Jason gets his Mahalo page before Jesus

The new “human-powered search engine” Mahalo, which launched on Wednesday, aims to create about 10,000 individual Web pages that will correspond to the most popular Internet searches. (A “Jordin Sparks” search, for example, brings up the Jordin Sparks page, which contains all sorts of hand-fed links.) Mahalo has a cadre of out-of-work actors and other “guides” beavering away to compile these pages, presumably starting with the most important ones. As with all human endeavors, alas, vanity comes into the picture. In the first batch of 4,000 pages, Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis (disclosure: he was my boss during Internet 1.0) managed to get one, perhaps not surprisingly, as did investors Fred Wilson, Elon Musk and Mark Cuban. Less notable persons weren’t so lucky, including Abraham Lincoln, Colin Powell and Jesus Christ. (“Oops! We haven’t hand-written a result page for ‘Jesus Christ’ yet,” the site admits when you search for J.C. Instead, it suggests you visit four “related” pages it has finished: Jesus in Food, Jesus Camp, Christmas and Mitt Romney.) Just goes to show that even in Web 2.0, it’s all about who you know.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Published on May 31, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
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He’ll uphold the law in an orderly fashion

Fred Thompson is leaving Law & Order in anticipation of running for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Why ditch such a popular weekly venue, which provides great free publicity to counter the negative press he gets for portraying an uber-racist on Wise Guy 20 years ago? Here’s a commercial Fred ran in his 1994 campaign for the Senate. The spot already has a presidential feel, as Thompson drawls on about how “Washington needs a major shakeup to change the direction of our country.” Just sub “America” for “Tennessee” and “presidency” for “U.S. Senate” and show the Stars & Stripes instead of that state flag, and we’re in business. I always confuse Wise Guy star Ken Wahl with Law’s Chris Noth. Do they look alike or what?

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on May 31, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Gates not feeling the love from Apple’s ads

Leave it to Apple’s ad campaign to be the most contentious issue between Steve Jobs and Microsoft’s Bill Gates during their chat at the All Things Digital Conference in Carlsbad, Calif., last night. As one report describes it: “Although there were no arguments between the two men, there was an awkward moment when Jobs was asked about Apple’s amusing ‘I’m a Mac, I’m a PC’ commercials. Jobs said the ‘PC guy is great’ and that the ‘commercials are not meant to be mean. It’s for the guys to like each other. The PC guy is what makes it all work.’ Gates just scratched his head with an incredulous look on his face.” (According to a transcript, Gates then said, somewhat cryptically, “PC guy’s mother loves him.”) So it’s official. Even Steve Jobs likes John Hodgman better. The Wall Street Journal, which hosted the conference, has posted free video of Jobs’s and Gates’s conversation. As you can see, neither wore an “I’m with stupid” T-shirt.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 31, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Lindsay can always blame the advertising

If, as her father claims, Lindsay Lohan is addicted to OxyContin, is she to blame? If you missed it, three top executives of Purdue Pharma, the marketer behind the narcotic painkiller, this month pleaded guilty to “misbranding” the drug and misleading regulators, doctors and patients about its risk of addiction and potential to be abused. (“May cause one to pass out in a car with one’s mouth hanging open” is not specifically listed as a side effect.) It’s a shame that young, wasted celebrities can’t blame all of their bad habits on drug and alcohol marketing, misleading or not. Though maybe Lindsay is setting Svedka up as the fall guy by having the vodka sponsor her 21st birthday party in July.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 31, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Spa billboard gets under local women’s skin

Chicagoland continues to get upset about billboards. First there was that innocuous divorce-lawyer ad. Now it’s this spa billboard. (Click the photo to enlarge.) The Tribune published a whole story, but all you really need are the quotes from local women and the spa owner. Woman: “I was shocked. I was offended as a woman, angered as a mother and embarrassed as a resident of Glenview.” Spa owner: “No, I will not bring it down.” Woman: “I’d like for them to replace it with another ad.” Spa owner: “I will leave it up.” Woman: “I’m a mother, a wife, a member of the PTA, and this is an affront to everything I work for and try to instill in my children.” Spa owner: “I don’t want to sound like a chauvinistic pig, but this is a man’s world.” Woman: “It doesn’t represent us as people whose beauty emanates from within.” Spa owner: “You don’t like what we sell? Goodbye. Good luck. Go somewhere else.” Woman: “It demonstrates that there’s a set of values they support that are the antithesis of my values.” Spa owner: “My next billboard is going to be of a 300-pound woman and it will say, ‘Could you help me please?’ Then everyone would be after me saying, ‘My son is traumatized because you showed me a fat woman.’ You can never win.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 31, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)

