Not those iPods again

It's indisputable that Apple's iPod is the accessory of the moment. Even here at AdFreak we've felt compelled to write about it twice in two days. But what, you may be wondering, is this picture of little, colorful, woolen iPod-shaped things?

Why, they’re accessories for the accessory! Yes, folks, for a mere $29, you can outfit your iPod with any one of six vibrant color socks (green, purple, grey, blue, orange, and pink). That's right, socks!

Overenthusiastic copy on the MacConnection Web site introduces us to “the year's coziest and most vibrant iPod accessory.” It even offers instructions: “Just slide your iPod into the sock to keep it safe and warm.” Just like a cuddly little baby! The iPod, anthropomorphized!

Now, we know that Apple loyalists are a wee bit zealous. Hell, we are Apple loyalists. But even for those of us who appreciate the sleek design of the iMac and the uniqueness of a tangerine iBook, this is just too precious. It’s tantamount to dressing your dog, which is one of our pet peeves (no pun intended).

Don't put it in a sock. Put a sock in it!

—Posted by Ann M. Mack

Published on November 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some ads with your TiVo?

It was inevitable. The commercial-skipping device has gone commercial.

First, TiVo started offering ads on its main menu. Now, the company is giving advertisers the chance to grab the attention of fans of the fast-forward function. Its latest software release—due in March—will feature a fast-forward billboard that will appear in the form of graphics as users zip through TV spots. As TiVo's Kimber Sterling described it to Adweek back in September, it will be "an opportunity for the advertiser to create a speed bump to get another chance to bring the person back into the commercial." 

Guess what? People generally don't like speed bumps. And indeed, some TiVo owners are crying foul, saying the ad "intrusion" crosses the line.

On this one, AdFreak sides with TiVo. Who can blame the unprofitable 7-year-old company for attempting to diversify its revenue base as it feels the heat from DVR-bundling cable operators? Not to mention, it is trying to make nice with the networks and advertisers.

We're not saying the fast-forward billboard is the solution. It's probably a stop-gap until something better comes along. In the meantime, TiVo owners should get used to the fact that their Monday Night Footall and Desperate Housewives come with a price—a commercial message—and no technology is going to change that. Nothing in life is free. Unless you switch to HBO and stay there. Oh wait, that costs money, doesn't it?

—Posted by Ann M. Mack

Published on November 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

In this case, it DID just disappear

Nothing captures the spirit of Christmas like a gift that stops giving—in two days.

The independent film Noel, a seasonal tale starring Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams, came and went (swiftly) with a novel—and creepy— strategy. Noel was shown in a handful of theaters in early November, then on TNT once over the Thanksgiving weekend, and now, unfathomably, on DVDs that self-destruct within 48 hours.

DUM dah dum dum.

No need for coal. Just order up one of these babies for $4.99 a pop at Amazon.com, leave the suicidal thing in the stocking until Sunday, and it'll turn black and go belly up. And don't forget the card: "Happy holidays. I hate you."

However, this Grand Guignol idea is too good not to export. Here, therefore, are some things we would like to see evaporate in 48 hours:

• Desperate Housewives. They've already killed off one of them, not counting the wife who's already dead, so it's a start.

• The Miller/Anheuser-Busch advertising blood feud. A series of 30-second hissy fits. Listen, kids: Snap out of it, or we're all switching to scotch.

• Oliver Stone's Alexander—wait, that's already happening.

What else should burst into flames? How about:

• Five SUV ads in one pod.

• Jared Fogle.

• Dan Rather—wait, that already happened.

—Posted by Jack Feuer

Published on November 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

All fun and games until someone gets hurt

Is there an award for most tasteless use of an anniversary in a marketing campaign?

A company called Traffic Management Ltd., based in Scotland of all places, has rolled out a truly bizarre videogame called JFK Reloaded that puts game players in the role of Lee Harvey Oswald and asks them to take aim at John F. Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas and try to off the president. To maximize exposure and/or nausea among consumers, the company rolled out the game last Monday, on the 41st anniversary of JFK’s assassination.

There’s been widespread disgust with the whole thing, obviously, and the company has come out with defensive PR guns blazing—which was no doubt also in the plan from the beginning. Its defense? It says the game is basically a history lesson, in that it supports the lone-gunman theory. The company is even offering a cool $100,000 to the player who most accurately re-creates the three shots Oswald fired from the Texas School Book Depository building on Nov. 22, 1963. 

