Apparently the Mr. Universe days are over. Gold's Gym, one of his last strongholds, has finally decided to divorce the oil-slicked rock-hard prototype patron of their long heritage to draw yoga mamas and mellow boomers into the building.
With that in mind, Gold's is scrambling to make their $30 million ad budget and 40+ years of illustrious history count for the new crowd, who look at it as a nostalgic symbol of times past. Advertising Age has a spot from their new campaign. It's got an aggressive Gold's feel to it but the imagery is more typical of what you'd find at Bally's or 24 Hour Fitness. The spot isn't particularly thrilling and we worry they're wasting some serious brand equity by being too self-conscious about the competition.
You know what would be really awesome? Starting a Gold's-sponsored Arnold Fitness Challenge, where Arnold Schwarzenegger is whipped back into shape by the frothy little yoga mamas Gold's is trying to hard to court. We'd pay to see that. Well, probably not. But we might at least turn the TV on. Come on, Gold's. Don't be such chickenshits.
We've learned two very important things having been in the advertising industry for some time. First, no two cultures are alike and what's funny or insensitive in one country could be quite the opposite in another. Which is why these two Dubai Lynx Grand Prix winning spots make no sense to us at all. Oh sure, they're funny but we're not sure why. Oh wait, we were talking about the two things we've learned. The second. Bouncing boobs are man magnets no matter where on this earth one lives. Especially to box headed men the second spot labeled "Hulk."
James Cash Penney. Isn't that an awesome founder name? It pulls 10 times the weight of humdrum John Rockefeller. There's miles of branding potential behind a name like that.
Unfortunately JC Penney's isn't known for taking advantage. As kids we considered Penney's a tier above Sears - if you're desperate or you wait too long you might find a good prom dress there, but you'll probably lie and say you got it on sale at Macy's.
To offset this sad effect, Saatchi and Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts enlists the lame duck brand for a Lovemarks repositioning. Watch the initial couple of ads and read the Garfield review at Advertising Age.
more »
While perhaps extremely pessimistic to think this way, these Court TV commercials (one, two) for the net's John Waters-hosted 'til Death Do Us Part scripted series about spouses plot the death of their life partners will resonate with anyone who's been married for more than three years. They make their point perfectly.
It's not enough to reach purchasing audiences anymore; we also need to keep one eye open for bloggers and online opinion-makers who increasingly make or break the success of a campaign. Still, few marketers will admit it's the bloggers they're targeting, much less shoot directly for them.
An Adrants reader points us to this fresh DuPont campaign called DuPont stories. Created by the interactive media futurists at Denuo, the videos are set up like a science class to illustrate the relevance of DuPont in everyday life. They're narrated by former Rocketboomer Amanda Congdon - looking hotter than ever - garbed in a lab coat who, oddly enough, isn't removing it, tossing her hair or making come-hither Freudian slips as the tale progresses. (After all, it is Amanda Congdon.)
We don't know if that's good or bad but we like that the series doesn't try leveraging the camp or slapstick humour characteristic of the standard viral. We feel like we learned something (watch Glass Houses, it's awesome). We feel enriched but somehow still not bored. By gad, could it be that viral trollers aren't monkeys after all?
For reasons that defy our understanding, there's always an enthusiastic response to esoteric Eurotrash-style campaigns. The trend leaves a bad taste in our mouths; it's like paying too much to walk into a club that makes gratuitous use of pink and black with a waxy clientele that just wants to get off on the idea of rubbing shoulders with waxy clientele. We actually did that the other night which is probably why we're experiencing such a violent knee-jerk reaction to this new Nokia thing.
more »
Toilet humour isn't just the cheapest form of joke; it's probably also the most relatable. Scott Clog Clinic, an ongoing Scott campaign meant to educate people about best toilet practices and share fun facts, just awarded a 23-year-old Pennsylvanian $25,000 for sharing his "cloggiest moment."
In brief, said 23-year-old takes his father's advice late one night and uses his uncle's ski pole to get rid of a clog that won't be moved by a plunger.
Why give the guy money? What they should have given him was film equipment. There's nothing like watching a stressful situation like that play out on Youtube. It has all the right components: an anxious 20-something, a gigantic piece of shit and ski equipment. How did anyone avoid filming this?
Spicing up the laundry detergent category, UK agency Bartle Bogle Hegary has created a visually interesting commercial for Unilever's Persil. Dubbed Persil small & mighty, the detergent is concentrated and it's tagline promises "Small cap, mighty results." Narrated by a small boy who explains how his mother pours the detergent into the was which results in a "ginormous firework," the commercial does, indeed, explode with color in front of a stark, white background.
It's certainly exciting and we wonder if our black and tan wardrobe needs a bit of spicing up after seeing this colorfully orgasmic clothing explosion.
If you're a caveman (no, not the Geico caveman because you, my friend, would somehow think this is yet another slight on your kind) and you're eating a "Half Chocolately, Half Candy, Half Crazy" Vertigo bar from Topps Confections, you might want to keep your arms close by. The campaign, which kicks off March 19, was created by Duval Guillaume New York and will air through May 28 on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, ABC Family among others. Here's a look at one of the four :15's.
A tip-off from Frederik Samuel: Goodby, Silverstein and Partners put together this visually lush site for Milk called Get the Glass.
We love the attention to detail and the character mix but by the time we got to the game (which we looked forward to playing until the countdown lag) we were antsy out of our minds.
Did you guys have to start the preloading countdown at, like, 80? What were you thinking? Once it got to 55 and we realized you were serious, we had already decided we would build our own toy wonderland in the duration and torch it out of vengeance.
|
|
