Toyota storms our turf: high-school football
As if it weren't bad enough that Toyota crushed our proud domestic auto industry by making quality, fuel-efficient cars, the company now has to shame us further by stealing our heritage. This fall, Toyota took to the road with Saatchi & Saatchi and visited select high-school football teams across the country for Line of Scrimmage, an ultra-folksy take on what's goin' on in small-town America, the last safe haven for freedom-loving car buyers. What will happen to GM if there are no football moms left buying Yukons to take their kids to practice in? And to Ford if the Tundra becomes the football-coach truck of choice over the F150? Not even the U.S. government can save the Big Three if Toyota wins the battle in the small-town trenches. Then they'll just have to be saved by zero. |
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Published on December 11, 2008 | Permalink
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Pablo the Drug Mule Dog has cocaine blues
While "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs" mostly just caused stoners to laugh, the best anti-drug PSAs can really harsh your buzz. Think of the 2002 cinema spot (not available online) from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America in which the guys pull out of the drive-thru and nail a girl on a tricycle. That was a brutal time for moviegoers. The latest U.K. anti-cocaine PSA campaign, titled "Talk to Frank," is a bummer, too. Narrated by Pablo the Drug Mule Dog, whose stomach has been sliced open to carry coke, it offers a "frank" and graphic discussion of some of the ickier effects of drug. If you want more "Frank" talk, or help for you or a friend with a drug problem, go to TalkToFrank.com, a fairly hip drug-info site. I'll pass on talking to Frank for now; I'm off to the movies. |
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Published on December 9, 2008 | Permalink
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Adobe shows off CS4 with cycle-of-life spot
If Dane Cook's character in the wildly successful Web series "You Suck at Photoshop" taught us losers anything, it's that Adobe knows how to advertise in the post-advertising age. (Yes, in case you didn't know, that whole thing was a big ad.) The company's latest video is the animated narrative above, showing a seed's journey through the cycle of life. The spot, which advertises Adobe's CS4, already available for purchase online, not only tells a story but does so using the powers of CS4. Just like "You Suck at Photoshop," "The Seed" wows the audience while displaying some of the basic characteristics of the product. Unlike "You Suck at Photoshop," nobody is called an idiot in "The Seed," and Dane Cook doesn't get arrested by a S.W.A.T. team. UPDATE: Due to some confusion about "YSAP," I dug a little deeper and talk to the agency responsible, Big Fat Brain. Turns out Big Fat Brain was hired to produce "YSAP" by My Damn Channel, not Adobe. Adobe was just an incidental beneficiary. Mea culpa in that factual error. However, through "YSAP," Big Fat Brain developed a relationship with Adobe, which resulted in another Web series, "Agency of Record." As for whether it was Dane Cook in "YSAP," well, the agency won't say. Was it Dane Cook? Brian Cook? A great dane? Jabba the Hut? We'll never know. —Posted by Jeremy Greenfield |
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Published on December 4, 2008 | Permalink
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Santa is skinnier, cooler with a Palm Centro
Get ready this Christmas for a newer, cooler Santa Claus. In fact, don't even call him Santa. Call him Claüs. So the story goes, Santa was sitting up in the North Pole being fat and jolly, dealing with a 400-foot parchment list of the naughty and nice, when he got a package in the mail. It was a Palm Centro, and it changed Santa forever. He cut his hair, started eating hippie food and lost weight. A new wardrobe and some hot sunglasses later, he was Claüs. Or, as most of you will recognize him, one of those skinny, hot, rich douches often found in ads for luxury/aspirational goods. Claüs is so hip, he has his own Facebook page. Go there to become a fan, listen to his music (he remixes Xmas songs), watch his videos and write on his wall. Great creative and concept from Creature, a Seattle-based agency. But there's one problem: The Centro looks like last year's new device, and no amount of clever marketing will fix that. A wall comment from “Elliot” sums it up: "Can I have a free iPhone, Claüs?" |
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Published on December 3, 2008 | Permalink
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Diddy tries multitasking with new rap video
Killing so many birds with one stone, P. Diddy uses the above clip to advertise his new fragrance (called I Am King), try out for the part of James Bond and take a rap-video vacation: big boats, helicopters, casinos, the works. He also may have killed anyone who's vulnerable to terrible YouTube videos. Never have such onerous burdens—hawking perfume during one of the toughest retail holiday seasons ever, attempting to depose an extremely popular Bond in Daniel Craig—been put on such an unworthy piece of media. At best, the "movie," as Diddy calls it, is a parody of itself and of its genre. If only it made me laugh. Also, the music is terrible. I are king? No, Diddy, you are jester. |
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Published on December 2, 2008 | Permalink
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Bruce Lee, totally badass Ping Pong playerNone of the big shots featured in Celebrity PingPong magazine would stand a chance in a match against a nunchuck-wielding Bruce Lee. This amazing viral video leads to a Web site where a digitized Lee kicks some ass with his Nokia N96 phone. Though made for a Chinese audience (ostensibly for a product sold in China), the video has traveled around the world in a few short days. No doubt, like me, the world is now going to travel to China to pick up an N96 and a little bit of Bruce Lee sickness. |
