David Armano makes his social network pay
Critical Mass vp of experiential design David Armano is a certified social-network celebrity, with a well-read blog and popular Twitter feed. This week, he decided to put his network to use for good—and might have just developed one of the most powerful social-media case studies to boot. Last night, Armano posted an appeal on his blog, and to his 8,200 Twitter followers, to help a family friend in desperate circumstances. He set a goal of raising $5,000 in small donations to help the woman and her family get back on their feet. By this morning, donations had topped $11,000. Social-media mavens are talking new world order, and Armano thinks the response is a powerful testament to what networks can accomplish. "I'm hopeful we can move the discussion from who has influence to what we do with what influence we have," he tweets. —Posted by Brian Morrissey |
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Published on January 7, 2009 | Permalink
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Draftfcb casts a global problem in miniature
This Canadian World Wildlife Foundation spot by Draftfcb Toronto, directed by OPC's Woods + Low, is filled with plastic performances. But that's the idea. No actual humans appear, and most of the machinery and vehicles are models. The commercial shows these detailed miniatures in real locations, and has a hauntingly childlike theme and hypnotic pacing, with soft yet eye-catching visual cues. The resulting clip is slightly surreal and makes a quietly compelling statement about pollution and conservation. The bright pink "product" seen throughout is the only element that's not grimy, dreary or soot-smeared. See if you can guess why. Maybe the light bulb will come on above your head before the final frame. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on January 7, 2009 | Permalink
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Amid downturn, WPP brass poke each other
We all deal with economic catastrophe in our own ways. For WPP's top echelon of executives, it means enjoying a little Wii and Facebook. A new BusinessWeek story recounts a meeting in Athens, Greece, in October where WPP's board discussed—wait for it—how the company could prepare itself for digital media. The Internet is big, who knew? (Agency Spy, for one, is incensed about this.) A top priority for these execs: getting Facebook accounts. In this endeavor, WPP's titans of advertising got help from none other than Mark Zuckerberg himself. BusinessWeek reports that 63-year-old WPP CEO Martin Sorrell has already lost interest in the site, but others have been liking it. "The directors had fun, but the exercise was meant to help them fully grasp the phenomenon of social networks and how they may affect the ad business," according to BusinessWeek. Ah, but there's more. Apparently, WPP's top 3,000 managers get training courses on things like Twitter. I don't begrudge anyone for trying to make money, but training ad people on Twitter? I tried to find Sir Martin on Facebook to write on his wall. Alas, I can't seem to locate him. —Posted by Brian Morrissey |
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Published on January 7, 2009 | Permalink
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Try the phone made of plastic water bottles
Do consumers care about "green" products anymore? Did they ever? Why am I asking myself questions aloud as I type? I wish there were an environmentally conscious phone I could use to call someone and get some answers. Oh hey, good timing—it looks like Motorola is launching what it claims is the world's first 3G mobile phone made from recycled water-bottle plastics. It's called the Moto W233 Renew, which doesn't exactly glide off the tongue like "iPhone," but it won't glide off the shelves like the iPhone either, so it's probably OK. Motorola gets all up in its competition's face by including a postage-paid envelope in each Renew box, making it "easy to return your previous mobile phone for recycling at no cost." (That's like spanking Nokia with a twig.) Still, if the Renew's a flop and sits in stockroom crates unsold, Motorola could be creating more garbage than it would have by not launching the phone in the first place. |
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Published on January 7, 2009 | Permalink
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Geico's Kash rears his ugly head once again
Geico's much-maligned inanimate wad of bills, known as "Kash," returns in these two new spots by The Martin Agency. In the ad above, the banknotes briefly flutter in the breeze. That's pretty much the highlight of the action here. To his credit, though, the guy who plays the stereotype hick rancher really does seem inbred. The gecko is also back in some more palatable offerings. Maybe the lizard could eat or burn or tear "Kash" to shreds in a Japanese monster-movie style "Gecko vs. Kash" commercial. "Cavemen vs. Kash" would also be fine. Just as long as there's no Kash back. |
