Virgin Mobile Offers Free Cell-Phone Service...With Ads

Virgin Mobile is doing its part to reduce high cell phone bills by offering ad-supported cell phone plans. Virgin Mobile users will earn free calls if they view and respond to video ads on their phones. The question, of course, is just how much ad crap will a person put up with before they just say "screw it. I just want to make a F'ing phone call!"?

Fashion Brand Takes Sex-In-Advertising to Orgasmic Conclusion

We know the French aren't hung up about sex the way we Americans are who only hint at it in advertising and media in the most politically correct, conservative manner. While we might get our kicks out of America's version of a sexy ad such as Paris Hilton slithering over a Bentley for Carl's Jr or the Cleaning Hunk cleaning homes nearly naked for Xtra Pine or even Axe's many sexually laced ads but there's way more than a kick to be had from this promotional website for French fashion brand Shai which takes sex all the way to its full-on, X-rated orgasmic completion.

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Boorman Burns Brands to Promote Brand

Neil Boorman is going to gather together all his branded possessions, place them in a pile, douse them with lighter fluid and set the whole thing on fire. He's doing it as some sort of protest against the ruling power brands have over an individual's life and one's definition of that life. Of course, in a sick twist, he's doing it all to promote his own brand, a new book called Bonfire of the Brands.

Non-Advertising Types Staff New Ad Agency

Fifteen year agency vet John Palumbo is approaching the creation of his new ad agency, BigHeads, very differently than most. Rather than staffing the agency with jaded agency types, many of whom can't get out of their own way, Palumbo, he firmly believes there are no longer any rules governing advertising, has hired a cadre of "big heads" including a New York City bike messenger, a reality TV producer, the date doctor the movie Hitch was based on and twin dancers from Crazy Horse in Las Vegas. If some new ideas can't come out of that mash up of personality types, the whol business might as well roll up its ego-infested carpet and give up. He's doing something right because Braun, Ramada Worldwide and Remy USA have slipped some business his way.

Visa Funds, Leverages Starving Artists For Campaign

Now that Visa is in on the whole graffiti thing, graffiti artists might as well throw aways their Krylon, call it a day and move on to some new, yet to be tinged by marketers form of expression. Visa, with help from artist Trish Grantham is taking its "Life Takes Visa" to Greenwich Village in the form of of a giant wall mural with the tagline, "Life Takes Expression." Below the mural, Visa will display other artwork in the form of sculpture, furniture, fashion and more graffiti from artists Christopher Natrop, Jeff Soto, Andy Diaz Hope, Anne Faith Nicholls, AXIS, Erik Pawassar, Parvez Taj, Ron Reihel, Christopher Cuseo, Eric Joyner, Elizabeth Paige Smith, Charlotte Ronson, Dario Antonioni and Hayley Starr.

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Art Exhibit Created From Stolen Outdoor Ad Structures

New York artist Jordan Seller has created a PublicAdCampaign gallery consisting of outdoor advertising frames he "removed" from various areas in the city to create a statement against the proliferation of outdoor advertising and to "reclaim public advertising space form commercial forces." In a statement, Seiler said, "New York City's public environment is a carnival of commercial influences and private concerns. Each step brings new desires and unwanted needs. By replacing public advertising with artwork, PublicAdCampaign temporarily alleviates a fraction of this burden while attempting to cultivate more personal interactions between public individuals." He's got a point. See his work here.

MSN, Sprite Launch Social Site 'Exposure'

Our spies tell us StrawberryFrog has created an online campaign for MSN and Sprite called Exposure. It's a site the agency created to highlight work from three different groups of kids: graf artists, a basketball team and a band. Each person is making a video (or it's being made for them) about who they are, what they do, what they stand for, how they think. The video are then edited and placed on the site. We're told new content will be added to the site over the next six weeks. It's sort of a cross between reality TV, documentary-style video and a blog of sorts. Each person has an MSN Spaces blog as well.

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Advertisers Bail Out of Men's Magazines For Online Media

Let's see. A magazine gives you a few pictures and words 12 times a year. The Internet offers billions of pictures of women in various stages of undress and enough online games to play until one is 152. Marketers screw up a lot of things but they're pretty good at following the eyeballs. Mediaweek Monitor says ad pages in men's magazines have dropped four percent through June. Conde Nast admits they had a terrible first quarter for Details.

Trendio Launches As Stock Market For Buzz Words

For those interested in examining trends and marketing buzz, Trendio.com has launched as a stock market for buzz-words: words that appear in the news are quoted in real time based on their presence in 3000 news sources. The goal is to provide a picture of what the media are talking about, which topics are in and which are out. There's also a game that allows users to manage a portfolio of words as if they were stocks. Users can buy and sell words and try to gain virtual dollars based on their feeling on which topics will get the most coverage, and rise the most in the coming hours, days or weeks. If trends and buzz words are you thing, then, I guess, so is Trendio.

First Ten Years of Internet Growth Nothing Compared to Second

As a prelude to the first ad:tech keynote given by Sequoia Capital Partner Mark Kvamme, ad:tech chair Susan Bratton welcomed a packed room of attendess to ad:tech San Francisco 2006 and told the audience there would be 9,000 attendees to this years show, breaking all former ad:tech attendence records. In addition, she mentioned there would be 300 exhibitors, 200 speakers and 55 sessions, more than any prior conference. Noting the conference's tenth tyear anniversary, Bratton, calling the show the "biggest, deepest and widest" to date, told the audience ad:tech would be expanding its conference series to Sydney, Hamburg and Paris this year and, in 2007, to Mumbai, Dubai among others.

Following her introduction, Bratton introduced Kvamme who quickly followed the ten year theme Bratton had begun by telling the audience the next ten years will see growth in the Internet space that will make the first ten years seem trivial. Noting all media expcept the Internet is declining in use, Kvamme pointed out the disparity between adspend and consumption comparing television to the Internet. Thirty two percent of people are reached by TV and 38 percent of ad dollars are allocated to TV. In contrast, the Internet reached 32 percent of people but only receives five percent of ad dollars. With TV CPMs hovering around $64 and $10 to $30 for the Internet, Kvamme sees huge growth potential for Internet advertising.

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