Suni Williams, one of NASA’s many astronauts not charged with attempted kidnapping, will compete in next month’s Boston Marathon, even though she’ll be aboard a space station 210 miles above Earth. She’ll run the 26.2 miles on a treadmill, presumably in less bulky clothing than shown here. No word yet on which of the race’s 18 official sponsors will attempt sign her up. I vote for PowerBar—its name has that Jetsons retro-future ring to it. (Anyone know the brand of the treadmill? That would be a no-brainer.) If nothing else, Williams is sure to fare better than Rosie Ruiz, who took the subway in 1980 and finished in 2:31.56. Traveling at 17,500 mph aboard a satellite, Williams should complete the course in about 5.4 seconds.
The crazy bastard on top of the BMW billboard in Connecticut is back, this time with a foam finger. One of these days he’s going to fall off and break into a bunch of pieces. Here’s the earlier ad. The agency is VogtGoldstein in Westport.
I hope this Web site is fake. I hope the product is fake. It’s called the P-Mate, and it’s a device that “enables women to pee neatly while standing upright.” At first, this may seem to herald a new era in human history, comparable to the invention of the wheel. But they need some help with the marketing. The site is a hodgepodge of scare tactics (see photo), unappealing how-to-use photographs and testimonials that are just gross. Besides, take it from me, there’s nothing really all that great about peeing standing up. You’re liable to pee on your shoes, or in the case of P-Mate’s mascot, on your flares.
Since Fark.com already used the “if you think X should happen, turn to page Y” joke in connection to this story, I’ll just get straight to the point: Chooseco LLC is suing DaimlerChrysler, claiming the latter’s “Choose your adventure” spots for Jeep (see one here) pervert the spirit of adventure and opportunity found in the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books put out by the Vermont-based publisher. Not that DaimlerChrysler is worried. “Obviously, they’re looking for money,” says spokesman Jason Vines, noting that his company has “offered to link our site, which gets 9 katrillion times more traffic, to their site.” How’s that for a conciliatory tone? I think we’ll let a judge decide how many katrillions are involved. Or if katrillion is even a number, for that matter. —Posted by David Kiefaber
What kind of buzz would Captivity have generated without the hoopla over its gruesome ad campaign? Answer: None. The initial publicity was gold, but now After Dark Films is into priceless territory, with the MPAA refusing to rate the flick and demanding approval of future promotional materials. The Hollywood Reporter calls the move “an uncharacteristically harsh reprimand ... the first time the MPAA has imposed such a sanction.” It’s no leap to envision the next wave of ad copy: “The Movie They Didn’t Want You to See! So Controversial, It Couldn’t Be Rated! So Intense, It Had to Be Punished! So Disturbing, We Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This Ad!” For once, such hackneyed horror hype would be no less truthful than calling Vince Vaughn vehicles “comedies.”
The three Holiday Inn hosers who harassed Joe Buck last year are back for an encore. This time they’re bothering Cal Ripken Jr., who seems even less amused than Buck was. The guy who likes to make whale noises doesn’t even seem to know who Ripken is. See another spot after the jump, along with some behind-the-scenes video and some soundbites from Cal.
Fox is pulling out all the stops in its marketing of The Simpsons movie. As various Springfields around the country battle each other for the right to host the premiere, Fox is trying to get a handful of 7-Elevens rebranded as Kwik-E-Marts, in honor of the show’s fictional convenience store, run by Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. If the deal goes through, the shops will even sell Kwik-E-Mart items like KrustyO’s cereal, Buzz Cola and iced Squishees. Presumably it will not sell tainted beef like the kind that poisoned Homer. Up next: a Moe’s Tavern in every town. Via Pop Candy.
To advertise its MLS coverage, ESPN is rolling out a campaign from Wieden + Kennedy that says, essentially, that soccer is a lot like baseball, football and basketball. Which isn’t really true, but you have to appeal to non-soccer fans somehow. See the ads here. The tagline is, “You are a fan. You just don’t know it yet,” which sounds intriguing enough, although in my experience, when someone uses a phrase like “You just don’t know it yet,” you have to wonder if maybe you’re better off not knowing. (See, for example, “You are an atheist. You just don’t know it yet,” or “You are a master of biofeedback. You just don’t know it yet.”) Still, hopefully some viewers will drink the Kool-Aid—or, failing that, at least the Red Bull.
Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun Hotel Casino is placing pop-up promotional board games in April 7 editions of The New York Times and The Boston Globe. It’s part of Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners’ “A world at play” campaign. Pop-up hotels, colorful graphics, plastic spinner ... kids wouldn’t enjoy this, would they? Of course, casino gambling is for adults. The folks at Mohegan Sun surely have no intention of targeting young people with this promotion. I mean, holy smokes, R.J. Reynolds’ never dreamed Joe Camel might appeal to minors!
How’s this for balls? Weird Asia News (whose name is often redundant) reports that a gangster in Taiwan sent a commercial to a local TV station, which aired it, in which he threatens to kill a rival gangster. Surrounded by automatic and semiautomatic rifles, he says, “The next time I bump into you, I’ll kill you.” American gangsters have missed a good idea here. Imagine turning on your radio once upon a time and hearing, “Hi, I’m Al Capone. You may remember me from such crimes as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. I’d like to remind Bugs Moran that I want him dead, and to all you listeners out there, keep your homes heated with Blue Coal.” Even now, the best we can do is Stop Snitchin’, and this Taiwan ad makes that look like the lame, juvenile stunt it really is.
And to think my interest was piqued just yesterday by the notion of putting ads on the sides of freight cars. Now, some outfit called Riley in Raleigh, N.C., in a move oddly timed to coincide with the national foreclosure frenzy, promises to “turn upscale new homes into a media vehicle.” The launch release continues: “Manufacturers will purchase space for product placement within the home, which will then be designed and constructed to take fullest advantage of the products’ attributes. The homes and the products ... will be viewable, during and after construction, over the Internet, via print and e-mail.” The company’s name, by the way, via ad shop The Republik, is shorthand for “Life of Riley,” as in: “The good life.” Imagine opening your Levolor blinds and seeing a train go by with ads on the cars for Levolor blinds. Or Fox could join in, with every TV in the house showing ... House. Now that’s integration.
The annoying thing about Ramadan is that all of that wonderful Nando’s fried chicken just sits there, uneaten. No wonder some Muslims think Ramadan is becoming too commercial. By Tonic Communications in Dubai. Via I believe in adv.
If you’ve got a few minutes this morning, try to sort out what’s going on in this ad from Europe. It’s aimed at computer programmers, who eat this kind of stuff up. You may remember that Google did something similar when it was looking for new programmers. Via Coolz0r.
This ad proves the point that “Don’t drink and drive” truly is a universal message. If you’re liquored up in some intergalactic speakeasy, you probably drive a spaceship. And if crashing one of those didn’t kill you, the resulting special-effects extravaganza would, doing God knows what to traffic patterns in the process. So don’t let that booze and 1940’s American jazz music override your good senses. —Posted by David Kiefaber
Are Americans ready to see openly gay male athletes on their morning-cereal boxes? Maybe not yet, although they’re getting closer. A survey by Witeck-Combs Communications and Harris Interactive asked adults, “If a favorite male professional athlete revealed he is gay, how would this personal disclosure affect your feelings toward the athlete?” (Polling followed the disclosure last month by former NBA player and current HeadBlade endorser John Amaechi, shown here, that he’s gay.) Seventy-two percent said it wouldn’t affect their feelings, 24 percent would view him less favorably, and 4 percent more favorably. In a 2002 poll, 66 percent of respondents said they wouldn’t be affected, 30 percent would feel more negatively toward the athlete, and 4 percent would view him more favorably. Note that these are opinions about one’s “favorite” male pro athlete. Since sports fans spend half their psychic energy thinking ill of not-so-favorite athletes, AdFreak suspects many would be less accepting if one of those guys came out of the closet.
Some Florida company is putting ads on the sides of freight trains. One wonders if they’ve thought this through. What’s the target demo? People stuck in cars at railroad crossings, shaking their fists in anger as the train thunders past? Or those jittery souls whose homes and businesses abut the tracks? Seems like both groups would be fairly unreceptive to shiny-happy ad messages. And chaos could ensue if Amtrak plastered its new campaign on the sides of freight cars. A lot of us would be so thoroughly confused, we’d take the wrong train and wonder why the “dining car” was filled to the roof with burlap sacks of sugar, flour and grain.
