We're not sure what to say about these ads for MTV entitled Condom v. AIDS, where AIDS and a condom go head-to-head in competitive matches that completely take sex out of the picture. We kind of like the left-of-center feel, considering it's tough to get an AIDS message out there without sliding down familiar pathways: trendy, sexy or deeply moral approaches.
Created by Y&R New York, the campaign is for MTV's HIV awareness movement (okay, that was obvious). Let's hope it does slightly better than the lackluster (red) campaign, as Gap's spoofs grew way more popular than its statement.
It would be hard to spoof a competitive guacamole contest between a walking condom and an AIDS virus, though. What would you do in retaliation - put sex back in the picture? Please. That's just beating the dead horse deader.
Copyranter began an open dialog with Ketel One vodka in mid-2006 using the company's all-type/lots of white space print ads to do so. Copyranter's latest conversation responds to the distiller's latest headline, "Dear Ketel One Drinker, Not everyone likes Ketel One. Then again, not everyone's tried it" with "Dear Ketel One Maker, Not everyone hates your ads. Then again, not everyone's seen them." You've at least got to hand it to Ketel One for hanging on to the campaign for a while. If for nothing more than to give Copyranter more opportunities to continue the conversation.
With their usual oddball style, The Perlorian Brothers have delivered another campaign for AMV BBDO London client Wrigley. The two spots illustrate the plaque-fighting qualities of Orbit gum by dressing people up in plaque-fighting suits and havening them fight plaque while accompanied by...a street musician. How very hip. Or weird. Or whatever.
When in television, it goes without saying you might run into some odd policy meant in some way to protect you from The People or The People from you.
This is exactly what Conan discovered when he joked in passing about the existence of HornyManatee.com on air. An irate NBC called to let him know he can't just mention a site that doesn't exist, and now they have to purchase HornyManatee.com.
So that's exactly what they did. And instead of just redirecting it to NBC per the quid pro quo, they thought, why not pull out all the stops? The results make a good ice-breaker and they even managed to tie it to a cause, because you know how much people love cause-oriented consumerism.
Take the fetish tour for a complete manatee explosion.
That was disgusting. Forget we said that. In other news, and this is totally off-topic, we just found out that right whales have testes that weigh over one ton. HornyWhale.com, anybody? Wow, we've totally succeeded in grossing ourselves out. This is a new high. Or low.
PETA may just have a heyday with this one. A recent Gmail correspondence resulted in this set of Google-served text ads. The mash-up was so strange we had to keep it - not just because of the menagerie of animals but because we can't believe there's such a thing as Squirrel Circus. (Watch the video. We're building a squirrel playset the second we get home!)
While the acrobatic squirrels amused us two minutes too long, the Armadillo Eliminator strikes us as sinister. Those bottles of death fluid are like a cross between antifreeze and Dip.
Like food poisoning after a post-Lent binge, the content spider probably experienced a bad reaction to the recent rodent rampage at KFC and the Geico caveman. But of course we could be totally wrong - armadillos and squirrels feature regularly in discussions we have with strangers over the internet.
Quitting alone is perilous, so say three ads that demonstrate how sporadic and undependable "cold turkey" really is. Catch spot one, spot two and spot three.
Created by Wongdoody for the Washington State Dept. of Health, Cold Turkey builds upon the previous No Stank You! campaign.
The whole pimply uncooked bird gimmick is weird. And what's wrong with cold turkey, anyway? Cold turkey's helped us quit hundreds of times. As any experienced smoker will tell you, quitting hundreds of times is way better than starting hundreds of times.
Shawn Waite send us this ad, which, while watching, causes a certain transfixation of the mind and causes wonderment as to what could possibly be going on (that is, if you don't read the title of the video which give the whole damn thing away). While many men from time to time are told to "grow some balls," the balls in this commercial are probably not what most had in mind. Unless, of course, they plan to become a disgustingly prolific, over-producing porn star who loves to provide the kind of facial you don't get at the salon. Eew. Sorry.
In the pantheon of unintended hilarious road signage comes this image from Adrants reader Andy Malis who passed by a Maryland Friendly's on his way to work and simply had to turn around and capture the image for us. Family friendly Friendly's is now providing its patrons free sexual satisfaction as long as they buy five new sandwiches. We think this sign will be coming down soon.
If you went to the movies this past weekend, you might have seen what initially appeared to be a trailer for Saw IV but turned out to be a Scion promotion directing people to, by far, the weirdest site we've ever seen called Want2BSquare. The trailer, the site and wild posting are all part of an ATTIK-created promotion for the car maker's 2008 xB. Accompanying the campaign over the next two months will be virally-intentioned videos, events and guerrilla marketing (watch out Boston).
At the site, which creates a square universe, we are told, "visitors are encouraged to explore an expansive world, play games against other visitors, view a wealth of video content celebrating the xB's boxy shape, and discover other quirky experiences. These actions lead to the accumulation of points that can be redeemed for an array of prizes ranging from Scion key chains to DJ turntables." If the Internet were around when the "This is your brain on drugs" campaign first launched, this would have been the site leading the campaign. Truly kooky stuff. And fun. We especially like the Urban Zoo.
Hmm. Apparently, bread is as deadly as cigarettes. According to this video, bread has a nasty side and one that seems to be just as bad as smoking cigarettes. it's a follow up to a video called Lovertising versus Hatevertising, which calls for "respectful/intelligent anti-smoking advertising instead of subhuman negative/shocking advertising." damn, everyone has an opinion!
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