Nap with the Payless kitties on Black Friday
Martin/Williams encourages Payless customers to sleep in on Black Friday, and still get discounts via a special text coupon, in this video, which features an annoying "You're getting sleepy" hypnotist voiceover and, oddly, dozens of snoozing kittens. "We've decided to turn the Black Friday tradition on its ear this year and do it in a manner that's really fun and totally unique," says Tom Moudry, the agency's CEO and chief creative officer. I'm sure plenty of consumers will love the yawning kitties. Still, the clip drones on for a long 1:35, and some viewers might nod off before its conclusion. Given the run-of-the-mill stuff they sell at Payless, however, even if folks slip into catnaps and neglect to take advantage of the offer, they won't be missing much. —Posted by David Gianatasio
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Published on November 19, 2009 | Permalink
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DDB presents an 'asstounding' Reebok spot
Kudos to M&C Saatchi DDB Chicago for billing its new butt-centric Reebok spots as "asstounding." The shop doesn't monkey around with what it's after in promoting the EasyTone, a sneaker Reebok has targeted at the baby-got-back crowd for its leg- and caboose-toning capabilities. The spot above, called "Wandering Eye," stars a shapely spokeswoman who can't get the camera operator from coming in for close-ups of her backyard, although she seems quite flattered by it. The inspired tagline: "Better legs and a better butt with every step." Reebok is running the spots on broadcast and cable TV over the next four weeks, marking the brand's first major TV effort in two years. What a way to come back. UPDATE: DDB, not M&C Saatchi, did the creative here. M&C is the PR agency on the campaign. —Posted by Brian Morrissey Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on October 30, 2009 | Permalink
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Jordan's son to wear Nikes on Adidas team
Michael Jordan's son Marcus, a freshman guard at the University of Central Florida, wants to wear his dad's Nike Air Jordan sneakers. In Chemistry 101, that's probably fine. On the court, however, it's a problem, as Adidas has a six-year, $3 million contract with the university to outfit its athletes across all of its sports. "It's a level of importance with the Jordan Brand and my family," the player says. "It's no disrespect to Adidas. I have a high level of respect for adidas, but I'm going to be wearing Jordan shoes. I'm wearing the Adidas uniform and all my other UCF gear is Adidas, but the shoes are going to be Jordan Brand." According to the Associated Press, the university is working with Adidas to determine "how this unique set of circumstances will work for both parties." Given the inordinate amount of free publicity the "controversy" is generating for both brands, I'd say those circumstances are working just fine so far. UPDATE: It looks like Adidas is pulling its $3 million from UCF over the sneaker flap. Maybe Mike Sr. will step up to the line and foot the bill. If the school offers to rename its athletic center after MJ, the surly egomaniac might even be a sport and pony up $3 million per foot. Well, not Pony exactly... —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on October 26, 2009 | Permalink
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New Balance running in the wrong direction
As a runner, I'm regularly amused by advertisers' attempts to tap into the zeitgeist of an activity that can at times border on the masochistic. Now, New Balance is writing another sorry chapter in the history of running-shoe advertising. The brand's new spot has a guy running around with feet coming out of his forehead. You see, it's a crazy metaphor for runners thinking of their achy feet all the time, rather than losing themselves in the simple pleasures of a jog. An ER doc fixes things with a brand-new pair of New Balance shoes. This is pretty disappointing from New Balance and BBDO. Their previous "Love/Hate Anthem" nicely captured the complexity of an activity that's addictive yet features inevitable discomfort and the struggle against the understandable impulse to stay put. It would have been nicer to see New Balance take the production budget for the silly feet-on-forehead spot and pour it into "Chasing Kimbia," a Web documentary series the brand has sponsored that puts the spotlight on the often-anonymous lives of great Kenyan runners. That's stuff that will connect more with runners than obtuse metaphors. —Posted by Brian Morrissey |
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Published on October 21, 2009 | Permalink
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Timberland workboots out to kick major ass
