Hmm. We wonder how effective an ad campaign is if you have to read the agencies description of it on their website to figure out what that little blue ball of fur is they placed in a campaign for a cookie seller. JWT in Kuwait (yes, we cover advertising news from all over the world) created a print campaign for their client Choowy Goowy, a cookie retailer that delivers cookies in jars to homes and offices.
We suppose we can't complain too much. If they used the actual Cookie Monster, they'd have to get into all that nasty licensing and royalty fee crap. Still, a ball of blue fur as a stand in for the Cookie Monster? A stretch to say the least. Oh wait, it's just a piece of his fur that fell off while he was chowing down the cookies. OK. Now we get it. Silly us. And ho long did we ave to stare at the ads to get that? Hopefully, our explanation will spare all of you the embarrassment of idiocy we just went through.
Any campaign with the tagline "it's always big" generally finds us paying a bit more attention to it than others and this new Colle+McVoy-created Minnesota State Lottery television campaign has us very interested. But, not for the sick reasons dancing around in your head right now. No. We like this campaign because it's a game. And it's game, called What's the Difference, that starts on the tube and ends online. In the ads, the viewer is asked to find the six differences between two images in the ad that represent a $20 million jackpot winner and a $200 million winner. Winners of the game are entered into a drawing to win cash and prizes.
With everyone in the industry latching onto the latest and greatest ad babble term of the day, engagement, it's nice to see something real come out of board room blather. We're giving props to Colle+McVoy on this one. See the ads here, here and here.
Wistfully playing off the very, very, very...very old, but never tired, joke about sunglasses allowing one's eyes to secretly gaze towards distractingly enticing imagery undetected is a new Brazilian campaign for Polaroid Eyewear. With the proper Polaroid glasses, the guy in this campaign can enjoy the best of both worlds. The real one where he has to act as though his girlfriend is the only woman in the world for him or the fake world in which every piece of jiggling curvaceousness is his to freely explore and conquer in his fantasies. Some of us thank Polaroid for this bestowing this blessing. Others, not so much. See all three ads here. The campaign is the work of Santa Clara.
The thirty year old "I Love New York" campaign is about to get a makeover to the tune of $16 million. Speaking like he has a mouthful of marketing marbles affecting his speech, Empire State Development Corp. Co-Chairman Pat Foye said, "We want to maximize its value and get creative input from the leading advertising agencies around the state and the nation on how we can best be effective stewards of it." Hopefully the agency that takes on this challenge won't get caught spewing babble like this and puke out some piece of shit replacement for a campaign that's done just fine over the years.
No idea's original, but in any field the taboo is the same: if even a successful idea can be traced back to somebody else's sleeper hit, fingers get pointed. For a shining example, just look at Suzuki's attempts to be BMW.
A source tells us elements of the STA World Traveler Contest are suspiciously similar to an existing campaign that's lesser-known but more complete in scope. St. Georges School in the Grenada West Indies used the same pinpricked-globe format to highlight, not starry-eyed co-eds, but far-flung alumni they've accumulated over 30 years. Visit the St. Georges website and click on the 30 year anniversary logo at bottom left to catch the similarities.
If you don't feel like clicking back and forth, that's okay; we'll show you.
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It's not the first time a political candidate will have used social networking as part of a campaign strategy, but it's probably the first time a political candidate has ever created his or her own social networking site.
Enter My Barack Obama, a social networking space dedicated to users who'd like to help Obama get into the White House in '08. He also has a MySpace that's of course not made or endorsed by him but by some very serious fan out there who happens to have little to do but make thousands of friends on his behalf.
There's not too much you can say to trash a guy who acknowledges his own lack of qualifications and admits to doing drugs in college. But we've all seen how internet influence can make or break you. A word of warning, Obama: remember Howard Dean.
True.com has colonized sex so effectively, dating sites that once mistook sex for neutral domain are now scrambling for the next Holy Grail of human characteristics.
So in its ongoing quest to find a personality, Match.com resorts to the webcam, a tactic shared by those bastard cousins of dating sites, amateur porn purveyors. "See who's on Match.com right now FREE!" a banner bubbles while running videos of attractive people drinking coffee and taking off their shoes.
The effort is unsettling. We don't know if it'll help draw hot single traffic, but we did stare for a long time. This is mainly because we harbor the quiet hope people will forget they're being watched and do something to satisfy our voyeuristic desire to witness something childish but unsavoury, like ball-scratching or nose-picking.
But these things didn't happen. Maybe they should. Maybe that would turn the ads into winners. It's hard to tell at this point and we don't see much hope for the future because Match.com changes campaigns faster than Mr. Rogers changed his sweaters.
Public Relations professionals work hard to get their client's message out to the media. They send press releases. They make personal contact. They send gifts. They take you to lunch. They bribe...uh...no. The good ones don't go that far. So after a PR professional spends a day pitching their client's new ad campaign to the media and only one publication picks it up, a nudist resort blog, it is both depressing and very humorous. Why would a nudist-focused blog pick up an ad launch story? Simple. Because the ads feature nude models.
Yesterday, Bluefly launched a new ad campaign touting Bluefly's ability to eradicate that feeling of nakedness when not fashionably dressed. Or something like that. Thankfully, these nude models are far more attractive than your average nudist colony resident but that would be insensitive and uncaring to say so we're not going to.
Anyway, Bluefly President and CEO Melissa Payner tells us, "This campaign is not about nudity - it's about feeling naked, which is very different. These days more than ever, what you wear is inextricably linked to who you are. Without the 'right' clothes we experience an identity crisis. So our tagline 'That's Why I Bluefly' is the perfect antidote for this condition." OK. See the second ad here.
It's become part of the 20-something cliche to leave college and see the world. That's why we think the STA Travel 193 campaign by Night Agency is doing so well. Upon the contest's end a winner will be selected to become a "world traveler" over a two-person trip to four countries.
The campaign features a little Flash globe with clickable videos where you can watch people talk about their experiences in a given country. It's a little like being back in college again, watching those EAP kids give speeches about how their lives have changed forever post beer-chug in Munich.
With next to no media money spent this invitation has garnered over 6000 leads for STA in its first week. Now how can we possibly have an immigration problem when everybody's just raring to leave?
If lust doesn't do the job for you this Valentine's day, Swatch suggests voodoo. And if the voodoo fails, at least the apple of your eye will have a neat new watch and a weird-looking stuffed toy.
Swatch is running a neat little Valentine's Day campaign with love voodoo master Eddy G Lazaro. In this video he shows you how voodoo love Swatch watches are made. It's not nearly as action-packed as it sounds and there are no shrunken heads, but he does do that neat eyes-rolling-back trick. And each voodoo love Swatch comes with a bonafide voodoo doll.
What can beat that? We're at a total loss. This is just a notch better than smacking your partner on the back of the head and dragging her by the hair into your cave.
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