Yeah I know, she was Scottish, and the Cheer Laundress is British. Regardless, there’s something really charming about her march right in and take over routine in this Cheer spot. Will she become the brand equivalent of the Maytag repairman? She could if they stick with her. Nice WWII poster look to the sign-off too.
That banner ad for The Wall Street Journal is as good an example as any. The image that looks like they took some thumbnail from a stock photo place and enlarged it.
When it comes to guerilla, you have to go big or go home. I totally dig this campaign and the various placements, and ya gotta polarize and all that, but, my only thing is if someone got hurt running to help who they thought was a real person. Minor nit though. Every other piece in the campaign is cool. (Thought Gadgets for the find.)“bro this better not happen in real life because honestly i had a dream this shit happend and 3/4's of my dreams really happen.”
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“Dear Toyota: I was all set to buy a new Toyota, but after reading about Japan's whaling practices -- I will not be buying a japanese car. My last three cars have been Toyotas and and a Honda. Loved them. But I can't support such a blatant disregard to whales in the world conditions threatening so much of creation.”
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“Eff You, John. Archeological studies have shown that Jesus, or someone like him, probably did exist. Your lack of education is showing. Even if Jesus didn’t exist, the symbol is GOOD, so if you can’t handle a symbol of goodnes, then you’re lowlife scum.”
Yes, I must report the continued sad demise of the Lingerie Bowl. Who knew Arizona would take a stand like this? Guess ‘cancelled two years in a row’ will end up in next year’s media kit? The bigger problem though: what will Kato Kaelin do now?
Lest the promotion of April 15th overshadow Valentine’s Day—it has—the Eagles sent fans an email where you can have their mascot Swoop show up to deliver I Heart You goodness to that special someone in your life. So what does $265 get you? Lots! A dozen roses. Swoop Bobblehead. Hat and t-shirt. Chocolates. Signed Swoop card. Picture of the delivery. Eagles bag. Not bad. But I will say, if I came home and a giant bird in an Eagle’s jersey is leaving my house, okay, wtf.
Saw this again last night on Fox News Channel during their ongoing primary coverage. When they went to commercial, they ... really didn’t. Instead, they continued to run their primary numbers and background graphics behind whatever spot came up next. I’d be upset as a brand if I’d have to split time with a election results. Maybe brands were told that for this would happen, but I’m guessing not. Even if they were told, how does this not weaken the impact of any ad running? If you were already half-ignoring commercials, then you’re likely tuning them out even more when totals are changing beneath the screen. Checking the others, MSNBC or CNN didn’t do this.
(UPDATE: Link fixed.) If he likes it, Rudy Gay will perform the winning dunk submitted from You Tube Nation in Sprite’s 2008 Slam Dunk Competition. (Good thing the NBA at least let Sprite get their name in the title because there’s no other branding to be seen.) Remember, because it’s ‘consumer generated’ and all, you’re not allowed to do anything remotely interesting or use any props that real NBA ballers will use in the contest.
What age do serial killers start out again? (Via Butternutjelly.)
With the YouTube contest thing. Okay already. I submit. Do I win now? $61,000. $22,000. $12,000. Somewhere along the way the brief for the contest page must’ve said “Add dollar amounts, no matter what they are—people like that.” I’m not bagging on it, the page is well done and all; it has nice prizes too. The cost will probably end being a small amount for building awareness over a few months, especially compared with running this on TV. Wonder though if this as far as brands will end up pushing YouTube.
All rise, the court of public opinion is now in session. Allegedly, a group in Bristol who didn’t see the actual roast for ESPN radio hosts Mike & Mike is protesting what someone else claims they heard ESPN anchor Dana Jacobson say that night, and now wants her fired. ESPN is not releasing the tape either so all there is to go by is they said/she said.
“Thorazine can control the agitated, belligerent senile and help the
patient to live a composed and useful life.”
Yeah, well, don’t get your hopes up. I’m not doing one. Yes I look at spots all the time and give my 2¢. But I’ll wait until Sunday Bloody Sunday to make any comments. Many brands will be doing their usual thing though, you can count on it. Pepsi, Bud and Doritos. Under Armor is going to be there, albeit in a serious way. Expect lots of cute animals, celebs and wiseass kids otherwise. Know why that’s not a spoiler alert here? Because it’s the same thing you see every year. Let me guess: a Bud ‘Dude’ spot. DON’T let me down fellas, I know you have it in you. And what about a sports themed spot. Maybe instead of a ref tackling a player—what about players breaking up a fight between, wait for it, the refs. Or, a pharma spot with large costume disease character thingies. Capped off with the touching (insert cola of choice) reunion spot. Speaking of touching, I sure hope they have an ED spot or two.
Saw this story on Drudge about all the labels now agreeing to now allow free downloads of all their music. Just like that? After all the lawsuits, all the bitching from record labels about lost revenue. Hmmm. Not sure if they figured out some kind of Last.fm way to monetize the stream per play or not but this seems odd. Wonder too if this steals the thunder from Pepsi’s plans for their Super Bowl download promotion. My only question is who will record labels sue now?
Noticed on Google today how they’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of Lego. Could just be a random cultural icon they’ve chosen to feature, but, maybe not? Will Pepsi-colored Google logos and characters start showing up? Or Coke? LOT of views on Google each day that ain’t on re-runs at night lately, thanks to the WGA strike. Just an idea.
