Shake Well Before Use, ever vigilant for our societies repressed obsession with sex, calls our attention to an ad campaign for a Turkish clothing company that attempts to go the sex sells route but fails miserably as SWBU writer Ariel comments, "the director couldn't even get them to 'play sex' in a convincing role in that crap junior's department clothing. Of course, fully clothed sex oulf be the new "fetch" since nakedness is, after all, so five minutes ago.
As part of the Global Fund RED campaign to fight AIDS in Africa, The Independent has been redesigned today by Giorgio Armani and half the papers ad revenue will be donated to the Global Fund ro Fight AIDS. It's all part of the Maria Shriver/Bono-created campaign that aims to urge big business to contribute to the fund in an ongoing manner. The companies already involved are Gap, Converse, Emporio Armania, American Express and Motorola. All those companies have developed RED product lines and a portion of the revenue that comes from sales of those lines goes to the Fund.
Maria Shriver explains the effort telling The Independent, "How do you think Magic Johnson [who has HIV] is still around? He takes two pills a day, which he can get from any drugstore. But those drugstores don't exist in Africa, and millions can't get to the drugs Magic Johnson can get. That's where the RED money's going." So far, $10 million has been raised.
The Effie Awards is running comparative a ad campaign to promote its revamped awards show. Created by New York-based Anomaly, the campaign pokes fun at other award shows with charts humorously describing the focus of the other shows. Citing the Clios' obsession with the hot agency of the moment, D&AD's focus on any Guinness spot, the Andys' love of anything that has to do with agency anniversaries or agency Chritmas parties and Cannes' fixation on ads that make no sense, the Effie's hopes to remind people it's only concerned with awarding ads that actually work.
Oh, and the whole rebranding using charts and graphs created in Excel is intended to further instill the show's focus on results versus fluff. Check out the full ad here. It's a big jpeg so you'll be able to see all the details of each of the charts in the ad.
Bucky Turco tells us the government, perhaps hoping for some Lonelygirl15 or NewNuma love, has taken its anti-drug campaign to YouTube posting twelve videos. Some are the as that have been running for a while. Others are from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration which are sure to be riveting. Yes, YouTube is where the kids are so perhaps this will spread the anti-drug message further.
Here's a witty ad campaign for a pizza joint called Toppers from Shine Advertising. With copy like, "Every pizza is made with tender loving care. The exact same way we treated your girlfriend last night." Not exactly family friendly Bertuccis but way more fun. See the work here.
A cometary isn't something one normally would se promoted with an ad campaign but Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cometary, with help from Red Tettemer, has launched a promotional campaign with the tagline, "The Underground Museum." The campaign includes print, guerilla and outdoor. We especially like the toaster the agency tossed into various ponds and fountains throughout the city which included the copy, "For an easier way to get to Laurel Hill Cemetery, visit theundergoundmuseum.org.
We're sure there's many different levels of inner meaning to these Harvey Nichols ads for its Beauty, Womenswear and Menswear lines sent to us by Adrants reader, Susannah, but we won't bore you with our analysis. Rather, we'll just point you to them and you can interpret them yourselves. DDB London did the ads.
There are just certain situations where staring is simply not advised: at the urinal, in the elevator at someone's disgusting facial blemish or if you are an overweight, wife beater-wearing, ice cream licking slob looking at two teens making out in a convertible. It is, however, OK to stare during poker as indicated in these Fallsview Casini Resort/World Poker Tour commercials by BBDO Toronto.
- Davis Freeberg sends us this long form commercial for TiVo called Blue Moon which is a 50's-style video explaining an important scentific discovery that turns out to be, yes, a TiVo.
- While we really like this new campaign for Florida's Commerce Bank which, in the TV spot, asks "When did you stop thinking you were a magician?" and other kid-related things along with images of kids that change to adults at the end of the commercial, there seems to be a missing transition between the innocence of dreaming in kidhood and Commerce Bank's assertion you can keep dreaming in adulthood if you bank with them. The work was created by Hispanic agency, The Lab thelabideas.com
- Put your Hispanic marketing caps on because the demographic segment is growing eight times faster than other other groups and will, this year, match the purchasing power of African-Americans spending over &800 billion.
- Arthur Schiff, the man behind the classic Ginsu Knife commercials as well as many other informercials died earlier this week at the age of 66.
- Debuting next week during the Come Out & Play festival in New York this month will be "kill them with kindness" game called Cruel 2 B Kind. The game assigns players one weapon and one weakness which consist of random acts of kindness which are to be delivered to other players who could be anyone on the street in the game zone.
- Maverick Media has created another Windows Live Messenger video, called Bottle, that points out the dangers of using old technology to deliver office messages.
- South African singer Verity is hoping record her album by pre-selling 5,000 CDs through a project called the Lucky Packet Project to finance the cost of recording the album. About ten percent of the revenue will go to the South African charity People Opposing Women's Abuse.
- OK, this Great Escape video for the PSP game Dark Mirror is just weird but it definitely reminds one to be sure which bed they slip into the night before.
- T-list is taking social media physical by selling t-shirts on which people can place thisr top five lists of bands, movies, places or any other list one might find on MySpace or any other social media site.
- Getting even closer to the day ads will be affixed to the back of church pews, the Boy Souts of America are now accepting brand sponsorship of its Scout Badges.
- While you may have heard of this stunt already, here's the video of UK artist Bansky "punking" Paris Hilton's new CD by buying copies, altering the cover sleeve's content and replacing her CD with an audio remox of her favorite and inane comments.
- A&T is hyping its online entertainment site Blue Room by airing, on September 10, footage from the Conde Nast Fashon Rocks pre-party featuring Elton John performing highlights from the songs on his upcoming The Captain and the Kid album.
Using flash back scenarios which explain current misfortune, Winston-Saloem agency The Woodbine Agency created a series of commercial for its client Peidmont bank that illustrates the importance of making proper financial decisions and the downside of making bad ones. The series of commercial can viewed on YouTube here.
