Ikea brings the living room outside

We hear this guerrilla campaign for Ikea is the work of Deutsch. As with the folks at Curbed, to whom we are indebted for this post, we're not sure how the couches and curtains don't get stolen off the streets and bus stops where they are appearing, but it'll be fun as long as it lasts.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on May 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (7)
Filed under Ikea

‘Lost’ plot thickens with online Jeep tie-in

A while back, some of my Adweek colleagues and I were sitting around the lunch table wondering how the producers of ABC's Lost could work in some kind of product placement. Considering the island’s remote location, marooning a random tube of Crest toothpaste along with the castaways would stick out as a ham-fisted attempt. This week, we got our answer. While playing back the second in a series of ads for the mysterious Hanso Foundation, the organization behind the series' mysterious Dharma Initiative, I saw a tiny piece of script in the corner of several frames that reads, “Paid for by Jeep.” Being a pasty-faced blogger with little to do, I decided to investigate the Web site that this week’s ad pointed viewers to. (HINT: Get past the compass screen by clicking around the 4 o'clock area outside the graphic. Then answer the prompt question with "Y".) Buried deep in the bowels of letyourcompassguideyou.com are not only a cancelled contract between DaimlerChrysler and Hanso for 23 Jeep vehicles, but also what appears to be a WW II-era ad for Jeep (pictured above) and a link to this early '80s-looking TV spot for the Jeep CJ7 Hatch, a forerunner to the Wrangler. Were this any other show, Lost fans would likely be disappointed by what could have been a labyrinthine route to a couple of ads. But instead, there were clues buried within the Jeep print ad, signatures by various members of Hanso’s board on the contracts and sly references to Hanso's sinister deeds made by Jeep executive William T. Kirkpatrick. (I won't get into all my theories here, but I will ask: Could Hanso's director of communications Hugh McIntyre—who appeared to be absent on corporate picture day—be The Others' mysterious bearded man and "the mouthpiece?") It’s the most sophisticated product placement I’ve seen yet. Hats off to Lost and Jeep for drawing me in for 45 minutes and making it time well spent.

—Posted by Deanna Zammit

Published on May 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (12)

The new FCB site—or where do we go from here?

The new Foote Cone & Belding Web site is finally up, and with that it's time for another in our series of critiques of ad-agency Web sites. And once again, we're afraid the agency involved has favored pretty pictures over usability. Take a look at the home page pictured here. You might guess that circles like the Oreo pictured in the bottom right will link to agency work, and you'd be right, at least in that case. But there's the problem: Why should users have to guess at all? Only after you click on a circle—and are being sent elsewhere in the site—does fcb.com divulge where it's taking you. And who has patience for playing navigational roulette? In that context, it's especially ill-advised to have the whole site built at the URL www.fcb.com—you can't go backwards without looking for the "home" link, and given the problem outlined above, you'll want to be hitting the "back" button a lot. We've said enough now, except to remind everyone, we're just here to help.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on May 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (12)

Can't get enough anti-meth advertising

Word of advice if you're ever screening an anti-meth ad: don't do it while you're eating. The good news, if you do, is that it makes the powerful message of these types of ads that much more potent. Anyway, the Chicago Crystal Meth Task Force has produced print and TV about the dangers of crystal meth, in an effort that seems mainly targeted toward the city's gay population. The best spot in the campaign, which is built around the theme "Crystal Breaks," is the one above, which depicts someone miming the act of finding a vein or snorting the drug to a syncopated beat. As the beat becomes more frenzied, the longer-term effects of the drug begin to appear—scratching off skin until there's none left, body sores ... well, if you've seen the campaign sponsored by the Montana Meth Project, you know the drill, but that doesn't make this work any less impactful. The agency for the campaign is Lapiz. Via Houtlust.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on May 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Is ad clutter on sports radio getting worse?

In The New York Times this morning, sports media and business reporter Richard Samdomir bemoans the incessant commercial interruptions of baseball broadcasts, particularly on the radio. And not just in between innings. “The raft of commercial intrusions into the flow of a game is not new. It is simply getting worse,” he writes. “A few friends implored me to listen to a full Yankee game to hear for myself, and I said, ‘Will you pay for my post-[John] Sterling traumatic stress rehab?’ But it’s not just a Yankee radio clutter issue. In-game commercials clutter sports radio and the TV screens, particularly with advertiser-sponsored features, graphics and statistics.” Some examples: A “15 minutes can save you 15 percent” message from Geico after a game’s 15th out. The Time Warner Triple Play contest. The Yankee Power Report, brought to you by the Indiana Point Energy Center. I’ve never been bothered by this crap. It lasts a matter of seconds, and goes in one ear and out the other. To me, advertisers’ TV graphics are more annoying (the AOL running man, for example, who throws a pitch or swings a bat every 10 minutes on Fox broadcasts). What do you think?

