Instead of imposing changes that everyone inevitably just complains about later, the Chicago Transportation Authority decided to poll city inhabitants to find out how they'd improve the public transport service.
With help from Chicago Now, the entity created a huge street chalkboard where users could kneel down and write their views. Oh yeah, you could also leave opinions on a Chicago Now blog. But given the option between keyboard and chalk, we'd rather be clutching the latter.
Variant photo here.
Ho there. Know what we never get tired of? That retail-superhero crap that Best Buy did with Geek Squad and Dell tried doing with Nerd Buddy.
But that's cool, because this is Sears, and you know they're hurtin' for imagination.
In defense of the Sears Blue Electronics Crew, we will say real-time price-checking is neat if it works the way it does in the ad, and we dig how research-intensive purchases, like a new TV, are made to look like a rest-easy impulse-buy process.
The slogan is equally brief: "Sears: Life. Well Spent."
These are the parts we like. The parts we don't: it's derivative, as usual; the piece is too long; and we feel like they tossed in Brett Farve because a celebrity face will ensure at least some campaign love. Also, did they even do the price comparison before Farve OK'ed the buy?
Nice tie-in with the "waffle" joke though. High-five for that, Y&R/Chicago.
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...I guess that makes sense, although the five spots featured for Discover's new "Get Back" campaign do occasionally, if feebly, try suggesting you can also "get back" buddy time and family time and youth.
But this really all just comes down to buy more shit.
By the nonetheless well-meaning folks at The Martin Agency. The brand isn't strong in the first place; it's only natural that the message be blurry in equal measure.
The Toronto Zoo has completed a brand-new habitat to accommodate the return of its polar bears. No, not sure where they're returning from, but it must've been some awesome digs because their just-finished gilded cage is 10 acres across and outfitted like the Tundra.
To promote the exhibit, Lowe Roche is disseminating this spot in which a square but well-meaning dude mistakes the habitat for the real thing, then penetrates it and goes off in search of adventure and meaning.
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- Twitter's new It Guy: "Tennessee is nice. The first time I vomited was in tennessee, I think." The author -- allegedly a 28-year-old loafer just writing down whatever his 73-year-old dad says -- won over 40,000 followers since yesterday. We smell a deeper story.
- ABSOLUT toasts Boston.
- Fan tribute to Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear. It's like falling down a magic CG-woven rabbit hole. See official music video.
- Outcast changes gears.
- Ouch. We will never text-and-steer again.
- WPP revenue numbers, accompanied by potshots of William Shatner, because that's the way real men read charts.
- Microsoft bleaches for the Polish...?
American Apparel is using YouTube to push a series of tutorials that teach all the different ways you can wear Le Sac, a versatile little sheath with string.
The vids are short, clean and to-the-point. Certainly helps that the demonstrator is easy to look at and listen to. (Can't help going there, but we speculate whether the Infamous Dov ever tried copping a feel. It's an unpleasant thought.)
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If you've ever played a massive multiplayer online game -- or at least watched that one episode of South Park -- then you're well-versed in the frustrations of laggage.
Lag is when you're in a crucial scenario in the game, but a crappy connection speed leaves your character in a vulnerable position just long enough to compromise you and your team.
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Danica deserted for the watch hustle. Just weeks later, GoDaddy's taken to deluging press boxes with potshots of its new It Girl: Erin Kalin.
Unless the company's planning a cruel media deflowering, don't expect many shower videos in the near future. Her premiere video is labeled, "She's Hot, She Sings, She's a Mom!" -- and we wouldn't advise you watch it unless you want to hear honey harp on about her idyllic church upbringing and how it's so neat that she's a singer now, because, gosh, she's just always wanted to be one. And look at the kids! The adorable kids!
In the event that you're deaf, can't see children and have X-ray eyes, GoDaddy takes great care to label the home-grown country shlock under "Warning: GoDaddy-esque content!"
Stalk Erin on Twitter. (Given her follower count of a whoppin' 47, you'd probably make Bob's day.) Prerequisite: high tolerance for emoticons.
- Hey, little girl, feel better about your period.
- Joy it forward. Every time a beverage uses a happiness synonym that's not "happiness" (as in Happiness Factory), you can reasonably conclude you're dealing with Pepsi.
- "People like it, but they won't buy magazines with large women in them." More story here, props to MTLB for the link.
- Zippo makes branded entertainment leap.
- Intern-on-intern music video mayhem.
- Twitter elevator pitch contest. You have until tomorrow to enter and win a Flip!
"Schizophrenic Man Terrifies Kids at Party" is a YouTube piece released by English mental health charities Mind and Rethink under their "Time to Change" campaign. We like how it plays on our expectation of crass amateur video fare to illustrate two important messages:
o That people with mental disorders can function in society
o That retaining the stereotype of the off-the-hinge crazy person is counterproductive for everyone involved
It also reminded us that as kids, we were always screamy-scared about stuff we couldn't see, however facile or harmless said "stuff" actually was. And then, lightbulb moment, it was like hey, tripping out about schizophrenia is kind of like that.
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