Riding the vertical social network trend, TitleRound, a new social networking site for men hopes to offer guys what they can't find on MySpace, Facebook and other broadly focused networks. We're told the site will provide "a centralized area where guys in their twenties, thirties and forties can communicate on a public and personal level about the topics and interests that matter to them, including sports, gear, entertainment, activism, business, sex and health." Probably a good thing. There's only so much time a guy can spend looking at and fantasizing about things he'll never get his hands on. At least with TitleRound a guy can win stuff through the site's Triple Crown baseball promotion.
Not completely ignoring a guy's primary needs, TitleRound also features a baseball hottie contest in which guys can leer at women dressed in baseball uniforms. Some things will never change.
We love expansive thinking and chain-of-event style dramas such as NBC's Heroes so it is without surprise we think this newish campaign, Save the Monkeys, for Swedish carbohydrate supplement Gainomax is one of the wittiest we've seen in a long time. Borrowing Heroes' famed premise, "save the cheerleader, save the world," Gainomax, in a hilarious logic-taken-to-the-extreme video called Bananageddon, asks us to "save the monkys, save the world" by drinking Gainomax after exercise instead of eating a banana.
In the Bananageddon, a world without bananas becomes a world without moneys which, in turn, leads to a world full of lice and world leaders who can do nothing expect perpetuate the extinction of all human life...all because we eat bananas. Yes, it sounds very twisted so just watch the video and it will all make perfect sense. Well, sort of.
more »
Volvo thinks it's the only vehicle sound enough to transport buried treasure from the Caribbean to your home. We would've guessed armored car, private jet or pirate ship, but you know, whatever.
Indulge the automaker by digging around for the gold doubloons and car key they hid for a campaign collabo with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.
If you're too jaded to do that, indulge us by playing Bill's game instead.
That's what we did. Why hunting down a stylistic inconsistency won out over doubloons, though, is anybody's guess.
Solving puzzles posited by cryptic voices just seemed like too much of a commitment. There are other things that demand our time.
Like Bloxie.
When we're presented the chance to launch ourselves out of a cannon to any destination in the world, we tend to get a bit excited. After all, that Outpost.com gerbil thing was pretty cool. Well after no less that 15 clicks and a seemingly endless collection of forms, buttons, drop down menus and a final challenge to enter personal information, our desire to hop inside the cannon quickly waned. For fuck's sake, marketers, if you're gonna offer up some silly time-waster, the least you could do is make it simple.
If you care, this whole cannon thing has something to do with Heineken, the UEFA Champions League Final and various prize packages. We know we're shirking our journalistic duties here but if you really want to see what happens when the cannon goes off, you'll have to slog through the site on your own,
To celebrate its new service from SFO, JetBlue leaps on the social networking bandwagon and pairs up with Going.com to get its schmooze on with young, upwardly-mobile scenesters, kind of like some other people we know.
Going.com, formerly HeyLetsGo.com, is another one of those "fresh takes" on that same photo-whoring friends-hoarding thing. To make Going.com's demo feel super-awesome, and hopefully to bring foot traffic through JetBlue's doors, the companies are hosting a three-city concert featuring The Teddy Bears and Albert Hammond, Jr. of The Strokes.
Winners of some contest will be shuttled through San Francisco, New York and Boston for all the indie fun and games.
We'd totally join but can't seem to find our horn-rimmed glasses anywhere. They're probably still in the bathtub from the last time we tried cutting for attention. Oh Albert H, if only you knew we were alive.
We really dig this effort by G4 TV and 72andSunny to get unmotivated gamers to recycle. Gcycle features Sick Animation-style animation, two Terrence and Phillip-esque characters and a fish that bitchslaps earth abusers repeatedly. In other words it exploits the subtlest debts of twenty-something humour.
The tagline "Dude, c'mon" is a lazy admonition that somehow adequately demonstrates how little work it actually takes to recycle. After selecting what you want to throw away you can enter your zip code for recycling centers near you. Spiffay.
Even though this happened last month, it seems to have slipped undetected under our radar though we're not sure how given our unique propensity for all things wacky and wierd. Sony, in a not so twisted effort to illustrate the gruesome nature of its just launched God of War II PlayStation2 game, thought a slaughtered, beheaded and gutted previously live goat would do the trick. The goat was central to a party the gamer held in the UK which also featured an offal-eating contest, knife throwing, snake biting and topless waitresses with painted on tops.
Predictably, the International Fund for Animal Welfare was not pleased calling the stunt "outrageous. The organization's spokesman said, "We are always opposed to any senseless killing of an animal and this sounds like a gruesome death. We condemn Sony's actions. It is stupid and completely unjustified."
more »
- The Junior Committee, a group of young planners at Mediaedge:cia, have convinced a bunch of media outlets including USA Today, Fox News, CNN Money, CBS, New York Magazine, TV Guide, Reader's Digest and others, to donate close to 18 million impressions on behalf of the New York City-based charity, Safe Space.
- MLB and XM Radio make phone calls.
- Atlanta-based agency Fletcher Martin says Our Industry is Broken and offers up a quiz to test whether you realize it or not.
- Nokia's got a fun game of memory to play while waiting for the bus in London.
Cynopsis reports, "ABC Family will launch a new social networking site on May 14 to support its newest original series Greek, a dramedy about fraternity/sorority life. Virtualrush.com is a Facebook-like platform centered around the fictional Cyprus-Rhodes University Greek system, allowing users to create personal profiles, upload content, and virtually "rush" a fraternity or sorority of the character they most resemble on the show."
- The One Club has launched One Show TV, a "showcase that offers the public the unique opportunity to vote for their favorite television advertising of the year."
Why is the bulky screw-ridden open-grilled Verizon Gz'One Type-V so ugly? Because it is tough. So tough it is waterproof and shock resistant. So tough it merits a name that can't be pronounced without a platinum inlay across your teeth.
McCann, New York threw together a promotional event called "Call the Fish" in a New Jersey store. One of these bad-boys got tossed into a fishbowl while people called the phone and watched the aggravated fish react to the phone's musical ringtones, flashing lights and vibrations.
How far we've all come from tapping incessantly on tanks.
Priceline takes William Shatner, who's pompous by default, and makes him pompouser still with the use of a falcon and an eyepatch and ads that seem to drag on and on and on.
Check it all out at Falcon of Truth. You need a code to get in but we can assure you of either one of these two soothing facts:
* You're not missing out on much, as it contains the usual peppy text, promotional images and downloads
* You'll probably get some sort of invitation to see it eventually
We will leak one thing, though. Be among the first 100 to e-mail Priceline with your name, address and size and you could get a Falcon of Truth shirt. No, we're not kidding. Scramble for your Outlook right now.
|
|
