"Red Alert 3 Remix," a promotional video for EA's Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, is the fruit of a partnership between DraftFCB and remix artist CB Shaw. The latter interspersed offbeat Hollywood icons with references to 'net memes and gaming footage -- all to the tune of Hell March, the track used in the opening sequence to the first Red Alert. Good way to draw legacy gamers back into the hype, though many will probably feel alienated by the invasion of Planet Hollywood.
But the line-up is pop culture genius. Jenny McCarthy, Gemma Atkinson, George Takei, Jonathan Pryce, Andrew Divoff, Peter Stormare, Tim Curry, JK Simmons, Kelly Hu, Autumn Reeser, and Ivana Milicevic have all been enlisted as characters in the game.
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In the realm of contextual fuckery, it's not always the advertisers that screw up. Sometimes it's the "legit" content providers themselves.
Case in point: on Monday morning, Culture Grrl woke up to find her copy of The New York Times wrapped in some kind of ad jacket for NBC-TV's new season.
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My sister, who's way into video games, sent me to YouTube.com/ExperienceWii, where users can watch footage from Wario Land: Shake It!.
The :45 video had major nostalgic appeal. I remember playing Wario games on Super NES and even on Virtual Boy -- where, in addition to wreaking havoc on a titillating infrared world, Wario also wreaked havoc on my vision.
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Toronto-based furniture shop Simone Interiors now sells art created by the company owner, Lin Gibson. To promote this happy news, Gibson created a bunch of LP album-sized posters with multicolored bars and stuck them in local store windows -- with no accompanying explanation.
Roger Cullman over at BlogTO has more pictures. He also wonders whether passers-by noticed the installations. Commenters say they did, but nobody knew for sure what the promotion was all about.
"We thought it was one of those new gangs declaring their territory. Obviously, it turns out it was only those hipsters doing their hipster things," ruminated a reader called SCREWFACE.
Hoping to target a multicolored crowd that's "losing touch with antiquated [...] ethnic messages," calling card company Rebtel partnered with Monsoon Media, creators of the decidedly-ethnic web comic strip Doubtsourcing.
At left is one component of what Monsoon came up with. Inspired by old-school Bollywood print ads, it features Rebtel CEO Hjalmar Winbladh surrounded by multi-ethnic folk on cell phones. And an Asian dude with a gun. (A more direct and permanent form of communication, I guess.)
"Great service, dazzling features and super cheap rates! Rebtel CEO Hjalmar Winbladh is looking to dishoom ripoff calling plans!" the ad beams brightly.
At first I thought I read that wrong, but the pressie says "dishoom" is the sound a Bollywood hero makes when punching a bad guy. Well then, all right.
Future iterations of the campaign include a web component, some sort of tongue twister, and a third ad where a forlorn mother guilt-trips viewers into calling neglected relatives.
When it comes to educating the public about sex, nobody beats the French for racy content and entertainment value. But RFSU, the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education, comes pretty close.
Visit Shave the Pussy, a promotional "intimate care guide" for, uh, trimming Fiffi. Style you own, name it too (the one at left is called "KFC"), or just rate the designs of others. Get this: for entering a unique design, you could win your own barber set.
Fun times in the bathroom!
When you've got nostalgia on your side, you'd be damn silly not to take advantage.
Bowing to this philosophy, WONGDOODY is promoting the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards by compiling collages of popular TV characters from the last 60 years. See banner ads, a ginormous collage (tagline: "one night. everything you love about tv.") and a fun bus wrap ("Everybody on TV is going. Are you?"). It's so Universal Studios!
The campaign, "Where TV Comes Together," will run until the broadcast of the 60th Primetime Emmys, which airs Sunday Sept. 21 at 8pm EST.
In the meantime, it should guarantee some good clean time-wasting fun. Use the ads to play a makeshift version of Where's Waldo?, except with Captain Kirk and Miss Piggy instead of a stripey-shirt dude you don't even know.
- LiveBar makes static websites instantly interactive. Hooray! No work for you.
- Twenis. Hilarity.
- Yahoo tries hard to be kooky. "That's the problem with Yahoo: It thinks it's an iPod -- universally loved and carried around. But it's really a Mac -- a fine product nevertheless rejected by many."
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Copywriters Brian Pierce and Nik Bristow of Fitzgerald+CO/Atlanta are embarking on a wince-worthy mission: following the route of the Cannonball Run, they'll drive across the nation without a single stop. Not for fuel ... not even to pee. (Although I'm sure at some point they'll gracefully pause in order to switch seats.)
All this to promote Willie Nelson's brand of biodiesel, aptly named BioWillie. The mission's been dubbed WillieRun and you can follow the hijinks (of which I'm sure there'll be many) from their blog.
Seriously though, no pee break? I refuse to believe it. You guys have gotta be carrying empty Gatorade bottles or somethin'.
Find out for yourself at their kick-off party, which takes place Sept. 22nd at the XR Bar. More details at the blog link above. And big-ups to Brian Thompson for passing this news along.
For its album Dig Out Your Soul, which debuts October 7, Oasis gathered 15 street bands and taught them the lyrics and sheet music for four of its new songs.
Lat week, the bands were then deployed all over the city -- mostly to subways -- to perform the music with their own flavor. Each performance featured a little sign that said, "You are the first to hear this new Oasis song" -- bringing a little bit of magic to busy commuters, and some eclectic street charm to Oasis's new oeuvre.
Nice to see the high-profile artists disseminate their music with such an open-arms, interpretive approach. Feels so human. And dare I say it? -- social. Watch video here. See more at Creativity. Execution by BBH/NY. The Malloys of HSI helped direct.
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