You may remember Sukle Advertising & Design’s clever conservation ads for Denver Water. Now, the agency is back with a new campaign that focuses on Denver Water’s employees, who have grown sea creatures’ body parts, either through their love for their jobs or some apocalyptic accident. “We decided to show the employees in the ads as being part amphibious to really emphasize their water wisdom,” says Mike Sukle. Hopefully they appreciated that. See one more ad after the jump.
Kudos to Shell and Ferrari for putting out such an unabashedly manly ad. This car scares every other car off the road, even in Europe, where it may not actually be speeding. The police are so astonished by the testosterone emitted that they don’t ticket what is obviously reckless driving. The laws of physics themselves seem to be in awe of the manliness at play here, ignoring that this guy drives past the Roman Coliseum and immediately through what looks like Times Square. I don’t know about you, but my voice just went down an octave from watching this. By JWT London. Directed by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, who did Honda’s “Cog,” among other ads.
“Human skateboarding takes the country by storm.” That’s the headline of a press release I got today from Sneaux. Frankly, I never recovered from the opening line: “Picture yourself skating through the park, but instead of your trusty board below you, it’s your best friend.” Hey, I don’t have any friends who are willing to give me a lift home in their cars, let alone offer up their bodies as the means of transportation. In any case, the company is mounting an ad campaign for its “skate-inspired fashion footwear.” Check out the TV commercial, from Margeotes Fertitta Powell, here. That guy is going to have some serious road rash. It’s way too hip for me, but if you ever decide to try human skateboarding, take my advice: Make sure the rider isn’t wearing cleats.
We’d heard about this ad but hadn’t seen it until now. It’s the 2005 Bartle Bogle Hegarty spot for KFC in the U.K., in which the workers at a call center sing with their mouths full of chicken. Needless to say, this was not seen as proper behavior among the British, who registered a record number of complaints. Thanks to Ana at Spare Room for the link.
Has everything in advertising been done before? Yes, it has. By Ben Dunn, of course. Rosenthal Partners in Bethesda, Md., is celebrating the talents of this little-known advertising genius, whom everybody rips off, by setting up the Ben Dunn Memorial Library. On it, so far, are 12 fanciful imaginings of early Ben Dunn ads that paved the way for more famous ads of today, for products like Absolut, Volkswagen and Rolling Stone. The Absolut one has the headline, “Absolutely Amazing Snake Oil,” with a bottle of Snake Oil drawn against a white background. There are also parodies of student portfolios, overly masculine ads and one from Ben Dunn’s dark period when he did cigarette ads. Jim Landsbury and his team at Rosenthal plan on giving the Ben Dunn treatment to work that wins major prizes, and they hope other agencies will submit their own work to be parodied. —Posted by Kamau High
Wikipedia’s getting some competition from a service rather unfortunately named Citizendium. Its creator, Larry Sanger (shown here), says the site will provide a forum in which anyone can contribute, but articles will be signed and experts identified. The idea is to establish an air of authority and reduce errors—but there’s already a snag. Sanger identifies himself as the co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Jimmy Wales, who remains the online encyclopedia’s leader. Wales has dismissed that claim as “absurd” and “laughable,” saying at least 20 others had as much to do with Wiki’s founding as Sanger. For those requiring further explanation, we suggest searching here, here and here.
Here’s a Japanese shaving ad featuring two ex-Ultimate Fighting Championship guys that makes Hulk Hogan’s spot look dignified by comparison. At least I know what they’re selling this time, but I can’t help thinking that UFC would be twice as entertaining if it looked like this instead of, well, this. I also can’t help thinking that pretty much every non-Asian shoot fighter looks like one of the two guys in the ad. Maybe that C really stands for Clones.
There’s a lesson to be learned from this PSP spot for the videogame Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters. If you shrink your buddy to the size of a Borrower just so he can sneak into the girls’ tent while they’re changing, there’s a good chance something very terrible will happen. You can hear Larry’s screams but only imagine his fate. In a second spot, posted after the jump, a guy’s make-out session goes awry, also thanks to his doofus buddies.
