No more good-natured Mel Gibson parodies

Let’s step back for a moment and recall a happier period in Mel Gibson’s life, like when Deutsch/LA spoofed Braveheart in this funny California cheese “Happy Cows” commercial. Later, of course, he made The Passion of the Christ, South Park got to him, and then things really unraveled.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Snickers campaign gets Mexican-style spoof

Why should English speakers have all the fun in lampooning the current Snickers campaign? These Mexican-style spoofs showed up in our inbox last week. We had to get an explanation from the guy at The Vidal Partnership who sent them. Can you translate them?

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack (5)

Can we please let Nipplegate rest in peace?

I like indecency as much as the next guy. But I’m getting sick of this never-ending phony-baloney pseudo-controversial CBS-FCC-Janet Jackson flap. The time has come for America to heal. How long ago did the gloved one’s sister show some skin at halftime? I think Joe Namath played in the game. Hell, Justin Timberlake was still popular—that’s how long ago it was. Let’s end this once and for all. Here’s some advice for all the players involved: CBS: She showed her breast, you paid the fine. Move on. (And be glad the FCC doesn’t impose fines for quality, because once you run out of cities to tack onto CSI:, it’s all over. Love Monkey?! Who greenlighted that?) FCC: You made your point. You’re a big tough federal agency, and you can tell everybody what to do. Except for satellite and cable. And cyberspace. (I’m not sure if you have any power over mobile phones, but if you could hook me up with a Sprint Sidekick III, that’d be sweet.) Bottom line: Move on! Janet: Have you considered dropping your pants? Or the charade that you still have a career? Justin: It’s time for a Lance Bass-style revelation, my man. The tabloids would be “lovin’ it!” Joe: No matter how much they offer, keep your clothes on.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on July 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (2)

Too busy having sex to focus on training

Montreal is currently hosting the first World Outgames, “bringing together lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) athletes from around the world in unprecedented numbers for a celebration of sport, culture and human rights.” One of the sponsors is COCQ, a Quebec anti-AIDS group, which has marked the occasion with this not-safe-for-work (even though it’s animation) viral ad, created by Montreal agency Marketel. If this is how these athletes train, we may not see too many world records broken this week. UPDATE: Check out this story from Time magazine’s European edition, about how more European advertisers are coming out of the closet.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

A frightening call from Midnight Spank

You’ve seen BBDO’s ads for the Midnight Spank block of programs on the G4 network, including the one with the rodent who eats the guy’s kidney. But the campaign also has a viral component. On a special Web site, you can enter a friend’s phone number, and G4 will prank call him or her at the stroke of midnight. This reminds us of the viral for the DVD release of The Ring Two, which also involved unnerving calls from the client. (Among the younger generation, anything they can use to humiliate or frighten their friends can be a big hit.) The friend will know right away it’s a recorded message. So it’s good that one of the recorded messages is from the calico-colored guinea pig, who has a great creepy voice.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The chorizo gets its day in the sun

In what is surely a sign of the growing muscle of Hispanics in the U.S., the chorizo is set to become the fifth sausage in the sausage race around the bases that occurs before the seventh inning of every baseball game at Miller Park in Milwaukee. Beginning on Saturday, a lucky fan at each game will don a nine-foot foam chorizo outfit complete with sombrero (see photo), immerse him- or herself in the persona of “Mr. Picante,” and do battle with fans representing a hot dog, a bratwurst, an Italian sausage and a Polish sausage. Maria Monreal-Cameron of Wisconsin’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce exulted, “His skin tone is the actual color of chorizo sausage. It’s perfect.” His main competition: Guido, the Italian sausage, who has taken top honors in 19 races so far this year. Picante should also be on the alert for random acts of violence. Three years ago, Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Randall Simon took out the Italian and Polish sausages with a light tap to Guido’s head.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Photo: Milwaukee Brewers

Published on July 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Filed under Morrissey

Maybe the big pharmaceutical companies should be sponsoring pro cycling

The news that Tour de France champ Floyd Landis failed a doping test has caused lots of fans to wonder if any top cyclists don’t use cocktails of performance-enhancing drugs. Fallout may come from sponsors, too, which after all pay the bills for the Tour. Landis’ team sponsor, Phonak, weirdly enough a Swiss manufacturer of hearing aids, was already dropping its name from the team and is due to be replaced by Barclays Global Investors’ iShares. Taking a quick glance at a list of Tour sponsors, it seems like there’s little rhyme or reason to what kind of companies get involved. There’s telecommunications (T-Mobile), IT (CSC), media (Discovery), even a maker of hot-water heaters (Saunier Duval-Prodir). Who knows how many will stick around. Maybe cycling should look to more relevant sponsors: the pharmaceutical companies themselves. Amgen, the maker of cyclists’ favorite drug, red-blood-cell booster erythropoietin, is already sponsoring a big cycling club complete with snazzy jerseys dotted with the red blood cells endurance athletes crave. It even became the title sponsor of the Tour of California last year. And if iShares gets cold feet, perhaps Oscient Pharmaceuticals would step in. Oscient makes Testim, a handy cream for getting an extra shot of T.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Published on July 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)
Filed under Morrissey

