- Speeding could turn you into Haley Joel Osment.
- The Marijuana Policy people are boycotting Kellogg's for firing Phelps for smoking pot, even though he's been nailed in the past with a DUI. They feel this is hypocritical because pot doesn't necessarily kill; it just makes you real, real sleepy.
- So Good is boycotting Kellogg too, as is HuffPo.
- Guerrilla Comm rebrands.
- Twitter to charge brands for use. No word on how.
- Dame Edna for MAC.
- French billboard rage.
- Radiohead licensed House of Cards one of its songs to a homeless shelter for an ad, dubbed "House of Cards," that breaks this month.
Young female online gamers are probably a good market for Gwen Stefani. She vibes kinda like a gamer, and her creepily coquettish Harajuku Lovers label has a decidedly Bejeweled-friendly aesthetic.
Soooo, from January 20 to February 1, Harajuku Lovers partnered with SPIL GAMES to organize an online scavenger hunt on GirlsGoGames.co.uk, a site targeted to casual girl gamers from ages 8-15. Users had to hunt down five different Harajuku girls/fragrances -- Baby, Love, Music, Lil' Angel, and G* -- on HLFragrance.com, then enter codes for each to win a shopping spree at Topshop.
Following up from that, Harajuku Lovers re-skinned GirlsGoGames between February 2 and February 4. Users could watch videos, learn the Harajuku Lovers theme song or play branded games that make it okay to seem jail-baity because everything is animated in pastel and written in bubble letters.
Example: Are you girly and sweet? Don't you just love yourself a pair of Mary Janes? Then by all means dive into Baby.
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From Kellogg: "Michael's most recent behavior is not consistent with the image of Kellogg. His contract expires at the end of February and we have made a decision not to extend his contract."
How fickle is sponsorship. You win all those golds and everybody loves you, then you smoke one joint* and those self-righteous cereal-peddlers won't even look you in the eye.
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Hello Kitty is the ultimate licensing whore. Her oblong, be-ribboned visage has been plastered onto everything from toasters to credit cards to vibrators -- er, massagers -- to brassiere.
Now you can find the world's most ubiquitous cat in your Happy Meal. Through February 26th, McDonald's is stuffing them with one of eight Sanrio watches.
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Failing to observe this approach has already been mined dry by Nike and Dove -- among others -- Adidas launched "Me, Myself," a girl power campaign that rings like a modern-day sports riff off celebrated femme manifesto Our Bodies, Ourselves. The campaign release, for example, is heavy-laden with buzz words like distinctive, inspirational, individuality, confidence and -- our favourite -- intimate portraits.
WNBA MVP Candace Parker lent her face to the in-store/online program. Members of the fairer sex can submit "real" stories about their training struggles and successes on the website (where incidentally, you can also "mix and match outfits"!); three entrants will become the face of "Me, Myself" alongside Parker.
Parker synopsized the effort thus: "[Me, Myself] celebrates women of all ages and athletic abilities and shows that despite our struggles we can achieve our impossible."
Guess that's somewhat more productive than eating your feelings.
As always, domain-buying service GoDaddy took the fullest advantage of its liaison with Danica Patrick -- and her beaver -- for this year's Super Bowl spots, whose scripts appear to have been written by pornographers in financial distress.
Here's a trope you might've seen before: pubescent boy's fantasies, realized.
And this spot, confusingly dubbed "Baseball," plays on trashy court TV. I think it would be better served if it were renamed "Enhanced? I'll show you enhanced."
Cast votes for your favorite on GoDaddy.com up to January 23rd. Like last year, each spot continues in a (gasp!) unrated online version.
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- A whiff of Hugo Boss Femme may put you in a self-adulating, decidedly Diddy state of mind.
- Twitter marketing toolbox. *twirls finger*
- Contemplating facial hair? Upload your likeness here. For Schick -- which may actually lose customers that may have otherwise grown mustaches out before realizing they looked like Super Mario. (And not in an awesome, sliding-through-the-magic-pipe kinda way.)
- Bob Knorpp contemplates the legal saga of the Bratz. Complete with at least three hooker jokes.
- This HP Mini 1000 is brought to you by Vivienne Tam. We find them semi-sassy.
- Hey Facebook, "your dreams of avarice are fucked."
- Just another world record-breaking stunt.
- Cab driver advertises MBA credentials to customers. One good thing you can say about this economy: it makes everyone a marketer.
Having failed (twice!) to woo young defectors with ads, Microsoft tries appealing to their unending quest for ironic shirts.
The so-called Softwear line of tees joins Crispin Porter + Bogusky's ongoing "I'm a PC" campaign. Common -- who already appears in ads for Microsoft's Zune -- infused the shirts with retro cred and his own '80s-inspired designs.
Variants include:
o The DOS Tangle: "The first logo you saw on a screen."
o The 101: "Learn to speak the language." Oooh, binary.
o The Misdemeanor: "Everyone deserves a second chance."
There's something the world needs now: mugshots of Bill Gates prowling the streets.
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Wieden + Kennedy/Amsterdam reprise the intro to The Pink Panther with this catchy spot for Nike's Mercurial Vapor IV.
"He's a gentleman, a scholar, he's an -- acrobat!"
Cheeky. Wait for the tooth-gleam at :47. Makes me wanna watch soccer while cuddling a plush Ribery doll.
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The ad cash just keeps pouring in for Ozzy Osbourne. Fresh off that Samsung spot for Leo Burnett, he's enlisted with Mojo for a World of Warcraft promotion.
The more blitzed he is, the better. And it probably only helps when he makes batshit-insane statements like, "Well, maybe you're the one who's been riding a fucking CRAZY TRAIN!" while teetering. (In case you didn't catch that with your ears, captions -- now a staple for Ozzy cameos -- have been included.)
At spot's end, WoW's "What's your game?" slogan is modified with yet another bleeped-out F-bomb.
Just another piece of high art by production company Green Dot Films. The latter called it the most-viewed spot on YouTube this weekend. We don't know about that, but ratings have been generous.
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