This is kinda interesting. For client CONSOL Energy, Brunner/Pittsburgh put together a microsite with a "coal flag." Designed like the Stars and Stripes, each seam represents a mining topic and features interviews of between :90 and 3:00 with people working within the industry.
Target market: residents of coal-producing and electricity-consuming communities, and their leaders. The site was done in Flash 8 and HTML to maximize its SEO juice; not sure how else it's being promoted.
It's an unfortunate stereotype that eco crusaders look more like the wildlife they seek to protect than they do their fellow man. And it's apparently not unique to the States: riffing off this cruel assumption, Air/Brussels developed the ad at left for cosmetic firm Biocorner.
The side of the ad marked "Avant" (Before) depicts your standard tree-hugger: stringy hair, sordid complexion and whale-watcher clothes. On the side marked "Apres" (After), the same woman is transformed into a black-clad vixen with Pantene locks and Scarlett O'Hara eyebrows.
Tagline: "No Need to be Ugly to Save the Planet." I don't know -- she's gonna be pretty cold on that whale boat unless she puts her layers back on.
Much-anticipated? Seriously? Yes, that is how this new commercial, Arm Wrestling, for the British Columbia Dairy Foundation is being touted. Part of the BCDF's Must Drink More Milk campaign, the DDB Vancouver-created cinema ad pits one big arm against two smaller...but milk-drinking arms. The outcome is predictable.
Thankfully this is bit one of 14. One hopes at least one of the yet to be seen 13 is actually "much-anticipated."
Every possible method of convincing young people to drive slower and more carefully has been done. Everything from light humor to horrifically gut-wrenching emotional manipulation has been put to use. Does any of it work? You'll have to ask the statisticians for the answer to that questions.
In an update to the Ad Council's Youth Reckless Driving Prevention campaign, Y&R New York is out with four new commercials which involve the goofball "teenage friend" joining a threesome in a car and, through different tactics, convince the kids to slow down. They're quite tame compared to many of the more extreme examples we've seen.
One might say they were lame but they are so ingratiatingly squirm-inducing, they just might keep people's attention long enough to garner at least a tiny bit of consideration.
Everything about Viagra makes us laugh. We all know what it's for (and spam has ensured that we never forget!), but the ads are never really about doin' The Do -- they're always about love and intimacy, which in this jaded world is a lot like taking the sluggish scenic route to the same destination.
So, fingertips at the ready, we watched "Couple" with the full intention of taking the piss out of it. And get this: we couldn't. Because it moved us.
Yeah, we're embarrassed too.
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Household appliance firm Midea tapped Transistor Studios and Ogilvy/Shanghai to promote its compact air conditioning (AC) product line.
"Dream" depicts a sleek, energy-efficient AC that self-repairs, senses changes in the environment and apparently morphs like the space ship in Flight of the Navigator.
That's exciting and all, but the skeletal arms and single eye had us picturing HAL, poring over us as we sleep, breathing frosty air onto the hair on our necks before spiriting us into cruel oblivion.
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Tums manifests its antacid magic in "Angry Bear," where the aforementioned animal steals food, overeats and goes back in for one more score: the Tums.
There's something about the sight of a bear, far-off and out of decapitation range, that totally numbs us to its potential malevolence. It's like, "Aww, look at the bear eating all the pizza. Look at the bear breaking the watermelon. Look at the bear getting the Tums for its tummy."
You kind of want to curl up around it and fall asleep while it's lying against one of those gutted cars, nursing a food hangover.
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To make kids act more energy-smart, the Department of Energy launched Lose Your Excuse, a painfully cute website* that encourages engagement and boasts a 10-step energy "action plan" to download.
Two quirky little ads drive traffic in its direction. Each features a kid getting caught in a lie about why s/he hasn't become more energy efficient. (I know that vibes like the Spanish Inquisition, but the execution is feel-good and funny).
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Except there's no Coke, and lots of Domos.
"Jump Rope" -- chock full of delicious images and noises -- was put together for client Nike by AKQA. Creativity Online pegged its position "the escapism of exercise." Well-said.
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- Somebody just sent us a link to KillaBanker.com, a little CafePress store where you can buy knee-jerk reactions to economic despair.
- Hanzi Smatter, a site "dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in Western culture," is hilarious. See awkward interpretation of tattoo on a model featured in AussieBum's Commando ad.
- Kellogg's brand rep suffers following Phelps fallout.
- What ho, a Dairy Queen blog.
- More jibjab over Arnell/Tropicana.
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