Those sneaky, sneaky television networks

According to the Associated Press, network television is all about commercials. And also, if you can imagine, networks have made ads harder to avoid, and have been inserting them into their featured programming for quite some time now. And finally, it turns out that grass is, prepare yourselves, green. Now that we’ve mastered the obvious, how else does this story enlighten us? By revealing that commercial breaks, for all intents and purposes, are to be treated as featured programming from here on out. Nielsen will start rating commercial blocks like TV shows, and “networks are inserting games, quizzes and mini-dramas into commercial breaks [and] incorporating more product pitches into programming,” just in case people with DVRs actually want to—God forbid—avoid having something pitched to them every eight minutes. Of course, there’s really nothing good on TV anyway, so they might as well write episodic Pepsi spots or whatever the hell they’re planning. But if someone at work ever asks me if I caught last night’s Vonage ad, I’m digging a hole and jumping in. Photo by Big Fat Rat.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Published on May 31, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Other TV commercials that are a scream

Whether or not they’re part of an ad, the Heinz screaming beans we posted about last week are pretty amusing. Elsewhere in advertising, screaming is usually just irritating, particularly when it’s kids doing the howling, as in that awful BMW Christmas spot and this obnoxious condom commercial (which inexplicably keeps getting recirculated on YouTube). It’s also grating in this 1-800-Got-Junk spot, and only slightly more palatable in this Dentyne Frost Bites ad with the frozen decapitated taxi rider—and that spot steals the overlapping screams thing from the Budweiser “Whassup” ads, where they weren’t really screaming to begin with. The best bet, as in this Jimmy John’s spot, may be to mute the sound a bit and have non-humans do the screaming.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Microsoft Surface creates a new ad utopia

So you’re a tech-savvy restaurateur who sees the immense possibility of the new Microsoft Surface tabletop computer (YouTube demo video is here). Customers could use their Surface-powered tables to order food, divide up the bill, play Minesweeper, whatever. But how do you manage a price tag up to $10,000 per table? Advertising, naturally. It doesn’t take a strategic planner to see the massive ad potential of Surface. Sell swank interactive background ads on your tabletops (take that, greasy-spoon placemat!). Connect with your beverage providers so customers can learn more about what they’re drinking when they put the bottle on the table. News and entertainment companies should be quick to jump on board, too. Of course, what ad professionals see as staggering opportunity is already being seen by consumers as “pretty tacky.”

—Posted by David Griner

Published on May 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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A crash course in ballpark advertising

It’s generally a good thing for a ballpark advertiser when its outfield billboard gets lots of time on camera. But how about when a home-team outfielder is lying unconscious in front of it? If the Belterra Casino Resort & Spa gets an upsurge of business this week, we’ll know the answer. In a Pirates-Reds game in Cincinnati on Monday, Reds outfielder Ryan Freel collided with teammate Norris Hopper as both were chasing a fly ball to the warning track. Freel then lay unconscious at the base of the fence, right in front of the Belterra billboard, before being carried off on a stretcher after a 13-minute delay to the game. (Freel is now out of the hospital and on the 15-day disabled list.) Look at the video and you’ll see he’s lucky if no lasting damage was done. The Belterra ought to hire him as celebrity endorser when he’s on his feet again.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

Published on May 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Commercials get a bit less family friendly

Steamy sex with KY Intrigue (“For the love of your life”) is advertised on the USA Network at 9 on a Saturday morning during The Breakfast Club. Three competing brands of “male enhancement” are pitched at all hours of the day, including Enzyte spots with an Andy Griffith-style whistling soundtrack suggesting a parody. Yes, television has become like a collection of tawdry Kefauver Commission magazines for lonely, juvenile males. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that national cable has reached a new low by broadcasting spots, possibly for the first time outside of Manhattan cable channels, for X-rated porn: Digital Playground’s Pirates 2. Apparently the first movie was shown on college campuses in 2005 with the now painfully abused “educational” excuse and under “free speech” pretext. (It’s about the only subject in which college students require no remedial studies, however ill educated they were in high school.) The sequel was brought out to glom onto Disney’s publicity for Pirates of the Caribbean 3. In the end it looks like ads, not programming, may be the bullet in the head of TV’s now laughable claim to being “family friendly.”

