For your consideration, an Oscars post

As Academy Awards season descends on Hollywood like a plague of locusts in a C.B. DeMille religious epic, Angelinos will again be subject to one of the oddest mass-media marketing phenomena: local television and radio (local meaning, in this case, reaching 10 million people in Los Angeles County alone) designed to speak to the 5,800 or so voting members of the Academy. In recent years, this trade advertising has extended beyond The Hollywood Reporter and Variety and become more prominent and obvious to all. To overcome Academnesia, studios will release ads for movies no longer even in theaters to promote this director or that actor. In the past, radio spots have featured sound from nominated scores, with snippets of interviews by the composer. For the next month, rather than featuring a current release for its overall appeal, commercials will laud a single performance—conspicuously, that of a nominee. These ads don’t run across the nation, or even necessarily in New York, where at least some Academy members still reside. The campaigns are made to flatter Academy voters with big studio spend—a squandering of media resources made necessary because the Academy discourages direct marketing to its members. Of course, in order to be effective, that means Oscar-solicitous advertising pours money into lefty media, a badly needed boon for Air America.

—Posted by Gregory Solman

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

A marketing tie-in waiting to happen

Surely a marketer of slip-on shoes can make something of this. Link via CBS News.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

George Parker bumped from ‘Today’

We just scrolled through all three DVR-ed hours of this morning’s Today show and didn’t see George Parker anywhere. The curmudgeonly author of the AdScam and AdHurl blogs was due for an appearance to talk about advertising, but George reports that he was bumped. He evidently had to make way for more serious news, such as the death of Coretta Scott King, the Oscar nominations and not one but two segments with Al Roker cooking food. He has been rescheduled for tomorrow, apparently at 7:15 a.m. George explains on AdScam: “Apparently Katie wants to spend more time with me on Wednesday and Al Roker wants me to do the weather. So, Matt is pissed. But what can I say?”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

5 days to kickoff: The techies are all in ABC’s trailers, not on screen

The latest Super Bowl XL news: ABC has brought more than 400 people to Detroit to coordinate one of the largest remote broadcast operations imaginable. (The Detroit News) • The Super Bowl just ain’t the showcase for tech marketers that it used to be. (Investor’s Business Daily) • Ever wonder why advertisers always call it “the Big Game” and never “the Super Bowl”? (The Washington Post) • How to enjoy the game in spite of the hype. (USA Today). • Consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas estimates that the Super Bowl will cost American employers some $780 million in lost employee productivity. (Seattle Times) • MJZ’s Craig Gillespie, who directed two Ameriquest spots for this year’s Super Bowl, was named the Directors Guild of America’s outstanding commercial director for 2005 over the weekend. He directed last year’s cat-and-tomato-sauce Ameriquest ad, which won an Emmy Award. (Adweek)

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have the King and Brooke tied the knot?

Brooke Burke has her own crown now, anyway. Link via The Superficial. Our favorite non-obscene comment in response to the post: “This is terrible. If Burger King marries a commoner, he’ll have to renounce the throne. Then he’ll just be Burger Dude and have to get a job as a Burger Actuary, or a Burger Subcontracter.” Others are convinced that the natural next step in the campaign will involve a Brooke “bump watch.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Filed under Burger King

Adman winds up with Enron’s big ‘E’

With Enron back in the news, ABC tackles that crucial question: Just where the hell did the company’s big electronic “E” signs go? Well, it turns out there were four of them altogether, and the one that sat in front of Enron HQ on Smith Street in Houston ended up at an ad agency in town called StanAndLou Advertising. The agency’s president, Lou Congelio, picked it up for a mere $8,500, after the man who originally bought it at auction to use as a coffee table sold it under pressure from his wife. Congelio did lend the E to Playboy for its “Women of Enron” photo shoot. And he tells ABC News that he does have some sympathy for Ken Lay: “I think he is a decent guy. He got stuck in the middle of all of this. But he was the keeper of the flame; he should have been paying attention.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

‘Sleepless in Seattle’ gets spoof trailer

Movie trailers are all about the music. That’s our conclusion from watching the latest spoof trailer—Sleepless in Seattle recut to look like a horror movie. This follows last year’s hugely popular Shining trailer, which make the old Stanley Kubrick horror film look like a romantic comedy. So, maybe not surprisingly, romance and horror seem to be somewhat interchangeable. But can anyone recut a Western to make it look like sci-fi? Link via Boing Boing.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