Timberland Pro workboots get biz-ay in Mullen's "Stay on your feet" campaign, an effort designed not just to sell shoes but to help blue-collar workers find employment by providing job listings and such. The Web site has a "Test the Boot" section, where the steel-toed shoes are shown lifting weights, juggling tires, withstanding electric shocks and so on. They seem indefatigable, so maybe employers should just hire the boots and forget about the folks wearing them. (They'd save on benefits, though I suppose tongues would wag.) Workers made redundant by their own Timberlands will still be better off than the guy who gets chased by the wildlife in the brand's other recent campaign, by Leagas Delaney. Maybe they could apply to be forest rangers, preferably armed with rifles to control the marauding animal populations, lest they overrun our great cities. —Posted by David Gianatasio
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Published on October 9, 2009 | Permalink
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Grand Shoes are for big feet, not small dogs
A playful pooch does not fare well in this clip from McCann Sweden for Grand Shoes, an online retailer that specializes in large sizes. You can't see it that well, but he gets clobbered by the flying sneaker, which is probably at least a size 18. Considering the way dogs have misbehaved in some recent ads—mauling cell-phone consumers and leaving their waste around for kids to ingest—I'd say Fido had it coming. Still, I'm sure he'll quickly recover, and be treated like royalty back at home, wrapped in the comforting embrace of a canine Snuggie. Via Ads of the World. —Posted by David Gianatasio Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on October 5, 2009 | Permalink
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Mutant animal freaks always wear Converse
It's been a while—probably going back to Kodak's dual-cyclops dog—since we've seen a good mutated animal in advertising. Converse gives us a whole host of them—a lion-gerbil, a dog-boy, a sheep-cat and others—in a new Web and wild-postings campaign by (fittingly enough) ad agency Anomaly. The ads send you to ConverseOne.com, where you can customize your shoes (though not any animals) by mixing and matching parts. The Skittles sheep-boys should try to get in on this action. Customized sneakers are getting to be a big deal, with help from Melanie Oudin, who famously made her own pink-and-yellow Adidas sneakers for the U.S. Open. —Posted by Tim Nudd
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Published on September 17, 2009 | Permalink
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DSW's shoes are lonely and looking for love
Earlier today we showed you some oversexed feet without shoes, so why not follow up with some lovelorn shoes without feet? Discount-shoe warehouse DSW just launched the "Speed Dating" spot above, which shows the shadier sides of rubber-sole romance. A second ad is posted below, though it lacks the comedy combo of incest, criminality and cross-dressing. |
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Published on September 15, 2009 | Permalink
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Keep grizzlies at bay with your Timberlands
"If you're not fast, you're food." That's the unsettlingly truthful line employed by Timberland and Leagas Delaney in this pumped-up Lynn Fox-directed spot that features a guy pursued by wild boars, wolves and bears. It's is an odd theme for an ad campaign, and also why I like to stay indoors as much as possible. Unless a magical doorway appears out of nowhere, this dude will end up as some grizzly's lunch, because people can't outrun bears, no matter what shoes they're wearing. But don't tell that to the annoying host of Teva's "Naturist" campaign. Let him learn the hard way. Think of it as survival of the fittest. It won't be much of a loss. |
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Published on September 15, 2009 | Permalink
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Ads for Bianco shoes promise foot-orgasms
Bianco, the Danish footwear company that previously encouraged straight people to become gay in order to double their shoe collection, is back with a new campaign under the theme, "Orgasm for your feet." The ads show people's feet in the throes of toe-splayed ecstasy. There's the video above, as well as a handful of print ads, all done by an ad agency called & Co. Consumers are encouraged to get involved by uploading "a photo of your fun, freaky feet or a photo which shows your feet's love affair with great shoes in a creative way!" The winner gets one minute to carry as many shoes out of a Bianco store as he or she can. Bianco's been doing goofy advertising for a while. They had a campaign with the theme, "Because feet are ugly," and they did the bizarre spot below, which recommends having your hands surgically removed and attaching feet in their place. |
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Published on September 15, 2009 | Permalink
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Does Adidas not care about Melanie Oudin?