A game only a guilt-free mom could love

This definitely falls into the category of Friday afternoon time waster: a new game from Fuel, Buddies Scrubbies, promoting Johnson & Johnson's Buddies , a line of soaps and shampoos to clean the little kiddies. (Buddies, Scrubbies, Kiddies …? Good lord!) Anyway, game-playing mothers are charged with the task of seeing how many kids they can clean in two minutes. While I've seen several studies lately showing what big-game players mothers are, for me, spending time on this would induce a massive fit of parental guilt—maybe I should be spending that time washing my real kid?

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on July 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (2)

Fringe performers and like-minded sponsors

The Capital Fringe Festival kicked off yesterday in (where else?) the nation’s capital, as Washington, D.C., proudly hosts a series of “innovative performance styles and artists,” which loosely translates to theatrical presentations that don’t always make immediate sense. The event has received heavy coverage from Fringe and Purge and boasts a dizzying array of alternative sponsors, including Theater Mania, artdc.org, Washington City Paper and, perhaps the mac daddy of alternative organizations, the Canadian Embassy. It’s nice to see events like this sponsored by like-minded groups (unlike, for example, the Warped Tour), and the shows do look interesting. If Andrew Ullrich’s excellent Grounded is any indication, any readers who attend will be in for a treat.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Published on July 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Filed under Kiefaber

Who's the biggest brand of them all?

It's hard to turn a blind eye on this blog to a list of the top 100 global brands, such as the one that BusinessWeek/Interbrand released yesterday. We didn't spend quality time this morning going extensively through the ranking's criteria, but we were a bit surprised at who was missing from the top 10—namely, Apple. The survey's top 10 were Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE, Intel, Nokia, Toyota, Disney, McDonald's and Mercedes. Apple comes in at number 39, wedged in between Pfizer and Kellogg's; Dell, meanwhile, a brand that we consider to be somewhat battered, came in at number 25. Perhaps our surprise at Apple's relatively low ranking has to do with the global nature of the list and our U.S.-centric selves succumbing to a depressingly isolationist worldview. If you want to cut to the chase and go directly to the list, skip to page 11.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on July 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

How not to advertise your local fish fry

You can debate media placement until you’re blue in the face, but one place you don’t want to be advertising your fish fry or your spaghetti dinner is on electronic emergency highway message boards set up by Homeland Security. Vermillion County, Indiana, ignored that bit of common sense, and is reporting higher-than-average turnouts at spaghetti-dinner fundraisers, elementary-school carnivals and fire-department fish fries, thanks to their misuse of the signs. State Homeland Security officials would prefer the signs be kept ad-free in case of, for example, an attack on the county’s Newport Chemical Depot. Or natural disasters like floods. Still, the county commissioner is unrepentant. “We make decisions to run the county on what’s best for us,” he says. “Did we misuse [the signs]? Or did we just run the county as we saw fit?”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Introducing the new Playboy bunny outfit

Volkswagen, which has been using jokes about replicating bunnies in its “Rabbit is back” campaign, might be slobbering laciviously over this image of the brand-new Playboy bunny outfit. The Palms Hotel and Casino in Vegas has begun a recruiting drive for bunnies to work at its new Playboy Club, opening this fall, in print ads from Schadler Kramer Group. The outfit was designed by Roberto Cavalli. “It was not easy to reinterpret it,” Cavalli tells Playboy.com. “It is such an iconic costume. I tried to do my best, especially because my fashion is very sexy. I love to make dresses for sexy women, and to make a dress for Playboy for me was really a dream.” Schadler Kramer’s ad will run in the August issue of Playboy. (Will some kind Volkswagen driver help a girl out?) Also, if you haven’t seen it, check out this humorous ad celebrating 31 years of Playboy in Brazil.

