Pherotones Extends Campaign to Viral Video

Those crazy kids over at McKinney Silver have extended their Pherotones campaign, a guised promotion for Oasys Mobile to viral video with this clip seeded through Emily's Eatmail. While ringing cell phones in the middle of a wedding ceremony certainly cause reaction, the reaction to this ring tone...excuse us...pherotone causes a different sort of reaction with the groom.

Poker Site Creates Fake Cause Group to Complain About Ad, Get Views

A press release rolled across our screen today which claimed a supposedly controversial video supposedly leaked virally last week was supposedly "under fire" from a Muslim group because the video supposedly poked fun at Muslims. The whole thing's a sham. Pokershow.com is behind it. They invented the cause group Muslim Media Watch under the guise of a plainly fake Blogger blog which just launched Feb. 17 according to Whois and the fact the blog has nearly no content. It's amateur hour again in poker marketing land. Of course we just did exactly what they wanted - give them publicity.

New Zealand Helicopter Stunt A Big Lie, Sponsor Comes Clean

When one is hoodwinked, the natural reaction is to get mad and start calling people names but we're not going to do that because we think this hoodwink was one of the best marketing stunts to come around in a long time. As we reported in late January, a helicopter with a naked guy hanging from it was spotted at New Zealand's Big Day Out but the stunt went wrong and the guy fell to the ground and was injured. We also received a taped conversation between what was assumed to be a representative of New Zealand's Civil Aviation Authority and a person at DDB, the agency thought to be behind the stunt in which the CAA representative was trying to obtain details of the event.

None of this happened. While we were skeptical at the time and knew New Zealand site Nzgirl had something to do with the stunt, we couldn't get anyone to confirm or deny anything. As it turns out, Nzgirl, which has a reputation of doing crazy, stunts, wanted to top everything they'd done before so they decided to do nothing...except tell a few people they did and let the rumor mill run with it. A dozen people were hired to spread the story about the helicopter and the nude guy and that was it. New Zealand media bit and reported the story as if it had happened albeit with a bit of distrust. Nzgirl reaveals all here.

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Pherotones Viral Is For Oasys Mobile

The words out. The Pherotones viral, created by McKinney Silver is for Oasys Mobile according to some digging by Mike Schramm and Darryl Smith. Schramm examined some comments Smith had made on the MAKE blog in which he, through the use of some fancy Javascript, found some directory information on a file server hosting the Pherotones site. The directory info read," U:\\Interactive\\Clients\\OASYS\\OA7216_Pheretones_Microsite." With it already having been determined McKinney Silver was behind the project, Schramm performed a simple Google search on "OASYS" which led him to Oasys Mobile. There you have it. Next.

Nike Film Series Leads Up to Football World Cup

To promote the 2006 Football (soccer) World Cup, Nike has launched a campaign called Play Beautiful which consists of eight serialized videos, the first showing a ficticious cause group, headed by real-life, legendary footballer Eric Cantona, taking over a television station to deliver the group's message of encouragement. In the first video, Cantona says "we've let liars and cheaters make a fool of the game" and that he is here to "remind the world that this game is about skill, heart, honor, joy, team spirit." He urges us to make the game beautiful again. As football-clueless Americans, we never would have know the game had a problem in the first place so we'll take his word for it.

Future videos will also feature Cantona along with other current footballers. The video was produced by Wieden & Kennedy and F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, who handle work for Nike in Brazil, created the site.

'Black' Launched WIth Microsite Game And Stealth-Like Tactics

To promote the new, first person shooter EA game, Black, Freestyle has launched My Black Valentine. Stereotypical connotations of the word "black" and "shoot" aside, the microsite helps those who are without love during Valentine's day get their anger out by shooting things. It's simple enough, fun for a few minutes and you can send it to a friend which, by current definition, makes it a viral. At least that's what Freestyle says.

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Agent Provocateur Debuts 'Tied Up at the Office'

Perhaps living up to the notion the trailer's better than the actual movie or, perhaps, we've just been teased so much by the trailer we've detached ourselves from the intended effect, the full length version of Mike Figgis' film for Agent Provocateur, released today, seems to fall short - just an extended version of the trailer. That said, if you haven't seen it yet, find a private, secluded spot and be prepared to be very aroused. The film features two women, shot in a tantalizing black and white noir style (well, we call it that but we don't speak "movie review" very well), having a sultry, sexual encounter in the basement of a lingerie store. Suffice to say, there's lots of soft sexual whimpers, moaning, sexy lingerie, nudity, sliding of fingers over erogenous zones, longing stares and trench coated women as the camera lustfully slobbers over the women quick cut-style. Sadly, there's no real climax.

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Israel Is Holy And Hot

Unfortunately lumped together with all the other political crap about the Middle East, Israel gets a bum wrap. But the bums in this viral promotion for the country are completely apolitical and just plain hot in that sexy female human sort of way. With the two mesmerized guys in the video helplessly uttering, "Holy Shit, Man," "Holy Fuck," "Holy Jesus" and "Holy Mother of God," the ad's tagline, "Israel. No Wonder They Call it the Holy Land," makes perfect sense.

Keta Keta, creators of the "Make Love, Not War" and "People's Voice," created this video which can be viewed here as well as other pro-Israel wotk they've done.

James Frey Shakes His Lying Ass

We didn't join the media circus surrounding the Oprah/James Frey "is it fiction or non-fiction" thing because, well, we really didn't care what yet another author had to say and how Oprah would heap praise until we found this little video poking fun at the whole thing. Watch Frey shake his ass and tell the story of how he liked to all of us in his book.

42 Below Vodka Is Fucking Gay!

This, by far is the best promotional video New Zealand's 42 Below has done to date. It follows one of their previous gay-bashing videos and goes even further identifying all the fucking gay things about being fucking gay. For those who are offended, it's a joke. Remember this thing called humor? Yup, there it is. Way back there in the recesses of your politically-correct addled brain. Now laugh, dammit! Fucking laugh!

Oh, we almost forgot. The video promotes a 42 Below-sponsored event in Auckland February 25 called Hero Party at Studio and Galatos which, of course, will also be fucking gay.