Melanie Oudin's success at the U.S. Open appears to have taken even her sponsor, Adidas, by surprise. The unheralded young American, who has reached the quarterfinals by defeating three highly ranked Russians in a row, has been getting extra attention for her funky yellow-and-pink Adidas sneakers, which she customized herself at the Mi Adidas site. It's a marketer's dream—she even put the word "Believe" on the shoe, where lesser mortals would have just put their name. But Adidas doesn't seem to be doing much to capitalize. The Mi Adidas homepage still shows Sam Querrey, the other young American whom Adidas invited to wear customized shoes for this Open. He lost on Saturday. (Oudin does front the women's section of the site, and the yellow-and-pink model is the default, so that's a start.) Meanwhile, over at the main Adidas Tennis site, there's no sign of Oudin at all. The focus there is on Ana Ivanovic, Dinara Safina and Caroline Wozniacki. Ivanovic and Safina both crashed out of the tournament already. Wozniacki, from Denmark, will play Oudin in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, and will be public enemy No. 1 for a day in New York. Sure, Oudin's success could be fleeting—all the more reason to move quickly. Adidas needs to step it up, or someone else might swoop in. As you can see below, it's awfully easy to whip up a quick Nike ad. UPDATE: An Adidas rep e-mailed. She says the Mi Adidas site was "in the process of being updated as you were posting." And indeed, Oudin is now on the homepage. —Posted by Tim Nudd |
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Published on September 8, 2009 | Permalink
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Man beaten by Wild in Teva's parody videos
Vice magazine co-founder Gavin McInnes doesn't look so hot in his underpants, but that doesn't stop him from almost letting it all hang out in "The Naturist," a new parody Web series on Teva.com. The hiking-shoe company describes it as "Mr. Bean meets Survivorman," but I can think of other things to call the two-minute-plus installment I watched, which felt more like 25 minutes to me. At one point, McInnes sticks his hand inside a beehive to get some honey; he's stung repeatedly, but unfortunately survives. The shots of his pasty face pock-marked by stings are disturbing, and reminds me of why I hate both the outdoors and nature programs. And yes, I'm still bitter that AdFreak refuses to greenlight my "Dave's Raves" video series where I improve notable ads by remaking them with myself as the star. Those headshots cost me 50 cents each at photo booth in the mall, and they won't even reimburse me out of petty cash. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on August 27, 2009 | Permalink
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Women abandon jobs, babies for free shoes
If you're going to take the "Women just go crazy for shoes" angle, you might as well go all out, as Sigma Group did in this Web-only video for Famous Footwear, perhaps the worst offender in the genre since that Chevy Traverse raining-shoes spot. Personally, I think the abandoned baby in this new ad is a bit much, but leaving children to fend for themselves at a crosswalk is a close second. Luckily, the kids get their own chance to mob the shoe truck in a back-to-school variation of the ad. But there's no sign of that baby, who's probably still baking in the direct sunlight while mom tries on those new Road Warrior sandals from Jessica Simpson. —Posted by David Griner |
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Published on August 10, 2009 | Permalink
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Kanye West enlists girlfriend as spokesbutt
Hey look, another butt. (I'm totally on a roll.) This time, it's Kanye West and his naked weirdo girlfriend in a new ad for ... something. I'm not sure what they're pitching, here. BlackBook says it's an ad for West's personal line of Louis Vuitton shoes—he designed them himself, you know—but he doesn't seem very enthusiastic about them. Looking at them, neither am I. No wonder he threw Amber Rose out there as a distraction. |
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Published on April 20, 2009 | Permalink
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Onitsuka Tiger video re-enacts Zodiak Race
Amsterdam Worldwide and PandaPanther have fashioned a campaign celebrating the 60th anniversary of Asics' Onitsuka Tiger sneaker. The effort draws on the brand's Japanese heritage, retelling the legend of the "Zodiac Race," in which 13 animals battle for one of 12 spots on the Zodiac calendar. TheLadders.com spokesmonster Guilala was the loser. Not really. The delightfully over-the-top three-minute animation above tells the whole story. It plays like a turbo-charged cross between a '60s Rankin/Bass special, cutting-edge anime and Hello Kitty. The 1-meter-long "Japan in a Sneaker" diorama (which will soon tour the world!) is pretty impressive, too, though the greenery makes me think of fungus—perhaps not the wisest choice for a manufacturer of athletic shoes. |