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Published on November 26, 2008 | Permalink
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Everyday bike heroes get in Droga5's face
Droga5 really did its job with the Guitar Hero World Tour bike video, as the dorks are now crawling out of the woodwork. Not in adulation or in awe, but to challenge and then pwn Droga5 at its own game with their own hard-to-believe, straight-to-YouTube bike stunts. Could MTV/Activision ask for anything more? Maybe they can ask for their money back on the athlete and Heidi Klum GHWT vids, which now seem stale, dated, boring and misguided when it comes to reaching the kids. Via Post Advertising. —Posted by Jeremy Greenfield |
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Published on November 25, 2008 | Permalink
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Jason Sadler would love to wear your shirt
Is your ad budget a little crunched for 2009? Just call Jason Sadler. On Feb. 24, for only $55, he'll wear a shirt with your logo on it and do whatever you want him to do—and blog about it. Not feeling it? On April 20, for $110, he'll wear a shirt with your logo on it and do whatever you want him to do—and blog about it. If you have some real cashola to spend, you might consider sending him your shirt to wear on July 4 ($185), Halloween ($304) or Christmas ($359). Advertising is simple at IWearYourShirt.com. Sadler wears your shirt and does what you want, for a price determined by the numerical day of the year—$1 on Jan. 1, $2 on Jan. 2 and so on, until Dec. 31, which costs $365. (According to our rudimentary math, if he sells out the whole year, he'll make $66,796. Not bad.) Want him to climb a tree? He'll do that. Want him to show up at your office with video cameras to chronicle the event? No problem. Want him to go shirtless for a day? No probl ... er, I'll have to look into that. —Posted by Jeremy Greenfield |
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Published on November 20, 2008 | Permalink
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Hatfield locks and loads giant hot-dog gun
If Hatfield Quality Meats and Philadelphia agency Red Tettemer have anything to do with it, we will have nuclear-powered hot-dog launchers available for between-inning use at baseball games in the near future. It's unclear how the nascent Obama administration will feel about Hatfield's "safe" nuclear program, but the U.S. government has passively condoned Hatfield and Red Tettemer's other encased-meats-based products, like this sausage foosball table. Hot-dog munitions have been blamed for escalating meat-on-meat violence in the Philadelphia area. We will keep you posted on developments in this fast moving hot-dog, er, story. |
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Published on November 19, 2008 | Permalink
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Some waterslides are more fun than others
With a Barclaycard, you zip through life with ease. There you are at the library, picking up some DVDs—then suddenly you're at the supermarket, snagging a banana. At least, this is what BBH London spent a load of money trying to convey in the commercial above. (See the making-of video here.) But jetting around on a waterslide isn't that easy—you never know where you'll end up. This is the theme of the cheeky homage below for U.K. glasses retailer Specsavers. Viciously brandjacked in a month—that's what you get for sending a gawky British actor around Rio in a tube. |
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Published on November 18, 2008 | Permalink
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42 Below vodka gives up on sense entirely
When you work at Kraft Foods and your boss tells you Kool-Aid is better than freshly squeezed orange juice, he's trying to get you to "drink the Kool-Aid." When an agency called The Glue Society makes an incredibly esoteric spot for the most generic of products (vodka—aka, pure alcohol mixed with water), and they tell you (in the inane tagline) they did it "Because we can," are they trying to get us to "sniff the glue"? The marketers at 42 Below, a New Zealand vodka, must have been high when they approved this ad. It can't be enjoyed any other way. Take my word for it, and sniff some of this Elmer's—it smells like roses. |
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Published on November 14, 2008 | Permalink
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Paul Rudd barely survives a mentoring PSA
Apparently as punishment for playing a terrible Big Brother in the crap sandwich film Role Models, Paul Rudd had done this PSA for Big Brothers Big Sisters. The star of films such as Clueless, Anchorman and The 40 Year Old Virgin says Big Brothers Big Sisters is no laughing matter. I'd believe him if it weren't obvious that this was take No. 28 and that he ruined takes 1 through 27 by cracking up. He barely contains it in the final cut: You've seen that smirk before in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Reno 911! And you know what comes next—the ultra-sarcastic laugh that makes you want to punch him in the nose until it bleeds Big Brother blood. So, ignore Paul Rudd, but check out Big Brothers Big Sisters anyway. |
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Published on November 13, 2008 | Permalink
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Pomegranate Phone: the new iPhone killer?
To say it slices and dices might be a stretch, even for this amazing little device. No, all the Pomegranate Phone does is make coffee, project movies and business presentations in HD, and translate from any language into any other language. It's also an electric razor and a harmonica. Impressed? Well, OK, it doesn't exist. You can't have everything. But actually, in Nova Scotia you can have (mostly) everything. Yes, this is the charming non-sequitur Canadian ad campaign of the week, encouraging us all to move up north. Pretty goofy, eh, hoser? Post Advertising has more. |
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Published on November 11, 2008 | Permalink
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