AdFreak readers, you’re our only hope

It is a dark time for the rebellion. The Battle of the Ad Blogs 2006 is entering the home stretch, and our top rival, Adrants the Hutt, is using valuable ad space to declare its intention to “smoke AdFreak’s ass” and possibly carbon-freeze us as well, who knows. We’re down by like 100 votes, give or take. So again we’re asking our readers (and, we thought it went without saying, only our readers) to deliver us, Skywalker-like, from a gruesome fate like this. If you enjoy our dispatches, click on this link and vote for the Freak. Oh yeah, and it’s all in good fun.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4)

For iTunes users, the drink is hard cider

The New York Times today picks up a study by Nielsen/NetRatings (a distant and more respectable AdFreak relative) about iTunes users which contains some interesting—if not entirely shocking—factoids about their other brand preferences. They are 2.2 times more likely to drive a Volkswagen than the rest of the population and also have a thing for Audis (when they start making more money, presumably) and Subarus. They also drink a disproportionate amount of hard cider. As far as their TV networks, well, it depends on how loosely you want to define network—they are inordinately fond of the Cartoon Network, BBC America and HBO, selections that are simultaneously high-brow, low-brow and infantile, sprinkled with occasional four-letter words.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on January 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Long Island. We want a cool slogan too.

After the resounding success (or was that failure?) of New Jersey’s recent slogan contest, Newsday columnist Ellis Henican recently challenged his readers to come up with a slogan for Long Island. As far as we know, Long Island doesn’t have an official motto. Nor is its tourism office looking for one. But that hasn’t stopped Henican’s readers from offering a few. “Sifting through the electronic heap,” Henican writes, “it’s obvious that funny and snarky and twisted come a whole lot easier to a lot of people around here than nice and kind and sweet.” Some of the suggestions: “Long Island: What’s it to you?" “Long Island: Yeah, we’re better than you!” And “Long Island: Do it here and your mother will know.” You can e-mail others to henican@newsday.com.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (10)

Another Super showdown: bald vs. hairy

Much hay was made during the AFC championship game over Broncos QB Jake Plummer and his Taliban-style beard vs. Steelers signal caller Ben Roethlisberger’s more restrained yet robust facial hair. The New York Times even hinted at a rebirth of the beard as a fashion statement. Now, a more interesting battle is shaping up between Roethlisberger’s beard and full head of hair and Seahawks QB Matt Hasselbeck’s chrome dome. Steelers QB great Terry Bradshaw (shown here polishing Hasselbeck’s pate) must be torn between rooting for his Steelers and rooting for his fellow bald guy. Hasselbeck, who had a fantastic year and playoff run, is bidding to take over the mantle of best bald American athlete outside of Andre Agassi. But that’s tennis, and this is football. USA Today pointedly asks whether America is ready for a bald Super Bowl hero. Perhaps it’s not a good sign that Hasselbeck doesn’t even show up on Wikipedia’s list of famous bald athletes.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Photo: David Gonzales/Icon SMI/Newscom

Published on January 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Filed under Morrissey

6 days to kickoff: Those cute little Super Bowl ads

The latest Super Bowl XL news: Big-ticket ads aim for the really small screen (USA Today) • Internet gambling site lets viewers bet on popularity of Super Bowl ads (New York Post) • 40 reasons to love the Super Bowl (Fort Worth Star-Telegram) • United Airlines rejoins Super Bowl on a spot basis (PR Newswire) • Sure you spent $2.5 million on 30 seconds, but did you bother to buy any search? (DM News) • Ford Field may as well be GM Field (Orlando Sun-Sentinel) • ABC replaces all Super Bowl ads with public service campaigns. Not. (The Indianapolis Star) • Super Bowl ad humor cleans up (MarketWatch).

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on January 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Your very own personal bartending bot

Men could be excused for thinking the robots shown here represent the pinnacle of scientific achievement. Their only purpose is to store and pour cold beers for their owners. Japanese brewer Asahi is giving away 5,000 of these bartending robots as part of a promotion for its new low-malt beer. Sadly, the contest is open only to those in Japan. Some scientists say these robots are a gimmick that distract from genuine robot research. Football-watching American males will disagree strenuously. Perhaps Google should move away from hamburger-flipping robots and into beer-pouring ones. Link via Boing Boing.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Filed under Robots