Roll that one up and smoke it.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on November 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

We'll get another chance

Sometimes AdFreak’s life seems to consist mostly of a never-ending succession of envelopes coming through the mail to us from Citibank, all with the words “LAST CHANCE” printed on them in big black letters, like it's our final hope to be cured of some unspeakable financial disease.

The fact is—and actually, we get these envelopes from AT&T Universal Card, too, since they are all part of the same big, happy credit-card family—that it’s another one of those low-interest-rate offers giving us just one more opportunity to trade in our egregiously high interest rate for a lower one. Except sometimes we get these offers at the rate of two or three a week.

Maybe, just possibly, with people who have short-term memory loss, this particular piece of direct mail actually works. But for those of us who can actually remember back to yesterday—or even the day before!—these offers are an annoyance, and a lie. As we’ve come to discover after years of study, none of the solicitations like the one we got yesterday is the “LAST CHANCE.” They are all just the last chance before the next chance.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on November 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wanted: sponge-nappers

Calling all cars: Be on the lookout for a 10-foot-tall inflatable sponge. Yellow. Last seen wearing square pants.

We imagine just such a call blazed across police radios in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., Gorham, Maine, Little Falls, Minn., and several other towns across America, where promotional characters hyping The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie were recently reported stolen from Burger King restaurants. Wunderman helped engineer the campaign, but the direct-meisters may have gotten more publicity than they bargained for.

According to police in one Minnesota town, a ransom note claimed, “We have SpongeBob,” and demanded “10 Crabby Patties, fries and milkshakes,” says an AP report.

—Posted by Lisa van der Pool

Published on November 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Laziness is the new copywriting trick

Random musing of the day: Is the contruction "[x] is the new [y]" still fair game in advertising, or is it completely, ridiculously, mind-numbingly overused already?

It probably started, way back when, with "gray is the new black," or maybe "40 is the new 30." But somewhere along the way it became an all-purpose lazy-writing standard, as evidenced here, in a fun post on the Agoraphilia blog from earlier this year.

Now, marketing materials for the film Ocean's Twelve are going with the tagline: "Twelve is the new eleven." Which really is pretty meaningless when you think about it.

If you're going to go the meaninglessness route, why not have some fun? Maybe channel Spinal Tap with a line like, "This one goes to twelve."

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on November 29, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

McDonald's new special sauce

So Heidi Klum apparently likes Big Macs, and will be professing her love for them on a TV screen near you in the not-so-distant future.

Heidi Klum eats Big Macs. Yeah, like we believe that. Sure. OK. Right. What's next? Kate Moss pitching Krispy Kremes?

Here's a sentence that we chuckled at from the New York Daily News story: "Other celebrities who have been the face of McDonald's include Justin Timberlake, Ronald McDonald and the Hamburgler." Are the terms "mascot" and "celebrity" now interchangeable?

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on November 29, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

iPod, you Pod, we all Pod

It was only a matter of time before the iPod phenomenon gave birth to new words and phrases among the "pod people culture." We've already heard about the "iPod economy." Now, featured in the venerable New York Times on Sunday, we have "podjacking"—the practice of tapping into a friend's (or stranger's) iPod and absconding with their tunes. (There's event a whole Web site, Podjacking.com, devoted to it.)

What's next? Before you know it, iPod will be used as a verb. Trouble is, "iPodded" doesn't have the same ring as "Googled," "TiVoed" or any of the proper-noun-turned-verbs before it. And in what context would one use it?

We'll give it some thought as we listen to U2's new album, which we podjacked from our colleague's iPod mini.

—Posted by Alison Fahey

Published on November 29, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Macy's thanksgiving ad parade

Now that we've finally attended our first ever Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (see photographic evidence at left), we thought we’d finally be able to knowledgeably answer the question of whether the parade is an endearing holiday tradition or the ghastly opening salvo to another hugely commercial Christmas season.
But our feelings were decidedly mixed. On the one hand, it's always unnerving to find that your offspring have an encyclopedic knowledge of characters from cartoons you never even knew they watched, but on the other hand the balloons, many of which are heavily bandaged after years of running into skyscrapers, bitter Thanksgiving winds and New York City lampposts, have this surprisingly homemade quality, like someone’s wacky uncle dreamt them up in his garage. They’re supersized and yet surprisingly fragile, which takes away some of their overtly commercial sting. Even the almighty Ronald McDonald looked just a little tentative about his buoyancy. Amazingly enough, there seemed to be little in terms of memorabilia for sale—at least at the corner of 43rd and Broadway. The only thing the kids Adfreak went with really wanted was one of those massive New York street pretzels, brand name unknown.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on November 29, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)