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Published on January 6, 2009 | Permalink
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You'll need 3-D glasses for Super Bowl XLIII
Exciting news in the perennially up-and-coming field of 3-D technology: Four marketers are teaming up to air two commercials in super-fabulous 3-D as part of a special "event" during this year's Super Bowl telecast on Feb. 1. The ads, which will run at the end of the second quarter (a big bathroom-break moment, unfortunately), will be a 3-D trailer for DreamWorks Animation's upcoming 3-D feature film, Monsters vs. Aliens, and a 60-second spot in 3-D for PepsiCo's SoBe Lifewater. The other two marketers involved are Intel, which has made 125 million pairs of 3-D glasses for the occasion (to be made available at various retail locations), and NBC, this year's Super Bowl broadcaster, which will also air a 3-D episode of Chuck the following day (to be promoted under the slogan "Don't Chuck your glasses"). The whole thing is ludicrous enough to get lots of attention, but don't expect the Lifewater ad to knock your socks off. It will feature "the SoBe lizards and stars from DreamWorks' Monsters vs. Aliens [dancing] alongside current NFL stars." |
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Published on January 6, 2009 | Permalink
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My kingdom for a decent TV viral campaign
NBC follows the lead of HBO and Showtime in putting forth yet another TV campaign that blurs the line between reality and the fictional world of a show. A campaign for Kings, a drama that tells a modern-day version of the Biblical story of David, has been flitting its symbolic butterfly wings around the holiday advertising. Fliers around New York and L.A. proclaim, "Post no bills by order of the king" (first thought: the Burger King?), and online teasers from the king lead you to the fake news Web site of the kingdom: UNN Reports. Nice concept, horrendous follow-through. Those who make it to the Web site have almost nothing to explore. Amid a host of links that don't work, there are only two stories to read. Apparently, the kingdom of Gilboa is as boring as Nascar without any crashes. Or maybe they put all the money for the news network into the development of a two-minute trailer whose overblown dramatic tone is at odds with the glibness of the ad copy. Are there no decent ad agencies in the whole kingdom of Gilboa? —Posted by Rebecca Cullers |
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Published on January 6, 2009 | Permalink
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Naked, shotgun-wielding chick not included
O-kay, so we've got a leggy leather-jacketed babe. The jacket's open to show us that she's not wearing anything underneath. She sits, legs parted, on a bed, holding a smoking shotgun. There's a shell in her mouth. Visible behind her is a naked body, trim buttocks, taught legs, back awash in tattoos. The ad's for the jacket ... I think. See a larger version of the ad here. It's obviously not an American ad, since we generally enjoy violence in our video games but get puritanical when it shows up in paid media. Still, I was somewhat surprised to see that the work is from an agency in Zurich. So much for Swiss neutrality! This is what most of my dreams look like, actually. In them, I'm the gun, and the babe is my sister. Mom always liked her best. Via Ads of the World. |
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Published on January 6, 2009 | Permalink
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Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Cereal Club
No one outside of Gen X and JC Penney cares about The Breakfast Club, but this poster for The Breakfast Cereal Club is pretty inspired. Tony the Tiger, in particular, makes a great Bender. "They only met once, but they stayed crunchy forever," says the refigured slogan. Nice job by David Friedman of Ironic Sans. See the full poster at David's Web site. |
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Published on January 6, 2009 | Permalink
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AdFreak welcomes its evil twin, BrandFreak
Like a character from a Mike's Hard Iced Tea commercial, the Freak family of blogs today sprouted a second evil head: BrandFreak, a new daily blog from the writers of Brandweek. A kind of Jamie Lynn Spears to AdFreak's Britney, BrandFreak will explore amusing and quirky marketing stories with a primary focus on brands themselves—with topics including new product launches, brand extensions, packaging, sponsorships and so on. AdFreak would like to officially welcome BrandFreak to the marketing-blog universe and at the same time ask where it got the tiara/eye-patch combo. |
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Published on January 5, 2009 | Permalink
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