—Posted by Gregory Solman

Published on July 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (4)

Better than being sold to the highest bidder

More advertising on babies today, as blogger and Wired magazine editor Mark McClusky and his wife Kristen seem to agree in spirit, if not in practice, with the crazy Traci Hogg and her scheme to sell baby Jake. “Kristen and I were talking about the blogging thing the other day, and realized that the single best promotional opportunity is the cute little baby we have,” McClusky writes. “After a little design work, here’s what we came up with. What father could resist?” As you can see, they’ve made a onesie for blogger moms, too. They’ve also made infant T-shirts and bibs. Buy them here. At least this, unlike Hogg’s plan, won’t scar one’s baby for life. Via Boing Boing.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

K.C. Royals fans deal with ‘Munchkingate’

Funny item over at Deadspin today involving little people and the Kansas City Royals’ marketing department. As part of a promotion last weekend, the team welcomed Mickey Carroll, 87, billed as the “last living Munchkin” from The Wizard of Oz, to the ballpark, where he “threw a surprisingly good first pitch ... and won a backpack during the fifth-inning dance-off.” But then a Deadspin reader pointed out that another elderly little person claiming to be an ex-Munchkin had been signing autographs the same day at Comic-Con in San Diego. Which set in motion Munchkingate. It turns out that the Royals either didn’t know or didn’t care that there are actually eight former Munchkins who are still with us (though only three of them are healthy enough to travel), making the promotion something of a sham, or at least not quite as exciting as advertised. It’s too bad for the Royals fans, who are not only stuck supporting the worst team in baseball but now have to wonder if Fireworks Night later this summer might involve a couple of guys at the entrance waving around some sparklers.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Andy Roddick finds his mojo against Pong

The last time we wrote about Andy Roddick and American Express, it was an embarrassing time for both of them. AmEx had just launched its big U.S. Open campaign with the tagline, “Have you seen Andy’s mojo?” And Andy had turned it into a punch line by getting booted in the first round. It’s nice to see AmEx isn’t upset with Andy. Check out this playful new spot from Ogilvy & Mather, in which Roddick plays a match against the fearsome Pong. And finds a way to win. Via Advergirl, Goodness and probably others. UPDATE: Looks like this ad was made for the Australian Open back in January.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

HP strategy runs off rails in Simpson video

Recently, I must admit, I positively gushed about HP's current "personal" campaign. But in a move that's a sorry departure from those brilliant, eye-catching ads, the company has reportedly spent $200,000 to have several HP products featured in the new video from Jessica Simpson, "A Public Affair." If you don't want to watch the whole thing, here's a small picture of Andy Dick, playing the guy behind the rental counter at a roller rink, showing off his Ipaq handheld to the admittedly attention-getting cast, which, in addition to Simpson, includes Christina Applegate, Christina Milan and Eva Longoria. (Oh, Ryan Seacrest also has a cameo as the girls' limo driver.) Whatever this means for HP, it's a far cry from Pharrell Williams, whose HP commercial, the latest in the "personal" series, is now posted on the company's site.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on July 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (1)

Altoids Sours decides that deviant sexual themes is the way to go

If you like the idea of a ’70s-looking guy with tiny pieces of fruit hanging from his underwear grinding his crotch in your face, then you’ll enjoy this commercial for Altoids Sours. Two other spots are driven by themes of sadomasochism and transvestism. Perhaps this is to take the focus off the product. We’re still getting comments to an item we posted more than a year ago about Altoids Sour gum. Here’s a recent one: “i chewed the sour altoid chewing gum yesterday for the first time. i chewed approximately 8 pieces of it. Anyway, my teeth have not felt the same since. I have an emergency apt. with my dentist because my teeth are in so much pain. I think there are chemicals in the gum that rotted my teeth. i’ve eaten sour candies before and have eaten and chewed so much gum and candy throughout my life and i’ve never EVER experienced this painful sensation before. All this company cares about is money/dollarsigns and not limiting the chemicals they use in their products.” Approach Altoids Sours products with caution.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (1)

Energy conservation can leave you drained

During heat waves, California runs a multimillion-dollar energy conservation campaign under the aegis of “Flex your power” alerts, using radio and outdoor ads to tell us to turn down our air conditioners just when we need them the most. The current radio campaign seems to officially anoint environmentalism as the new state religion. A female voiceover claiming to be your guardian angel pleads that “energy can’t save itself,” so it needs you to be its savior, which surely appeals to Madonna, at least. Needless to say, a religious metaphor implying the soteriology of any other government-related service would be ridiculed if not actually protested. Instead, there’s only electric irony: The radio spots tell you to check out the Web site, which tells you to stop listening to the radio and turn off the computer. On his KABC morning show the other day, Doug McIntyre said he spotted a big electric sign blaring out the “Flex your power” alert—at the very moment he was stuck in a worse-than-usual jam thanks to blackouts that knocked out traffic lights along Wilshire. Where are our guardian angels when we need them?

