We think it's perfectly fine for someone working in the advertising industry to dislike the AMC series Mad Men and to share that opinion with the industry at large. But, when the second sentence of that opinion reads, "I got through about 10 minutes of it before I changed the channel, trying not to squint as I yawned so I could see what was on the latest episode of Dirty Jobs," the next five paragraphs, which contain blatherings about how the show should be more realistic to industry's "magical" era, become baseless.
For someone to write a review of a television show, which has been on the air for at least 12 weeks, after only having watched the first ten minutes of the premiere episode is half-witted at best and most assuredly irresponsible journalism. McKee Wallwork Cleveland Partner and Creative Director Bart Cleveland is the half-wit who brings us wacky commentary such as, "what I really wanted it to be more like was Mad Max. I wanted the hero to be a little off his rocker about doing great work. I wanted to see him threaten to jump out a window to sell a bagel ad." Mad Max? Oh yea. That'd be an accurate portrayal of what we do.
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This is a spot for Nestle's new Frogz Eggz, which is some sort of popsicle/jelly concoction.
We don't know what's more unsettling: that we've been asked to "wrap our tongues around" the product, or the thought of using our tongues to find "frog eggs" in the ice cream.
Seattle agency Cole & Weber recently moved to new offices and wanted to make employees comfortable with their new surroundings. To do so, the agency created a video which illustrates how to best work in an open workspace environment. From the Federal United Cubicle Konsortium (yes, that does spell what you think it does) comes several tips and benefits to working in a cube farm. From cubicle size to Prairie Dogging to odor control to proper eating habits, the video promises to make cubicle life enjoyable for all.
Here's a semi-witty use of a coupon in an ad for an issue that usually doesn't align itself with wit: pre-planned funerals. Even the creative brief is witty, reading, "The truth is, at some point it becomes too late to pre-plan. Why? Because you're dead." Hey, why be coy when you can get right to the point. After all, that's what all good advertising should do.
ACLC Toronto created the campaign for Mount Pleasant Cemetary.
Conjuring the weird and the WTF, Pasedena-based Ayzenberg has created three deliciously odd commercials for the hugely popular (out side the U.S.) game Maplestory, a free game, from Korean company Nexon, that makes it's money from in-game micro-transactions, a somewhat new trend in gaming. Called Fish, Pig and Snail, the commercials were directed by Erich Joiner along with Ocsar winning DP, Robert Richardson.
The campaign recently launched on MTV, MTV2, Comedy Central, G4, Cartoon Network' Adult Swin, Sci-Fi and Fuse.
We were about to trash this concept, but now we're not sure if we want to. Pay it to Me! is a site where people can post images of stuff they want, with the cost and currency prominently displayed. Then an advertiser buys the item for the person and gets some traffic to their website in exchange.
Sounds simple enough, but we had it explained to us once and still had to reread it on the site. It's hard to tell what the site is for unless you scroll down a little.
It also doesn't seem like traffic is jumping, though the creators hope they've got the next Million Dollar Homepage on their hands.
Either way, this could be an awesome opportunity to ask for completely inane stuff. Like Lincoln Logs put together in the shape of Jesus. Or a car made out of cake. Come on, baby, pay it to me.
You can label it ingenious, lazy or a ploy for publicity but London agency Nonesense wants you to help create its website. They've got a brief and three idea and they want you to choose the best one. We're not sure about any of the ideas but we love the fast talking guy who explains them.
So auteur David Lynch has gone from Eraserhead to Blue Velvet to Twin Peaks to...a Gucci commercial? One could argue it's a sad state of affairs when all a down on his luck (misunderstood?) filmmaker has left is filming commercials. Or one could argue it's a step up since it seems every Hollywood director is doing it these days.
While we not sure about the soundtrack in this Gucci commercial - Blondie's Heart of Glass - visually, it's all David Lynch. It's like a scene out of Twin Peaks with supermodels dancing instead of that freaky little guy. In fact, if you replaced the Blondie tune with the Twin Peaks theme, it would be Twin Peaks. Don't get us wrong. We love Lynch. Though, we wish he'd hurry up and give us another Mulholland Drive or a Lost Highway we could actually understand.
We're a little confused about Trojan's position in the social networking space. While encouraging sexually active users to "Evolve" from pig to man via MySpace, the Facebook flyer for Trojan's Magnum series appears to be encouraging us to poke each other to a frenzy.
Maybe they thought dudes with bigger schlongs just don't read Orwell.
To be fair though, the innuendo behind Facebook's "pokes" is a little hard to resist. We can't even count how many users have made us feel uncomfortable with their incessant poking.
If we reciprocate, will they think we're whores?
UPDATE, 10-5-07: A contact at Edelman says the ad isn't Trojan's but (possibly) an online condom vendor's. Well, baby, free promotion never does hurt. Unless you happen to be running a campaign specifically aimed at discouraging porky poking practices.
It seems those in the Pacific Northwest think alike when it comes to travel and tourism advertising. In early September, we took a look at a campaign for Horizon Air which highlighted the 200 mile stretch of Interstate 5 between Seattle and Portland. It's referred to The Slog for all the oddities and annoyances along the way that make taking a Horizon Air (of course) flight to traverse the distance instead.
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