Watch big mean tractors climb hills, lift dirt, pop wheelies and whatnot. Every once in awhile you might see a Vanna White protege in a hard hat.
Brought to you by those crazy kids at John Deere and agency Tattoo, the Smackdown is a promotional event for John Deere's 313 Skid Steer. The real thing goes down on April 15 and will be marketed through dealerships and via online video.
Bring your tractor. Bring your balls. And prepare to showcase your manliness in a ferocious game of tractor tug-o'-war.
Sony's PR people sent The Bottom Rung some teaser shots for the 2008 Bravia campaign. Instead of deluging us with color like in previous ads (yarn pyramid, technicolor bunnies), looks like Bravia's gone soapy, sudsy, foamy white.
Magically delicious. Where childproof fantasy places are concerned, a bubble bath world is right up there with a bubble wrap city.
- YAI, a charity for people with disabilities, used easy sex to bait youth into volunteering. Gawker spread the word and YAI pulled the campaign, to the chagrin of ad-heads and volunteers alike.
- Adidas and EVB, SF have launched an NCAA fanboy site called March is Brotherhood. Learn chants, read coach blogs and make coaches call your friends.
- itzbig thinks encouraging passive aggressive employees to get fired will help them find better careers.
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Tomorrow The Street relaunches its Beat the Street stock game, which is essentially fantasy stocks with prize money. The game is geared to Wall Street newbs that want to learn how to "navigate the stock market and make strong trading picks."
Any one person can win $5K/week, up to $60,000. The game lasts 12 weeks.
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Radiohead, the same band that stuck it to the man by letting you download its last album on a pay-as-you-wish basis, will SELL you wee-bitty-bits of its song Nude so you can make your own remix on Garageband. Hrm. Okay.
The Nude stems (bass, voice, guitar, strings/fx and drums) are available on iTunes. You can upload a remix and get widgets to encourage people to vote for yours from your website or profile. Oh, and here's the Facebook app.
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Look! Look! Look! It's consumer-generated media! That's right. Step on over to Upromise's Tuition Tales (great name) for a glimpse at videos created by students seeking $25,000 to cover college costs. Over the past 12 weeks, a field of hundreds has been narrowed to ten finalist. The winner will be chosen by public vote. As an incentive, Upromise is offering every person who votes a chance to win a $50 gift certificate to Bed Bath & Beyond.
Now if only Upromise would remove the annoying control bar which floats over the bottom of each video, the fullness of every video could be more pleasingly appreciated.
- The Economist takes No.1 in AdweekMedia's Annual Hot List, up from No. 10 last year -- the biggest jump on a list otherwise dominated by women's lifestyle titles.
- 33 percent of iPhone users are cheating on Steve Jobs with other handset makers.
- Advertising affects prescriptions more than science does. Hrm. *Checks medicine cabinet* Yeah.
- The Apple brand makes the biggest impact on global consumers. (Yawn.) Those most in need of brand refurbishing were Microsoft and the United States. Mommy, why does the world hate us?
- More than 90 percent of email is spam. By the way, the term "spam" was coined 15 years and 2 days ago.
- Kids love social networks. O RLY? Thanks for the insight, champs.
- Joffrey's, a coffee hub that launched a "beta" tasting program for bloggers, has released survey results on coffee trends in the blogosphere. More on that.
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That is, according to this new spot for Washington, DC. (Come on, sport. How do you resist two metaphors in one sentence?!)
In the spot, a mom throws open a giant scrap book and invites the audience into family-friendly DC, where power lunches become romantic rendezvous (with your own spouse!) and spy games are left to the kids.
The campaign, entitled "Power Trip," goes live today and replaces the old DC slogan, "An American Experience."
Even with all those tantalizing political euphemisms, I'd still rather see Orlando. Every major American city would be better off with a gigantic Disney theme park.
Here's a taste of the stuff on The Blue Sky Project, a promotional CD created by DDB, SF for Clorox. Some of the tracks were in Clorox ads, then extended to beef up the album.
50 percent of the price goes to Music in Schools Today (MuST), which brings music programs to low-income neighborhoods.
I was gonna say it would be hard to associate Clorox with any kind of music, mostly because I can smell bleach wafting out of the kitchen and there is nothing musical about it.
But The Blue Sky Project is calm and unpretentious -- an okay fit for the (slowly evolving?) household brand. I'm happy the agency avoided the temptation of using electronica or hip-hop. Getting people to listen isn't hard, as long as you avoid being something you're not.
To draw attention to climate change, the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) made special mugs with the world's land mass printed on them. The land disappears when you fill the cup with something hot, leaving parched parties with scathing food for thought:
"A global climate increase of just two degrees Celsius will have irreversible, catastrophic effects. www.wwfchina.org."
WWF disseminated 250 of these sunny mugs to attendees at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali. The Dutch Environmental Minister said it "dramatically captured the critical nature of the global warming issue."
Dismal. Also, reason No. 546 to pick up an ice-cold Coca-Cola.
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