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Fake pirated DVDs give legit pirates a run for their doubloons

South Africans are thinking twice before plunking down 40 rand (about $6 U.S.) for their pirated copy of RV, thanks to a brilliant stunt by TBWA Hunt Lascaris. The agency has hired its own street corner hustlers to hawk fake pirated DVDs, according to this story. After a few moments of watching Robin Williams in all his hairy hilarity, this message appears: "Thank you for buying this DVD. Your R40 has been donated to the Anti-Piracy Foundation. Piracy is a crime." And while it doesn't pay, crime isn't exactly taking you to the cleaners either. The agency has arranged for two theater chains to accept the fakes in exchange for a legitimate movie ticket, up to a 38 rand value!

—Posted by Deanna Zammit

Published on May 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (6)

Gamer net G4 shows off its captive audience

Flickr user John Morton says he saw this billboard, targeting media buyers, parked outside McCann Erickson in New York yesterday. It’s promoting the gaming-focused TV network G4. I’m assuming these are actual guys, not dummies, taped to the truck. The tag, “We get guys,” echoes TNT’s “We know drama.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Ad jokes in sitcoms: classic or crutch?

I’m beginning to think advertising jokes are the crutch of dying TV comedies. Consider NBC’s Scrubs, which until this season was one of my favorite shows. For three weeks running, the show has referenced TV ads in its scripts, first with a mock “The More You Know” PSA that paled in comparison to The Office’s April Fools’ spots, then with a parody of the classic ’80s drug-awareness PSA featuring a mustachioed, cokehead dad and the melodramatic line, “I learned it by watching you!” This week, Zach Braff’s J.D. tried using Mazda’s  “Zoom, zoom” tag as his own nonsequitor capper. And a barbershop quartet sang the Chili’s babyback ribs song at a baby shower, because “that’s the only song we know with the word baby in it.” Instead of being clever cultural touchstones, the jokes feel stale and unoriginal. Sure, The Simpsons might survive a few bad ad jokes in what was a rocky start to its 17th season, but I fear the odds aren’t so great for Scrubs.

—Posted by Deanna Zammit

Published on May 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (9)

Bad news all around for chocolate lovers

There’s an enormous 4.5-ounce Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut bar just sitting on the dresser here in my apartment, but I will not be tempted, not after reading The Consumerist this morning: “A team of psychiatrists just discovered that any uplifting effects of chocolate are pretty much limited to the anticipation and the taste, but the carbohydrates in chocolate actually prolong depression.” That’s the last thing my dysphoric mood needs this morning. (You can read the original report here.) And there’s more sad news. Judging by the before-and-after ad shown here, from DDB Belgium (via Ads of the World), chocolate condoms are not the guilt-free pleasure you thought they were. I’m relieved, at least, not to have any of those on my dresser. UPDATE: In other condom news, check out Durex Dickorations, a great site that includes downloads, testimonials and lines like, “A Durex penis is a superpower in your pants.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Guy’s crappy car gets ‘Choir’ treatment

For those of you who feel like Wieden + Kennedy’s “Choir” spot, part of that Grand Clio-winning Honda campaign, is just a bunch of pretentious wankery, check out this “Choir” spoof from 10b’s Richard Hickey and The Daily Pie. “This is what my car feels like,” says the voiceover, as the choir is put through even tougher vocal acrobatics, including an approximation of the driver’s flatulence. Now we need an Austin Powers-like “Impossible Dream” spoof where the guy in the speedboat realizes he really shouldn’t have driven into the giant whirlpool. Via ’boards.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ford shopper’s close encounter ends badly

A casual car buyer, kicking the tires and generally minding his own business, is suddenly set upon by a nasty green fellow in this new Ford ad from Ogilvy & Mather in Denmark. It’s unclear what the point of the violence is. Something about technology.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Surprisingly, sex-toy company has trouble advertising on billboards in the South