Big Pizza gets ready for its big day

No matter how you slice it, Super Bowl Sunday is pizza’s biggest day of the year. According to the National Restaurant Association, about one in every seven Americans orders takeout or delivery for a Super Bowl gathering. Among adults 18-34, that rises to 22 percent. Of those who order takout or delivery, 58 percent order pizza, 50 percent order chicken wings, and 20 percent order subs or sandwiches. Pizza Hut, the nation’s No. 1 pizza place, plans to deliver almost 2 million pizzas with a week-long marketing push for its new Cheesy Bites pie, which has 28 cheese-stuffed bites instead of a regular crust. Because almost half of all deliveries and carry-outs happen between two hours before and an hour into the game, Pizza Hut’s most important ad of the year is the pre-game one. This year Jessica Simpson reappears with the Muppets, delivering Cheesy Bites to Miss Piggy, which might not be the exact association you want with a product that’s chock full of calories and fat. But research shows that people who order pizza know what they want—and they want a lot of it. Fearing a backlash against Big Pizza a few years ago, Pizza Hut tried to develop a lower-carb product. But even Pizza Hut CMO Tom James admitted that pizza lite was hard to choke down. “And I’ve never met a pizza I couldn’t eat,” he said.

—Posted by Richard Williamson

Published on January 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

LSU ‘Onepeat’ taunt aims for a real dynasty

The taunting of the University of Southern California over its failed bid to win its second consecutive NCAA national title this year just won’t end. Now, people can go to Onepeat.com and vote for one of several billboards that have been created to provoke USC. The concept that gets the most votes will be put on a board near the USC campus, paid for by donations from Louisiana State University fans. The concepts are from Sullivan-St. Clair, an independent shop in Mobile, Ala. Agency president Rich Sullivan volunteered to do the work pro bono after reading about the effort on AdFreak several weeks ago. LSU fans were offended when the media began hyping this year’s Rose Bowl game as USC’s chance to win its third straight national title, even though LSU received the championship trophy after the 2003 season. (Sportswriters favored USC, which won the 2004 trophy but lost to the University of Texas in the Rose Bowl this past season.) The billboard is so popular in Louisiana that a company in Baton Rouge has offered to remove its own ad and give the space to the Onepeat movement.

—Posted by Jim Lovel

Published on January 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (11)

Gene Simmons is officially the competition

The news that Gene Simmons is starting a marketing company with actual clients really makes us want to indulge in puns about kissing up. But we'll refrain. And it doesn't look like he'll be particularly good at sucking up anyway. In an interview in Forbes.com (free registration required), the Kiss frontman, asked how he got his first client, the Indy Racing League, said he told them their logo “sucked.”

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Credit: Mercury Records/Zuma/Newscom

Published on January 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

California isn’t all that, says Nevada

Has the bear on California’s flag sloughed off to seek a better life in Nevada? Apparently so—and so should California businesses. That’s the humorous message behind a new Nevada ad campaign that promotes economic investment in the state. The work includes a Missing: California Bear Web site, which has funny, low-budget “news reports” about the AWOL animal, and outdoor ads on buildings in L.A., Sacramento, San Francisco and San Diego. Missing animals are a theme lately. Check out the Advertising/Design Goodness blog, which has posted some cool World Wildlife Fund ads showing corporate logo that are missing their animals. The tagline: “Wildlife is disappearing.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spare the Spam, spoil the child

OK, so they’re not shoving dead animals in their mouths or drinking beetle-laced Gatorade, but the demonic tots from 50s ads showcased here are wolfing down some questionable cuisine. Just check out these "crispy french-fried wieners." Thanks, Mom!

—Posted by Mae Anderson

Published on January 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Filed under Anderson

Waiter, there's a fly in my food coloring

So, suppose you were casually reading the label on your bottle of Gatorade one day, and you noticed the ingredients listed were water, sucrose syrup, citric acid and crushed female cochineal beetles? Be afraid, be very afraid, because according to The Wall Street Journal (it's free content, so click away), it may happen soon. It turns out that many of those lovely colorings are actually derived from insects, and some groups (such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest) and individuals (like vegetarians, who according to the story have pondered their vegetarianism to such a degree that they've spent time considering whether they can eat insects) are pushing for labels to include things we'd rather not know about. Several things occur to me. One: that my brothers, who used to routinely drink straight out of the Hi-C can in the fridge, were actually telling the truth when they said they were just looking in the can to check for dead flies. Two: that there actually are lots of old ladies who swallowed a fly. And three: that water never looked so good.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on January 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not without my network

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) this morning outlines the battle between Lifetime Television network and EchoStar's Dish Network, which dropped the melodrama momma from its lineup after she demanded higher fees. I imagine the Original Movie-style smackdown went a bit like this:

Lifetime: Don’t you see what you’re doing to us!

