Champion Alesha Dixon of Strictly Come Dancing stars in this valium-esque Ford Focus ad, which debuted February 1st on Ford.co.uk. Cake masterminded it, tapping Alesha for her number-one status among the Brits, and included nifty knick-knacks like instruments made of real car parts.
The latter sounded neat, but we didn't much notice. All told, the video lacks life and seems too smoked-out and tame to even be decadent. Nice icepick shoes, though. And okay, the personalized plate? Cheesy.
Maybe this is just another one of those clashing Brit vs. American sensibility things.
Psst, Ford and Alesha. Watch Beyonce and Armani do it.
Update: Oops. Look like we pushed an angry button. Brit fans are really sick of comparisons between Alesha and B (see YouTube comments).
We didn't expect much from these Ground Zero-created videos for ESPN Shorts which, in partnership with Domino's, highlight the art of the sports party and provide party tips for the sports lover but when a George Washington type hauled out a t-shirt cannon, we thought, "Damn! We gotta quit spending the entire Super Bowl writing about stupid commercials, pick up a six pack and actually watch the game...with friends...at a party...with other members of the human species."
We like good, stupid fun every once in a while to spice up our life. See the video here and here.
Pro-femme magazine Ms. recently got a spanking in the Jewish community for rejecting the ad at left. It features images of three Israeli women in power: president Dorit Beinisch of Israel's Supreme Court, foreign minister Tzipi Livni, and speaker Dalia Itzik, above the words, "This is Israel."
The American Jewish Congress -- which submitted the ad -- said Ms. first approved it, then rejected it at the last minute under grounds it would "set off a firestorm," which, as often happens, it did anyway.
"Since there is nothing about the ad itself that is offensive, it is obviously the nationality of the women pictured that the management of Ms. fears their readership would find objectionable," deduced president Richard Gordon of the American Jewish Congress. (Because when people reject us without explaining themselves, it's obviously because we're brown.)
In response, Ms. pointed out Tzipi Livni's career and accomplishments are profiled in its current issue.
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Some might say user-generated ad campiagns are so 2007 but not Samsung who partnered with Brickfish to bring us a video contest in whick people can submit their own versions of Pussycat Doll lead singer Nicole Scherzinger's single "baby Love." The contest is to promote Samsung's camcorder. The winner, determined by popular vote, will take home a Samsung 40 inch LCD HDTV and an MX10 flash memory camcorder.
Predictably, most entries are about as good as early round American Idol contestants but we're not going to not get all Simon Cowell nasty and ruin the fun. Rather, let's wallow in the amusement the YouTube generation gleefully shares with the world.
Brickfish has enabled and is tracking the viral spread of these video as they make their rounds off the contest site and into the internet ether. There's a cool chart that displays the spread and the viral path the videos took.
It's cool that snakes can stretch to accommodate their prey, but it's not really something we like to think about after seeing this image.
Florida is a truly fucked-up place.
Anyway, ABSOLUT VODKA is promoting its PEARS variation on 10,000 TouchTunes music systems from December 20th to January 4th. The creative will be comprised of alternating billboards: The one at left, and this one.
We want it on record that if snakes didn't creep us out, and if we happened to own one, it wouldn't eat pears. It would eat spider monkeys.
We smell something fishy behind the eBillme Confessions contest.
The $20,000 grand prize winner for eBillme Confessions was a girl who bought her boyfriend a Plasma TV so he'd give her an engagement ring.
Is it just us or does her boyfriend look suspiciously like this dude, who won $1,000 just weeks ago?
Adrants declares shenanigans!
Coca-Cola has just released the first commercial widget for Joost. It's called Coke Bubbles and you can get it on the Coke Bubbles website. It enables people to share and comment on Joost programming -- with Coke bubbles!
Bubbles can be sent to members of your address book. The idea is to generate spontaneous conversation around TV. You know, the way people used to when they actually hung out and didn't just hole up with their laptops, working on that sexy pallor.
Innovation at its best? You tell us.
New take on the speed-dating thing. We give you speed introductions, courtesy of WooMe.
Hoping to drag the power of the first impression outside the domain of quick-fix courting, WooMe users join little clusters of users segmented by interest, sex and age -- not necessarily for romantic reasons. (There are "ladies' night" and sports fan groups, for example.)
When the music starts, you've got about a minute to video chat each group member, one at a time. After that, you decide which users you dug and click "I'm Woo'd." If you're woo'd by somebody who's been woo'd by you, the pair of you drop a dollar for contact info.
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We just found out about an online music label called RCRD LBL, which lets users download MP3 tracks from new and seasoned artists for free.
This is a decent contender to what's already out there for the following three reasons:
- It's legitimately sponsored, and sponsors don't mess with the tracks
- It's not all ad-heavy and slow like OHHLA.com
- It's gritty and cool without feeling seedy as hell like AllofMP3.com before it got pwned by The Man
On iTunes, just below the album art and above the artist name, you get a little line of text that says, "Get free music at RCRDLBL.com." That's something we can live with.
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This Thursday Goodyear plans to announce its official sponsorship of the Philadelphia Marathon. And because blimps possibly lost their luster after blimp lover (and, um, embezzlement king) Lou Perlman fled the scene, the company plans to help runners "get there" with a branded Philly marathon rig, which you can see in all its glory here.
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