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Published on February 4, 2009 | Permalink
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Adidas finds groove with Frankie Valli song
It's hard to imagine a hipper scene than the one portrayed in the latest TV ad for the Adidas Originals brand. The spot, celebrating Adidas's 60th anniversary, shows a rockin' house party crashed by, among others, Katy Perry, D.M.C. (of Run-D.M.C.), Russell Simmons, David Beckham and Method Man. Even harder to imagine: a more unlikely song for everyone to be grooving to. It's Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' 1968 hit "Beggin' "—not the original, but a remix by Parisian producer Pilooski. Truth be told, it's catchy as hell and fits the commercial's retro/of-the-minute vibe perfectly. Kristian Manchester, creative director and partner of Sid Lee, the Montreal agency that created the ad, said the shop went through thousands of songs before finding this one. Originally, he says, they were looking for a Motown or Stax/Volt tune, but "every time you find a great song, someone would ask, 'Was that in a car ad?' " Only after committing to the track did Manchester find out it had been a huge club hit in Europe in the summer of 2007. Still, he's happy with the choice. "It had the right rhythm and tempo and was a little nostalgic," he says. "It felt like it was from a lost party." Fans take note: Adidas plans to offer seven different remixes of "Beggin' " on its Web site. |
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Published on November 26, 2008 | Permalink
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Nature would prefer you wear Timberlands
Your choice of hiking boots can be exceedingly important, judging by the experience of the two buddies in this Timberland ad from Leagas Delaney in London. The one guy's wearing Timberland's Earthkeepers boots, which are made from environmentally friendly, recycled materials. The other guy isn't, and the environment quickly gets quite unfriendly on his ass. If his boots are recycled, they're apparently made from bees, rocks, trees and birds, which are all trying to reclaim their own with their vicious assault on him. |
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Published on October 16, 2008 | Permalink
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Reebok packs them in for 'Migration' spot
Pro football is back, and with it comes this grand "Join the Migration" commercial for Reebok, featuring 20 NFL players (supposedly the most ever to appear together in a single ad) promoting the Speedwick Performance T-shirt. The music in the spot is light and airy and haunted-sounding, like nothing football fans have apparently ever heard, given the rush online to identify the song and the songstress (it’s “Train Song” by freak-folk queen Vashti Bunyan). But while the TV spot is causing goosebumps, the online campaign has generated a few chuckles. Specifically, this ad with Steve Smith of the Carolina Panthers in a boxing pose is a bit ill-timed, given that Smith was just suspended for punching a teammate. |
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Published on August 5, 2008 | Permalink
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Reebok was ready for a Patriots win, too
Earlier this week, we posted this Reebok commercial, in which Eli Manning sends the 1972 Miami Dolphins a gift after keeping the New England Patriots from completing a perfect season. Naturally, they had another version ready to go, in the (then seemingly likely) event of a Patriots victory. Via Deadspin. |
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Published on February 8, 2008 | Permalink
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Reebok unsurprised by Pats' imperfection
—Posted by Tim Nudd |
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Published on February 4, 2008 | Permalink
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Reebok’s Kool-Aid shoe: what a stinker!
—Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on January 30, 2008 | Permalink
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Run easy, and spell poorly, with Reebok
—Posted by Tim Nudd |
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Published on April 12, 2007 | Permalink
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Reebok runs off with other people’s ideas
—Posted by Tim Nudd |
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Published on April 4, 2007 | Permalink
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Irish stop drinking, start wearing Reeboks
—Posted by Tim Nudd |
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Published on March 15, 2007 | Permalink
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