Since Jurassic Park we are wary of anything involving labs, dinosaurs and the promise of sex. But for some odd reason Schick sees this as the perfect formula for their latest slew of homepage-worthy marketing schemes.
We're experiencing unpleasant early 90's nostalgia with this Dino Hunters thing they're doing. The promo page assures the uncertain that "Comedy, sex and nasty ol' lizards abound in this free game about hunting dinosaurs" - and we don't know how or why that sells razors (the thought of running one blade, much less four, over gigantor scaly skin makes our stomachs clench) but perhaps it does.
The sex component is a burden mainly carried by the token ditzy blonde Candy. In a perfect world hot cartoon characters would be smart and not vapid because the point of being able to create is to correct the shortcomings of reality, yeah? No.
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Think your cube sucks? The mad scientists at Cummins & Partners create a coin-operated scientist to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis Australia.
A man in a white lab coat sits slumped and virtually paralytic inside a booth until curious onlookers pop some coins inside. The scientist then gets to work on little experiments until he feels like the money has run out. In theory, this generates a sense of immediate gratification over having donated X amount to grander scales of research.
The man in the cube is a volunteer who sits and performs science experiments meant for 10-year-olds and up, on-call, for three hour increments. Talk about playing lab rat. And we thought this guy had it bad.
We often wish we could shrink down various scientists, philosophers, slam poets and ex-lovers to keep in little shoebox habitats for use as-needed. This kind of reminds us of that. Really - wouldn't it be awesome to have a coin-operated man just hanging out in the living room? How completely jealous would your friends be?!
We don't know what Mr. Rove was thinking at the Radio Television Correspondents' Association Dinner, but if hip-hop wasn't dead before he just shot it in the face. We'll never again be able to purge the memory of him jerking his hands from side to side and whipping out his cell-phone with knees bouncing.
Well, if we were part of the Administration we too would run with the strange, liberating sensation that comes with having nothing left to lose.
With a mid-nineties style, Geocities-like site, Ogilvy Toronto has embarked upon a quirky journey for Kraft Canada HoneyComb Cereal. They've created a site called Bee Boy which follows the research of Barbara Sommerville as she explores Jane Goodall-style a boy who has seemingly been raised by bees. Awkward encounters with vibrating cell phones ensue.
We're inclined to say the use of decades-plus old design tries a bit too hard. Beside, it's been done many times before. It's not like Ogilvy is hiding the fact they're behind the project but with the available publishing tools at people's disposal today, it's near impossible to create a site like this unless you know raw HTML. Doing to just screams, "This was done by an an agency trying to make it look like it wasn't!" Perhaps creating a faux blog would have been a more timely approach. Having said that, the videos on the site are amusing enough and worth a look.
For all you lovers of Second Life, this Netherlands Kit Kat spot, created by UbachsWisbrun/JWT is just for you. So get off your ass. Turn off the laptop and get a Third Life...or at take a break with a Kit Kat bar.
While trolling our usual palette of sites we were unpleasantly distracted by a Hellraiser-esque video of a girl affixing clothespins to her face. The ad gave us an unpleasant start and after clicking onward we found ourselves at Boredom Hurts, allegedly founded by Colin Padden, first to pin and air the latest (and perhaps most common) reason to pop pills: boredom.
Clicking on a beaker marked "Cure" (very "Eat me" a la Alice in Wonderland) reveals a timer counting down four more days until the latest alternative to Xanax is revealed. Can't wait to see what genius is behind this campaign. We hope it's not Vista again.
Adworld: the next Big Pharma? Everybody from Earthlink to P&G is trying to push a diagnosis for a product cocktail.
Update: an Adrants reader reports a "view source" check on the site reveals Ford URLs. Bleh. The boredom connection is apt.
Three years ago, we said it might not be so surprising for an advertiser to place their logo on the side of a house. Now, a company called Riley, with help from new Durham-based agency The Republik, plans to "turn upscale homes into a media vehicle" by allowing manufacturers to purchase space for product placement within newly built homes. Eesh. And we thought E's 'The Simple Life' pink house promotion was bad.
We are at a loss at coming up with an explanation as to what a beaver and a buffalo have to do with highlighting Alamo rental's new kiosks other than for pure "odd factor." In two Fallon-created, Moo-produced commercials, the two animals get all buddy-buddy-like with the beaver taking on the smart guy role and the buffalo the doofus role all to explain why Alamo's kiosks aren't being used as much as they should. See the spots here and here and tell us if we're right or full of...excrement.
We've always loved Ripley's Believe it or Not and this campaign for the show, hosted by sloppy seconds Superman Dean Cane, leaves us with a sense of validation. We're not the only freaks out there. We're not even the worst-looking. And that's nice. Work by TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, South Africa.
Is it safe to use the word "freaks" anymore? There's probably a PC variant that's escaping us right now, mainly because we don't want to come up with one out of worry we'll have to use it. If you can think of one, you deserve some 100 calorie cakes.
Word on the street is this ad came out of Chile and was rejected by Energizer, whose ads are best characterized by that mildly randy bunny.
We can't imagine why they'd turn down this one; we think it says something. We're just not sure what, because we can't tell if the man in the tub is dead or just disappointed.
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