Dish Network: What I’m doing, what about what you’re doing to the EchoStar family! MTV is already pushing us further and further away, and poor Nickelodeon thinks it’s his fault. This is over. Get out.

Lifetime: Noooooooooooooo!

And although Lifetime took out an ad in The New York Times  accusing EchoStar of not valuing women,EchoStar has replaced the network with not one, but two female-skewing nets, WE and Oxygen. Oh EchoStar, who’s the pig now?

—Posted by Deanna Zammit

Published on January 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

9 days to kickoff: Place your bets on whether the King will score a touchdown

The latest Super Bowl XL news: At least one gambling Web site is offering the option of betting on whether the King will score a touchdown during one of Burger King’s Super Bowl commercials. (VIPsports.com) • Jessica Simpson will star in a Super Bowl ad for Pizza Hut that will spoof her video for “The Boots (Are Made for Walkin’).” The lyrics will be changed to, “These bites are made for poppin’,” referring to Pizza Hut’s Cheesy Bites. (ContactMusic.com) • Toyota will air a spot for the Camry in Spanish and English. (ABC News) • How marketers are using PR to extend the value of their costly Super Bowl spots. (MediaPost) • Gillette will use the big game to unveil its Fusion razor, with even more blades! (The New York Times) • A brief history of high/low Super Bowl moments. (The Sporting News) • What to expect from automakers in this year’s game. (Associated Press) • And can the Super Bowl help Detroit turn its fortunes around? (MSNBC).

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Lingerie Bowl sinks to new heights

There’s all sorts of great stuff planned for Lingerie Bowl III, the pay-per-view event that will air during halftime of the Super Bowl. Dennis Rodman will be on hand as commissioner. A group of hot girls will play full-tackle football. One lucky sweepstakes winner will get to “tackle a lingerie model on the field during halftime and win a prize.” And perhaps best of all, the broadcast will feature the first public reunion of Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco 14 years after Fisher shot Buttafuoco’s wife in the head. It all sounds like a recipe for great entertainment, doesn’t it? Lonely, overweight guys tackling stick-figure models. Amy and Joey, together again. Let’s the hope the organizers have an EMT or two on hand.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Except for the dead animals in their mouths, they’re great kids

I guess we missed this campaign’s launch, but it’s worth revisiting. It’s Washington state’s artful yet revolting Ashtray Mouth anti-smoking work. It stars a bunch of creepy, horny little dolls who are constantly stalking each other, desperate to do a little passionate kissing. But wouldn’t you know it—one of them always ruins the vibe by sticking something disgusting in his or her mouth. A cockroach, a rat, a bird, a balled-up chunk of cat puke, whatever’s around. “Kissing a smoker is just as gross,” explains the tagline. On the Web site, you can even stuff the grody items in the dolls’ mouths yourself. You can also watch a pair of chilling TV spots. The work is from Sedgwick Rd in Seattle. Thanks (I guess) to Rubberize for the link.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (99)

StrawberryFrog tries out Internet karaoke

The ad agency we like to call StrawberryFrogFish has outdone itself with its latest project: a pan-European Internet karaoke competition tied to this summer’s World Cup in Germany. Plug a microphone into your computer, and sing along with members of the Onitsuka Tiger National Choir as they belt out an original three-minute soccer anthem called “Lovely Football.” (The choir is named for, and led by, Asics founder Kihachiro Onitsuka.) The Web site scores your singing based on accuracy of the lyrics, tone, volume (don’t be shy) and key. More info here. The video is just awesome. I tried to sing along, but would’ve felt more confident, karaokewise, if it had been early-’70s Billy Joel, for example. The contest is tied to the launch of Asics’ Injector DX street footwear, based on the company’s 1972 soccer cleats.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on January 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Bono sees red, and it looks pretty good

We thought of titling this post, “John Hayes figures out how to meet Bono,” but stopped when we realized they came together over a good cause. Anyway, while meeting with other masters of the universe at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bono, American Express CMO Hayes, this guy named Giorgio Armani and a few other corporate chieftains came together to announce "Product Red," a new smorgasbord (sorry, we don't know any Swiss terms to throw in here, and neither do you) of red products, with proceeds going to fight AIDS. For the time being, those products include an American Express Red card (available in the U.K. only), T-shirts to roll out this spring from the Gap, sunglasses from Armani and cool Chuck Taylors (no relation). They hope to expand to other product categories, too. While this is certainly good news for the cause, it's also promising because it may be the first sign that the philanthropic world is finally moving away from those little plastic bracelets.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Photo: PR Newswire Photo Service

Published on January 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (5)