—Posted by Gregory Solman

Published on July 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Why America’s good at selling adolescence

Now that marketing consultant (and psychoanalyst) Clotaire Rapaille has “fit [me] with a new pair of glasses,” as promised in his new book, The Culture Code, I finally understand why Americans like peanut butter: It’s stuck to our cultural unconscious. And our cultural unconscious, it seems, is stuck in puberty. So our only prayer of ever getting unstuck is swilling enough champagne in the coming millennium to grow up to be like the French. In the meantime, we just keep on loving “weird and successful” Tom Cruise and make do with our “dramatic mood swings.” Zut, if only we’d “killed a king,” we could’ve gotten past our rebellious phase and turned out a world-class composer. But we botched it, and now it’s acne and inebriation all the way. That’s why, Rapaille concludes, we're “so successful around the world selling the trappings of adolescence: Coca-Cola, Nike shoes, blue jeans and loud, violent movies.” But I have une petite question for Monsieur Rapaille. If the rest of the world doesn’t share our cultural unconscious, why do they buy our youthful toys?

—Posted by Laura Blum

Published on July 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

A bikini that just wants you to be healthy

You avoid skin cancer by getting out of the sun. But for a swimwear company, that advice isn’t going to help sell bikinis. Thus, Solestrom has developed an ingenius new product that’s made for the sun but is health-conscious, too: a bikini with a built-in UV meter in its belt, which beeps when its owner needs to seek shadier ground. A Solestrom rep tells Reuters that the meter on the $190 bikini measures UV intensity on a scale from 0 to 20. (Typically, 3-5 would be considered moderate strength, 8-10 very high and anything above 11 extreme.) The rep says people in Australia and South Africa, who lead the world in skin-cancer rates, are buying these things in spades. It may not be the most flattering two-piece ever made, but it’s a nice idea. Still, next time maybe they could focus a little more on the U.S. market. Like developing steak that beeps when you eat too much of it.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Published on July 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (3)
Filed under Kiefaber

Did McDonald’s know Lance Bass was gay?

People magazine broke the official news this week that Lance Bass is gay. But count McDonald’s among those who may have suspected as much a long time ago. Check out this 2001 commercial, dug up by BestWeekEver.tv, in which the *NSYNC boys (and a nearly unrecognizable Britney Spears) play spin the bottle. It’s Lance’s turn, and as he freshens up with some Binaca, the bottle stops, much to Lance’s presumed delight, on Justin Timberlake, who clearly is not amused. Who says McDonald’s is out of touch with reality?

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (2)

No one ever said the Web was good for you

Leave it to the Swiss to put a new spin on neutrality. Or Net-trality, to use a sorry pun. Zurich’s Department for the Prevention of Addiction has launched a campaign warning computer users about the dangers of addiction to online communities and sex sites. “Spending lots of time in virtual worlds, especially chat rooms, online games and sex sites, can lead to a dependence comparable to other addictions,” the department says, according to Reuters. (It says nothing about blogs like this one, though, so you’re safe.) Compare this to Vietnam, of all places, whose government seems to have no such concerns: Officials there are actually planning to post dowloadable movies online to educate married couples about healthy sex. In Zurich, though, they’re apparently worried about the growth of an online “Needle Park,” the nickname for a part of town once famous as a haven for drug users. Of course, the effort comes about a decade (or at least five years) too late to do any good. Most important of all: How would the Swiss translate “Modem Park,” given that the country has four official languages?

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on July 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

BMW client jumps for this execution

I was reading on Adrants that BMW ordered up more of these billboards from its agency, VogtGoldstein. As it turns out, I saw this billboard in situ while traveling on I-95 over the Fourth of July weekend, but I must admit that since then, I'd forgotten what it was advertising. Seeing a guy (or a facsimile of a guy) sitting on top of a billboard certainly takes one's eyes off the road, but strategically speaking, this ad is strictly from the fill-in-the-blank school. You could insert the name of virtually any retailer in the surrounding area. Picture via Billboardom.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on July 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (1)

Burritos: You can’t take them anywhere

The vintage “Let’s All Go to the Lobby” cinema video gets reworked in this spot for Chipotle restaurants from TDA Advertising & Design in Boulder, Colo. The popcorn, candy and soda are interrupted in mid-song by a lumbering, well-meaning burrito, who sends everyone fleeing in horror. This is why they tell you not to bring your own food to the movies.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on July 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)

This novelist can really relate to Jesus

We’ve probably all had enough of The Da Vinci Code, but in the off chance there's someone out there who still wants to involve themselves in fictional stories about Jesus, there's a new book in town, and as the Chicago Sun-Times reports, the novel, The Expected One, has a doozy of a marketing angle. The author, Kathleen McGowan, claims to be a descendant of Jesus—well, in a way. She's quoted as follows: "What I'm saying is that Mary and Jesus had children, and after 2,000 years of procreation there are probably millions around the world. I believe I'm one." Come to think of it, I think that also applies to me.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on July 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (1)