- Yawn. Another creative sets up shop and poaches creatives from his former shop.
- Anne Coulter gets Obama Girl treatment.
- We have no idea what this skeleton sitting in a chair in London is for but since it was sent to us by a marketer, no doubt it's some stunt we'll soon be hearing more about.
- Donny Deutsch talks about cleavage in the workplace on the Today Show. He mocks the puritanical view of it. He's our new friend.
- If you've got a webcam and you like to fool around with pumpkins, this Indusblue-created Halloween time waster is for you.
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This brainteaser killed about 45 seconds of our time. It is part of a new effort called Save the Toast, where a bunch of characters try saving toast by defaming stick butter.
The campaign, for Country Crock, is orchestrated Presidential election-style and only slightly less ridiculous than Election '08. Each animated character has a MySpace. See Bobby Biscuit's.
A petition and -- more to the point -- digital coupons are available at the website.
The internet, coupled with a war that's making everyone crazy, makes politicians out of the most unexpected people.
And no, we're not talking about Stephen Colbert.
In this case we're talking about Pittsburgh Paints, which allegedly sponsored the ad at left to take a poke at homeland security while advertising its soothing and well-named series of colors.
Honey Pot would look nice on the ammo den we just built under our living room tables. Thanks to our chum Brian A. for pointing it out.
Here's a series of hilarious, fake recruitment ads from Saatchi, McCann, Berlin Cameron United and TBWA\Chiat\Day. Modeled after actual recruitment ads, these ads quickly show their true colors. McCann wants blind people. Saatchi wants Black and Latinos. TBWA\Chiat\Day wants midgets. And Berlin Cameron United wants women..especially exotic minorities.
See? Even diversity in advertising efforts can be funny.
It's safe to say that the last time Ty swept us -- or kids, for that matter -- off our feet was during the peak of the Beanie Babies era. That time is over; the innocent BBs have been shelved away, alongside Mattel's ubiquitous Barbie, in favor of fat-lipped multi-ethnic Bratz.
And like Mattel, Ty is fighting back. Meet Ty Girlz. They not only sport gigantic lips and doe-eyes; they also have their own virtual world.
None of which really mattered until we saw this ad called TyGirlz Around the World, which tells us Ty also has an off-color sense of humor. We're creeped out ... and we love it.
- Mini Cooper has a couple of new sites up. One provides better things to do with your lunch hour and the other...well, you have to wait until lunch time to find out.
- What could possibly be exciting about insurance? Right. Nothing and Insurance .com knows this so they've launched May the Best Win, a video competition.
- Why be bothered with the expense and annoyance of interacting with real people an an industry trade show when you can go to a virtual one while sitting at your computer in your underwear?
- For Boston's Hatch Awards, Arnold created this opening video spoofing the creation of a 1984-style Apple commercial and a focus group which trashed it.
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This is awesome. Leo Burnett in Cairo put together this series of real-life-meets-pop-culture spots for client Melody Tunes, Egypt's first all-English music channel.
The effort goes in exact opposition to the hipster feel of iPod spots, which suggest your writhing rendition of the soundtrack in your head is actually sexier than it is. The parodies also touch lightly on cultural misunderstandings that occur when pop culture is imported.
This is something we can especially relate to, considering our mom thought "Hit Me Baby One More Time" was an anthem for masochists.
Onto the parodies: Smack That, Oops! I Did It Again, Candy Shop (50 Cent would be so proud), Don'tcha (we covered our eyes for this one), and Hang Up.
That zany little fat kid just cracks us up. He looks (and cries) like an Egyptian Cartman.
The college-bound doll at left is going for a steal at $19,995 on Marry Our Daughter, where families can safely sell stone-footed girls for a price soothing enough to eradicate in-law strife.
Harking back to arranged marriage in the Biblical sense, the site's a publicity stunt orchestrated by women who actually were sold into marriage. They hope to shed light on the mail order bride industry at large, and on loopholes across the nation that enable minors to marry, says Newsweek.
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- Calling AMC's Mad Men, Dr. Ernst Dichter's The Hidden Persuaders and current motivational research "mostly bullshit," George Parker manages to get himself into Advertising Age and promote his new book, The Ubiquitous Persuaders which, if his past book, MadScam, is any indication, won't be bullshit at all.
- Magazines and newspapers aren't doing anything wrong. It's just that the ads inside them all suck.
- Hyundai's new campaign leaves behind the brand name hoping to leave behind associated cheapness.
- Has anyone else noticed how "bloggy" Advertising Age is getting and how it's now OK to "print" words like fuck and bullshit? We just thought we'd wonder publicly a bit about that.
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A few days ago we watched this (subtitled!) video for the Miss Teen America pageant, in which Miss South Carolina is asked (by a girl named Aimee Teegarden! Who finds these people and how do beauty pageants get so many of them?) why 1/5 of Americans can't locate the US on a map.
Her response was curious at best, but the point she made was that too few Americans have maps, and we also need to help South Africans and the people in the Iraq.
This on its own is probably not worthy of rantage, but this - inspired by Miss South Carolina's epiphany - kind of is.
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