Look, look: It's Obama's first General Election spot, courtesy of AgencySpy and Tribble. I'm guessing much of the footage came straight out of his wedding video collage, because there are a ton of baby pictures in that bad-boy. See Obama at left, all James Deaned-out.
The video's a rehash of his values and how he proposes to graft them onto the US of A. It's an old story, but there's just something about the guy. He's magnetic. He's ... witchcraft.
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- Technorati has launched its blog ad network.
- In April, Facebook caught up to MySpace and is now reaching 115 million people each month according to Comscore. It's not like we didn't see this coming years ago. Though MySpace still beats Facebook in the U.S. with 72 million monthly uniques as compared to Facebook's 36 million.
- Ew...just ew.
- Cyber Lions and Design Lions Cannes shortlists have been announced.
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Back when the first Harry Potter movie came out and, while on the train bound for Hogwarts, Hermione, played by Emma Watson, responded to something Harry or Ron by saying, "pleasure!" in the thickest of English accents, I was hooked. Then I slapped myself realizing she was like 12 at the time.
Fast forward to 2008. Watson, now 18, has been selected by Chanel as the new face for the company's Coco Mademoiselle fragrance following Keira Knightley. Watson has, no doubt, grown up to become a beautiful woman certainly worthy of appearance in a Chanel campaign, albeit with the proper repackaging. Yes, she's got one more Harry Potter movie to do but the girl's gotta get on with her life, don't you think?
On June 18 at 5PM at Macy's in San Francisco, Giorgio Armani will unleash a giant poster with a David Beckham image from the Emporio Armani Underwear campaign. Shield your eyes little ones as the big one may be too much for you to handle. That or scrawny Victoria who'll, no doubt, be there to make sure her husband's junk remains her own, might smack you with one of her fake boobs.
- Can your manly-man hair pass the caress test?
- If a chaste mermaid won't save Starbucks, maybe frozen bananas will. (Ugh, dude.)
- Some celebrities educate the public on the Burma situation; John Cusack tallies similarities between McCain and Bush. MoveOn, as usual, is helping raise money to get the ad on air.
- Apparently the Copyright Nazis are after more than just pirates these days. In the UK, you can be prosecuted for playing music too loud or playing it for callers on hold without a license. From now on, let's just keep all music secret and see how the record industry fares.
- Baseball and the Tour de France aren't the only sports to disillusion one-time fans; almost half of Advertising Age readers believe the NBA rigs its games. I fondly await the day Canadians lose faith in hockey. Oh wait, many - already - have.
- A Microsoft Xbox Live group banned a player because he used "gay" in his gamer tag, "RichardGaywood." Upon discovering that was the guy's name, they BANNED IT ANYWAY. Microsoft, you charmers, you.
Last week, Visa announced Lindsay Lohan would become the new face of this year's Visa Swap fashion show, a UK event which encourages people to swap unwanted clothing. Along with clothing charity Traid, Visa Swap is the place for the fashion conscious to check out the duds of their fellow fashion conscious brethren and buy them with points earned for donating their own clothes. All clothing items left over are donated to Traid.
[Witty Lindsay Lohan comment about how her clothes are no good because they are likely alcohol or puke-stained from her social antics goes here but...well....it's just not presenting itself right now.]
With help from Adidas, Missy Elliott has launched Respect M.E. Originals, a clothing line she plans to promote through mEgo.com's social avatars and widgets.
She's also picking five girls to serve as global brand ambassadors for Respect M.E.'s 2009 tour. Would-be models must register an mEgo account.
Respect M.E.'s promotional imagery brings Gwen Stefani to mind. She also launched a clothing line -- L.A.M.B. -- and lolled all over a gilded throne to promote it on an album of the same name. Guess that's the thing to do when you're a diva. But hey. If I were 15, I'd sooner play "brand ambassador" for Missy than for Macy's.
- David Griner of AdFreak reveals the promotional origins of that one office freakout video. You should thank him; it involved interpreting Russian. (Well, no, not really.) Also, Angelina Jolie is a factor. Collective ooOooOooh.
- Traffic scores the $185 million Mitsubishi account. Meanwhile, the Michelin Man gets cozy with TBWA\Chiat\Day. Awwww.
- Beef and vegetable not doing the job? Treat yourself to cock flavoured soup mix. Just like mama used to make.
- France's Le Figaro was given promotional access to As if Nothing Happened, the latest album by Carla Bruni, the only First Lady we've ever seen naked. Her musical interpretation of Nicolas Sarkozy: "You are my junk. More deadly than Afghan heroin. More dangerous than Colombian white ... My guy, I roll him up and smoke him." SRSLY?
- Renetta McCann is "not joining the Obama campaign -- in any manner." Well, Renetta, Peter denied Jesus not once, not twice, but thrice. That didn't make them any less chummy.
- FunAdvice mashed up top search engine and soft drink brands, under the premise that search engines today inspire us the way colas once did. Hrm.
- Hitler plays the fated Hillary in this emotional Nazi interpretation of the Clinton/Obama nominee race. The best part is when he shouts "The DNC has thwarted my destiny!" while the women tremble in his midst. It wasn't as funny as Hitler Gets Banned though.
- Legal Sea Foods' "Fresh Fish" ads piss off the easily-rattled Bostonians. The MBTA decided to pull the ads after Green Line workers took offense to them. (Some ads said things like "This conductor has a face like a halibut." Touchy much?)
- Penis advertising gets you everywhere. Especially if you're Dov "The Colonel" Charney. Horrors.
- Build-a-Bear Workshop is partnering with Sanrio to let kids build Tropical Hello Kittys. "Tropical Hello Kitty's sun-kissed look is perfect for summer and we're certain that she'll be a big hit," says Dave Marchi of Sanrio. But will that sun-kissed pelt betray her age?
- Maybe inspired by Apple's limited-edition U2 iPod, Microsoft is releasing a limited-edition Joy Division Zune.
- Expect downtime from Twitter when Steve Jobs takes the floor at WWDC.
- Speaking of Twitter, a lot of fed-up users are defecting to a fancy new site called Plurk. Plurk enables users to follow conversational threads, and encourages use with "karma" points and little gifts. Also, the colors are soothing.
- Facebook has launched an ad feedback feature.
- Filipinos aren't the only people featured in creepy dating ads.
- John McCain: put Obama in office if you want. But hey, if you do, EXPECT APOCALYPSE.
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