, New York for all this quiet angst.
Ads for Recount: The Story of the 2000 Presidential Election, are plastered all over NYC. Here are a few: "swinging chad," "hanging chad" and "pregnant chad."
Each refers to a punch card that ballot machines may have trouble reading. The subtext isn't quite a definition of the phrase; it's more like a description of how political minds saw them in the context of the 2000 election. (Remember Florida?)
Witty.
See the actual definitions for these terms. Next time you pass by one of these posters, snicker like you're in the know.
With but ten words, this new campaign for Mike's Hard lemonade says so, so much. It's got the sexual angle. It's got the anti-politically correct angle. It's got the men will be men angle. It's got a vaguely-veiled, mildly homophobic angle (OK, maybe that's a stretch). It's got the geeks are idiots angle.
All of which makes perfect sense because it comes to us courtesy of that agency with the website that is so "over-the-top, too-cool-for-school and testosterone-laden, it makes Mad Men look like an AWNY convention on steroids...uh...progesterone," Amalgamated.
more »
Tonight was the awards ceremony for the One Show College Competition, for which schools nationwide turned in their top student portolios. See some here.
Doritos -- which in the last couple of years has devoted much of its promotional budget to lobbing cash at "creative" users (1, 2, 3) -- also solicited a campaign brief seeking "Doritos advertising that is iconic as Doritos."
The word "iconic" sparked interesting conversation after the show. Links to video below.
more »
And now, for the final act, Fiat will pull a rabbit out of a...tortoise shell? Damn. Why do marketers always have to go a mess with magical metaphors just to create strange looking ad campaigns? Oh well. All in good fun. Oh and to sell a few cars as well.
Along with a rabbit shacking up in tortoise shell, the campaign offer an owl sprouting peacock feathers and a spider sporting a beetle shell. Somehow this sells cars. Giovanni + DraftFcb, São Paulo created.
Who knew? For those who don't venture outside the five burroughs very often, it might come as a surprise that the entire state of New York isn't covered with black top. Yes, according to the new Saatchi & Saatchi-created I Love New York campaign, the state apparently has farms, grass, rivers, lakes, waterfalls, vineyards and all kinds of other stuff that's not made out of concrete. Who knew?
The campaign aims to increase tourism by 30 percent by 2020. Three of the print ads can be seen here.
Continuing its illogical idiocy, the Truth campaign has dredged up yet another decades old quote from a "tobacco company executive" who is now likely dead if not certainly retired. This executive, in response to a claim smoking cigarettes during pregnancy can lead to low birth weight said, "...some women would prefer smaller babies."
This is idiotic on so many levels. First, it's an anachronism from 1971. Times have changed and no human with a brain in their head would ever say that today. If this ad ran in 1971, it would make sense. Today, it's a complete disconnect. Attempting to slam a tobacco company for something someone said 37 years ago is just stupid. Second, maybe women did and still do want smaller babies. After all, who really wants to squeeze out a 15 pound fattie? Maybe the guy was repeating something he heard while drunk at a cocktail party and it was taken totally out of context.
more »
|
|