Trapped in our provincial New York life, we often miss important trends emerging elsewhere in the county. Like, for example, the rampant buying and selling of double-ended dildos relationship enhancers in Tennessee. The leader in the burgeoning category is a Mount Juliet, Tenn., company called Surprise Parties, which organizes Tupperware-style get-togethers for women. But rather than looking at plastic food containers, the women check out lingerie, lubricants and sex toys. The Nashville Scene explains: “The company wants to turn its senior management team, seven working mothers, into the Dr. Phils and Dr. Ruths of the sex-toy party circuit, which has become the new Tupperware.” There’s one problem, though: No outdoor ad firms in Nashville will take the company’s billboards. (The tagline on the ads is, “Stop faking it!”). Lamar and Viacom have both reportedly declined. Donna Wittrig, a Surprise Parties vp, sees that as hypocritical, particularly as one of Lamar’s clients is Hooters. “I don’t see any chicken wings on a Hooters billboard,” she says. “And we’re not selling breast augmentation. I mean, come on, what are we, Neanderthals?” A rep at Surprise Parties’ ad agency adds: “It’s bullshit, the hypocrisy of it all.” But he sees the value of the growing publicity. “The more they ban the Surprise Parties ads here, the better off we’ll be.” UPDATE: Surprise Parties has now released its own press release on the matter. And Ms. Wittrig responds to our post in comments.   

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (7)

Torture Museum spells out your sentence

On the heels of some visually gruesome PSAs, the Torture Museum in Prague has found a subtler way to promote both good behavior and itself. It takes a talented copywriter to make you chuckle and cringe at the same time. Via Ads of the World.

—Posted by Deanna Zammit

Published on May 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Keeping Irishmen pasty-white for centuries

Flickr user warryronin likes this ad, and so do we. As Homer would say, it’s funny because it’s true.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Pabst, NPR make beautiful music together

In today’s weird sponsorship news, we read that National Public Radio has signed a sponsorship deal with (gulp! belch!) Pabst Blue Ribbon. If, on the face of it, this sounds kind of strange, like NPR has gone lowbrow, or PBR highbrow, dig deeper and the deal makes more sense. The blue-collar brew is sponsoring All Songs Considered, an online music show that features everyone from Arctic Monkeys and Interpol to Harry Nilsson. Apparently, college students and yuppies have been warming up to PBR for all of the same reasons they have for decades. It’s cheap, or maybe we should say, “inexpensive.”

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on May 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Do overseas ads hurt B-list actors?

Now that American A-lister actors like George Clooney, Diane Keaton and Catherine Zeta-Jones are making millions on ad appearances here, I have to wonder if overseas ad deals are the new image assassin. If you take a job overseas, clearly you’re available for ad work, but you’re not a candidate for the glamorous, soft-focus treatment garnered by, say, Nicole Kidman. On the other hand, you’re not really willing to shill via cheesy one-liners David Spade style. And while making commercials for overseas markets might be an old standby, Americans can easily see just how low you'll go via sites like Japander. If you're a B-lister, just a hit movie or a series cancellation away from moving up or down the food chain, risking your image for a few yen seems like a bad bet. Check them out for yourself and decide if these Calorie Mate ads featuring 24 star Kiefer Sutherland would make Jack Bauer proud.

—Posted by Deanna Zammit

Published on May 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Be a Clio judge, vicariously

By now, you may have read that for the third year in a row Wieden + Kennedy and client Honda won the Grand Clio this week for TV. (Frame from "Impossible Dream" at left.) What you probably haven't gotten to experience is the honor of sitting in a screening room judging entries. But now you can!—by reading this column by Keith McArthur of Toronto's Globe and Mail. It serves as a reminder that even though there are great moments in advertising, there remain few fates worse than flying to a sunny resort and being forced to sit in the dark watching commercials. As McArthur says in his diary entry at 3:37 p.m., "I've watched 353 ads over 5½ hours and I'm ready to go soak up some of the Miami sun. Except it's pouring outside." (Full disclosure alert: the Clio Awards are one of many more respectable relatives of AdFreak.) UPDATE: We're told that McArthur was actually a delegate and not a judge—and still he gave part of his life to sit in a dark room watching ads. What a hero.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on May 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Saskatchewan Party impresses no one by misspelling ‘Saskatchewan’ in TV ad

Saskatchewan is a tough word to spell, but Canada’s Saskatchewan Party should have learned it by now. In a recent ad, they spelled it Saskatchwan, without the e, much to the delight of their opponents. “Does the Saskatchewan Party even know how to spell Saskatchewan?” one New Democrat MLA asked the legislature, delighting her fellow party members. “Clearly, Mr. Speaker, they are simply not credible.” It was then pointed out that the Saskatchewan Party  had also misspelled the word government in a recent press release. “Mr. Speaker,” said one lawmaker, “if you can’t spell government and you can’t spell Saskatchewan, but you want to be the government of Saskatchewan, you’d think you’d at least get one of them right.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Milky Way ad gets freaky

Taking a note from Masterfoods rival TBWA\Chiat\Day—the shop behind Skittles' creepy yet captivating “Beard” and “Trade,” spots—BBDO has added to the pantheon of bizarro candy ads with this one for Milky Way. In it, sad, middle-aged Neil is shot down at his date’s door, only to be consoled by a hot girl hiding inside his Milky Way wrapper. Then he bites into her. Isn’t that sweet?