The opera? Can’t make this stuff up. Truth may be stranger than fiction but seldom more dramatic, right? Have we run out of original ideas so much so that we now just cannibalize the already regurgitated culture from last week and charge $115 a ticket? Good luck trying to find deeper meanings in this production and any larger social comment. It’s a little like the media saying it reports on the latest school shooting ad nauseum because A) The public has a right to know and 2) So that we can learn from this tragedy to avoid repeating it again. (Yeah, riiiight. You know it’s total bull because you can never prevent stupid or evil people from fulfilling their destinies—it’s in their DNA.)
Yeah, so Suzuki or Ford mirror BMW films, badly. But if you want to do something in the space, go original and do something like this. Okay, maybe I’m dreaming, but they should. After all, isn’t it the type of stuff Toyota only fantasized about doing when it fought the Loch Ness monster? 172,000+ views in 12 days. Not too bad. (Thanks to Drew for the find.) 
An animation by Somegreybloke, one of which is called Gym Membership, has gotten traffic of 600,000+ views in five months, (1.2 million combined for all his clips to date). Dry? Yep. Boring? Depends. When compared to someone being tased, definitely. Certainly it’s not right for all brands, but it has its audience though. It’s just someone letting their mind go, free from brand restraints and logos. You either dig it, or you don’t. And like the Mentos and Diet Coke clip, I’m guessing it woulda been near impossible to sell in ahead of time. All because it falls out of the comfort zone of somebody’s Excel spreadsheet and branding guidelines.
Sunday morning is that special time when you see a ton of financial spots which you likely wouldn’t at others. One I keep seeing is for SAP small business software, which seems aimed at the typical humorless mid-level manager found in so many Offices. Now, while hearing “Steve Buscemi in a delightful romatic comedy!” is a phrase that scares the hell out of me, so does enterprise solution. One thing this Ogilvy work does do however is a good job of tying in the website and explaining the campaign. Even their homepage accesses the spots via a simple link. Yeah I know, so what. But little stuff like connecting the dots between TV (or other media) and the online space is something a lot of brands don’t do enough of. One example I go back to is IBM and their ‘Do’ campaign. A link in the homepage nav would add a simple cue directing people to the campaign, but there’s nothing there except confusion.
At first glance, you’re like, this may be the worst agency website you’ve ever seen. But then it dawns on you that it may be the best one you’ve seen in some time. (Not that killer Flash doesn’t impress, hey, it does, but this stuff is the skewering bad website design needed.) Banner ads from hell which actually take you to different theme pages every visit. Fake diets. Home products. Every click a surprise. KesselsKramer out of the Netherlands has been around for some time, but this site is a nice timeline of bad web design. Check it out. Then try and go and work on your crappy agency self-promo.
There are moments when an actor steals the show. Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross, Christopher Walken in True Romance—and Gary Busey in whatever this is. I don’t even need to see the rest of the movie to know I’ve witnessed cinemagic. Unlike those other two roles, 
Ah, the internet. Just when I think I won’t have anything disturbing to post, it never lets me down. So maybe this online game teaches kids the names of candidates through the repetition of shots fired? Play it here, but I’m warning you right now, Hillary is quicker than she looks.
Tell her. The new Sammie is part of Quiznos’ attempt to compete in the fast food snack category and ‘reinvent’ itself with Michael Duncan Clark voicing new TV spots. (One can be found here. I think Clark could probably wolf down 20 of these.) Why stop there though. The food is good, but if it’s me, I’m not focused on line extensions, I’m looking at ways to reduce the price of a toasted sub from, what it is now, $23? Maybe also cut down the time it takes to get a 
You know their names, even though you might not recognize their faces in this Stamp Out Stigma campaign from Ireland. Not to make light of HIV awareness, but watching Larry Mullen Jr., I thought it was cool to hear someone else from U2 speak. Sinead O’Connor and Andrea Coor are a few of the other musicians who appear. While I dig guerilla PSA work like truth, etc., I also like PSAs with a compelling story–told straight, shot simply. This could even run here because the theme and experiences are so global. I’d even use the same talent to reinforce the theme of overlooked people, just because I’m betting most won’t know them at first glance like they would with a Springsteen or Madonna.
Found this one for KFC. I watched it five times to see if it was really them and I hafta say, whoever had the job of casting the lookalikes, damn good job. (Supposedly prothestics were added to lookalikes using original actor dialog.) Although I think that actually was the original Crewman #6 in the background. He needed the work.
“Two accountants walk into a bar.” What, you heard this one? Okay, well, then go write your own 3-minute routine, upload it, and you might win ten large–and get to open for Jay Mohr. Don’t worry, he’s judging the entries so anyone funnier than him ain’t making the cut. (Vanilla Ice I can see, but Jay Mohr? Judging by the comments, he’s taking a lot of shit, but I always liked him in a Jeremy Piven/Jeannine Garofalo smartass kind of way.) Next year TurboTax, sign Dice Clay: “Hickery dickery dock, F**@~!?**, F@#!* H&R Block. OOOOOOOOOOH!” Anyway, you have a month. Go be funny YouTube nation. (And please, anyone else running a contest, stop with the three different contest pages. One is enough.)
Group Hug v3 is part Overheard in..., part Post Secret sans art school collage. Check it out. Hope they pass on the requisite book based of user stories though. Profiting off someone’s story without giving them a piece is something I always disliked about the other two.