—Posted by Gregory Solman

Published on May 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)

He’ll think about your product for $10,000

I’ve heard it said that one man’s innovation is another man’s gimmick, but Floyd Hayes, the man behind “thoughtvertising,” is attempting both at once. Should you hire him, he pledges to think really hard about your product once each hour for a week, in exchange for $10,000. Before you join me in checking his head for scars, it should be noted that some of his other “unconventional” ideas have gotten plenty of attention. Cadbury Adams paid him to yell about Halls Fruit Breezers through a megaphone in public (“voicevertising”), and he projected an image of a naked woman onto the British Houses of Parliament for FHM (“sexvertising”? I dunno). He’s like a momentarily useful Tom Green. Which is all well and good, but I’d prefer seeing his talents used outside the ad biz. I mean, I think about dragons and money trees all the time, but it must take a brain pregnant with marketing genius like Floyd’s to bring them into physical form. He should get on that.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Published on May 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Guaranteed millions from my iPhone* debut

OK, BusinessWeek, I’ll enter your $500,000 online contest for wannabe moguls to post short pitch videos for new ventures. (You haven’t launched it, but that won’t stand in my way. I enter all media-related contests here on AdFreak.) I’ll wow the VC community with a mash-up of Apple’s “1984” spot. But instead of introducing the Macintosh, my product will be unveiled at the end: I call it the iPhone*, the asterisk indicating that it’s not Apple’s new product, it’s just some old phones I keep in my sock drawer. (The ’93 Tandy still powers up if you jiggle the battery.) My business plan: The iPhone is so hot, people will pay $499 for anything with that name. The * will protect me from trademark lawsuits, and Apple will have to buy me out to avoid confusion in the marketplace. It’s a better idea than Microsoft’s Zune, and I’ll throw in some Kmart tube socks for free.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on May 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

You can have your cake and drive it too

Fallon in London created this tasty commercial for car client Skoda, in which a bunch of cooks bake up a Fabia sedan cake. According to Militant Platypus, all that’s left of the cake now are the marzipan wing-mirrors and chocolate speedometer. The rest, which was unsafe to eat following the lengthy shoot, will be used as compost in East London.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Virtual tour shows Rogue’s scrappy charm

One of my favorite beer makers, Rogue Ales, has posted a great virtual brewery tour on YouTube. Most impressive is how it conveys the Rogue vibe so well. Where most brewers would regale you with stories about the magical process of fermentation, your Rogue tour guide, who appears to be drunk, describes Rogue’s yeast as “farting off CO2 and peeing off alcohol.” He also proudly describes the company’s investment strategy, admitting, “We’re bottom feeders. We don’t spend money unless we absolutely have to.” This becomes clear as he shows off all the second-hand brewing equipment, which left me with the impression that if anything broke, nothing short of a punch from Chewbacca would get it going again. Via Gadling.

—Posted by David Griner

Published on May 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Battle of the Springfields officially begins

The competition among the Springfields of America for the right to host the world premiere of the Simpsons movie has begun, as Fox has mailed out “starter kits” to the 16 towns involved. The kit includes two cans of yellow paint, a guidebook explaining how to draw Simpsons characters, and a video camera, which the towns will use to create a short film showing their “Simpsons spirit.” Springfield, Mass., is particularly excited, and is holding press conferences and soliciting ideas from the public. “We’re in it to win it,” says a city official there. Hopefully Springfield is far enough from Boston that this won’t provoke widespread panic.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

New Zealand’s BK Girls kicked off television

Ana at Spare Room updates us on a fuss in New Zealand, where Burger King has been forced to pull some advertising off TV for basically falling afoul of the too-many-girls-in-bikinis rule. The BK Girls, who have their own MySpace page, are seen wearing bikinis in professional jobs, and we are told they “share everything—their bed, their clothes, exercise equipment and a love of ice-sculpture and horses.” The ads were deemed in violation of a New Zealand law “forbidding the use of sex appeal simply to draw attention to a product” (a law that, if adopted in the U.S., would render the airwaves all but silent). BK and its agency, Y&R, claim they wanted “to avoid any confusion that we were attempting to present our BK Girls in an overtly sexual manner.” There, at least, they seem to have failed completely.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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D’Angelo steak spot heavy on the cheese

Lately, we’ve seen a spate of odd (often unsettling) ads from fast-food chains. Now, D’Angelo sandwich shops (part of Papa Gino’s) ups the absurdity with a spot showing Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz stalked around town by a guy dressed as a steak and cheese sandwich. Boathouse created the commercial. “Don’t ignore me!” the sandwich barks, lurking outside Fenway Park as Ortiz exits. It also pops up in the back seat of his car and joins him inside a batting cage. In the clip’s most ludicrous scene, the sandwich shouts “Hungry!” in a locker-room, towel wrapped around its waist. Covering what, one wonders—sautéed onions and extra hots? (Is there a joke here about buns? Probably.)