—Posted by Deanna Zammit

Published on May 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sometimes advertisers just need a big hug

A headline from Ars Technica, which is getting to the emotional heart of the DVR issue.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally, a microbrew that’s good for kids

Brewers have always been good at finding new reasons for you to drink—besides making friends, snagging chicks and passing out (not necessarily in that order). But swilling suds for the sake of educating our kids? That’s really out there. But leave it to the craft brewers, the same industry that peddles Evolution Amber Ale in Utah, to find a way. For each case of its new Brother Thelonious Ale that it sells, North Coast Brewing Co. in Fort Bragg, Calif., is donating $2 to jazz education for elementary and high school kids. The education programs are run by the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz, started by the family of 1960s jazz pianist Thelonious Monk. See, we are educating you already. It helps that Doug Moody, North Coast’s national sales manager, moonlights as a radio DJ and is a huge jazz fan. The new beer, a Belgian style abbey ale (get it, an abbey ale named Monk?), launches on the West Coast this month and will hit New York and Chicago later this summer. Drinking to help the young ’uns. And you wonder how the craft brewers managed to grow nearly 10 percent last year while big brewers with big ad budgets lagged.

—Posted by Joan Voight

Published on May 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

‘We Built This Starbucks,’ now with video

Lately we’ve been enjoying silly corporate songs: one for Henkel, another one for Target. Here’s another reason to cringe—a parody of Jefferson Starship’s “We Built This City,” created by Starbucks, with venti cheese, for a leadership conference last year. The mp3 made the rounds earlier, but now it’s got video, so you won’t miss a single absurd lyric.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (7)

Can U2 turn Americans into soccer fans?

Since recruiting international soccer stars to the States hasn’t worked in terms of making the sport popular on a professional level here, why not recruit a world-famous rock band to borrow some interest in the upcoming World Cup? That’s my guess from the sidelines as to why ESPN and Wieden + Kennedy chose U2 to both provide the voiceover talent and the soundtracks for four spots promoting the FIFA World Cup, which will air stateside on ESPN and ABC from June 9 to July 9. Two spots narrated by Bono employ the usual themes of sports as force for unity. (For the purposes of world peace, I'll just cast a blind eye, in this instance, toward soccer hooliganism.) And while those spots have an admirably light touch, the other two, wherein The Edge talks about a 300 percent increase in sick days during the Cup and Adam Clayton goes on about fandom in Scotland (yes, you're right—the Scots didn't even make the tournament), are decidedly droll. A fifth, being voiced by Larry Mullen Jr., is still being shot. Certainly worth streaming, even if, like me, you don't give a rat's ass about soccer, and your idea of a game that fits into the campaign's "One game changes everything" theme is this. (For the record, I've no idea what the people in this frame, from one of the spots, are wearing. They are not, so far as I know, the members of U2 trying to go incognito.)

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on May 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

A better logo for those hapless Cubs?

So, let’s face it. The Cubs suck. Again. But can we please get over the idea that they are somehow cursed? (I’m reminded of a Yankees T-shirt I saw recently: “Hey Boston, there was no curse. You just sucked for 86 years.”) Still, fans won’t let it go. Witness the latest exhibit: this revised Cubs logo, spotted on sports-spoof site Rivalfish.com. Funny? Yes (though I prefer the Cubs-dedicated satire of The Heckler). But inaccurate. Every time the Cubs get within 15 games of the playoffs, some fool brings a goat to Wrigley to lift the ages-old curse brought on when Vasili Sianis’ pet was refused entry. If there ever were a curse, Cub fans have long since made amends with all these goat parades. Instead, let’s call it like we see it: The Cubs have merely sucked for 98 years. Although they are currently riding a one-game winning streak.

—Posted by Aaron Baar

Published on May 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (24)

Lawnmower outlasts owner in Viking spot

It’s risky to show someone dying while using your product. It’s also often funny. In this new spot for Viking lawnmowers, by Publicis Conseil in France, an old man dies while cutting the grass, and his friends and family have to pry the still-running machine from his cold, dead hands. Without much success.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (7)