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on May 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Hey, get your hands off my man-ary glands

My friend Cait found this ad on a bus shelter in Bolton, England. Good thing it shows the outline of a guy working out, or the message would just be disturbing. Of course, in the U.K., man boobs can be a point of pride. UPDATE: A commenter in the U.K. says it’s an ad campaign for the Yellow Pages.

—Posted by David Griner

Published on May 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
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A movie with virtually no chance of success

This guy is pretty upset that The Sims is being made into a movie, and while he needs to cool down a little, his anger isn’t misplaced. Video games make bad movies, and video games with no plot have even less chance of translating into something watchable (see Kombat, Mortal). You might as well make a Second Life movie, and now that I’ve said that, it’ll happen. But at least all the furries and pedophiles in SL will make for an interesting film, whereas the Sims are just a series of boring virtual families with no quirks beyond the weird diamond things that float over their heads. Maybe one of those could fall and kill someone, and then all the Sims would realize they’re in a computer game. Oh wait, they already made that movie.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Published on May 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Carl’s Jr. acts like ass, sues Jack in the Box

The implication that their prized burgers are made with butt meat doesn’t seem to be sitting well with Carl’s Jr., whose parent company sued Jack in the Box on Friday in federal court over the latter’s newest advertising. This is one of those lawsuits where you have to wonder whether you’re doing more harm than good, especially when your claim includes lines about “the erroneous notion that all cuts of Angus beef are derived from the anus of beef cattle.” And do fast-food places really want to start a public debate about the exact origins of their meat?

—Posted by David Griner

Published on May 26, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Someone get this poor girl a Smosh T-shirt

Cynical me wondered if this was some sort of viral campaign for Smosh.com, but no, it’s just a slice of user-generated awesomeness. Apparently, this young lady wanted a Smosh T-shirt, but the site wasn’t sure exactly where her home country was. The result is a two-part rant (part one, part two) that’s often as hilarious as it is incomprehensible. I think the Czech Republic should use her for an international awareness campaign. She already has a good slogan with, “Who is better, George Bush or Jaromir Jagr?”

—Posted by David Griner

Published on May 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Corzine outslugs Washington in apology-off

In the battle of the PSAs, Jon Corzine’s pro-seatbelt spot for the U.S. Department of Transportation handily beats Isaiah Washington’s anti-bigotry message for GLAAD in a unanimous decision. The New Jersey governor has the better lines (including the opener, “I’m New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, and I should be dead”), delivers them convincingly, actually comes close to saying he’s sorry, and hobbles off pathetically on his crutches at the end. The Grey’s Anatomy actor, meanwhile, comes across as wooden and insincere, doesn’t give any hint of personal shame or remorse, and even seems to smirk a little bit here and there. Perhaps they should swap careers.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

‘Pirates’ not just a load of marketing hype

Last night was the opening night (as far as Baltimore’s historic Senator Theatre was concerned) of Pirates of the Caribbean III: At World’s End, and it did not disappoint. True, the endless plotting and counterplotting got a tad convoluted. And yes, Orlando Bloom is human celery no matter how you dress him up. And yes, the audience was, on average, five or six years younger than me, making me feel sketchy and old. But none of that got in the way of the fun (and a good thing, too, since the second movie was basically an extended preview for this one). Also notable was the response to the Harry Potter trailer, which means I’ll have to make an appearance when that opens just to see the crazy shit that’s bound to happen when that many squealing fangirls are pent up in one building. If I don’t make it back alive, assume I was killed in the stampede that will ensue when Harry actually kisses a girl. Plus: Movie Marketing Madness has a nice review of the Pirates marketing efforts here.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Published on May 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Give the cross-dressing pest experts a call

Here’s the latest from Consumerist’s series on weird ads: a spot from Detroit for a local pest-control company. It’s amusing when the guy gives his straight-faced pitch at the end, as though the previous 21 seconds of video never happened. This one’s up there with Eagle Man.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

It’s all in the family at the new Clorox site

“Clorox wanted a site that was going to latch onto the new trend of families getting back together. They said, ‘We have all these recipes—what should we do with them?’ We said, ‘You should create an experience around keeping the family together.’ ” Sounds eerily like the marketing lady from The Simpsons who suggests that Poochie the surfer-dog “get bizzay!” when he joins The Itchy & Scratchy Show. The quote comes from an ecd at Tribal DDB, explaining the rationale behind Clorox’s new mealstogether.com site. I’m not sure if the non-brand-related content—flower arranging, tips on how to throw Frisbees and play Slap Jack—will help strengthen family ties. I know one Jack I’d like to slap: the one from the fast-food campaign. A Web site on his family situation could be compelling.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on May 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)