Digital shop enjoys slaughtering magazines
Carrot Creative, a digital shop in Brooklyn, is using Halloween to celebrate the media industry's woes. It posted this photo on Twitter, showing "digital" stabbing to death magazines like Domino, PC Magazine and Blender. Granted, I doubt we'll find many mourners for Cookie. I'm completely biased considering my job, but the glee with which digital people welcome the supposed demise of "traditional" media is perturbing. Yes, the industry is going through a wrenching transition and paying a heavy price for a business model that should have been transformed many years ago. That's meant lots of layoffs and even magazines and newspapers with storied histories shutting altogether. It's a sad picture. I'm not suggesting we hold a candlelight vigil for Condé Nast or get the government to bail out newspapers. Still, it can't hurt to keep the giddiness in check just a bit. |
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Published on October 30, 2009 | Permalink
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Marge Simpson poses for cover of 'Playboy'
Everyone has a favorite MILF, but how many of those are animated? Well, cartoon-MILF lover, your day has come: Marge Simpson will appear on the November cover of Playboy. The plan is to attract "younger readers" to the mag, and believe it or not, this is actually part of Fox's 20th Anniversary Simpsons Celebration. Marge is the first cartoon character ever to appear on the Playboy cover, and this collector's item will be available only on newsstands. Playboy has even struck a deal with 7-Eleven (which has done a lot of Simpsons promotions, including changing stores into Kwik-E-Marts) to carry the magazine, something it's done only once before in the past 20 years. As 7-Eleven spokeswoman Margaret Chabris put it: "We love Marge." (Eww). Marge recreates Darine Stern's pose when she became the first black woman to appear on Playboy's cover. Though the outside is tasteful, Playboy assures us the inside will be, "very, very racy." Of course, the tarting-out of Marge, an icon of devoted motherhood, could be risky. But if I know Playboy, they're fully committed to breaking the boundaries of objectification, whether they come in black, white or banana yellow. —Posted by Rebecca Cullers Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on October 14, 2009 | Permalink
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Toilet-advertising firm hopes for flush times
How often, really, does one combine the words "wow" and "toilet"? (If you have recently, I don't want to hear about it.) Well, say hello to the WOW Toilet Tank. It's a snazzy new toilet tank that can display ads. It's not just the urinals that are having all the marketing fun anymore! The company behind the new contraption is already playing the capitalization card, even though they don't seem to have secured a client yet. Well, it's just a matter of time, I'm sure, before the accounts roll in, though I'd guess companies like Taco Bell and their ilk will probably pass. Pepto-Bismol wouldn't be a bad fit. (The P&G brand is featured in one of the mock-ups on the Web site.) But the WOW Toilet isn't even the strangest toilet-related marketing initiative this week. That dishonor goes to Draftfcb's print ad for French magazine Chronic'Art (see the full ad here), showing a zombie on the can. (The pop-culture magazine promises to reveal "everything you ever wanted to know about zombies.") Judging from that guy's expression, the last human brain he ate disagreed with him. No matter how much he flushes, it'll still smell like something died in there.
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Published on October 8, 2009 | Permalink
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CBS embeds 40-minute video ad inside 'EW'
CBS and Pepsi Max are embedding a video player in a print ad for the fall-TV-preview issue of Entertainment Weekly in September. That's right, it's a TV commercial inside a magazine. And it's a 40-minute commercial, consisting of clips from shows on CBS's fall schedule. They're calling it "the first-ever VIP (video-in-print) promotion." Opening the page pulls a little mechanism that causes the commercial to start after a five-second loading delay. Which gives you exactly enough time to think, "What the heck is with that tiny screen?" The video device is a quarter-inch thick and seen through a die cut that conceals a larger circuit board. The whole effect is considerably more impressive than the e-ink cover of Esquire last year. Of course, due to the high cost, only a small number of issues in New York and Los Angeles will carry the ad. As a stunt, it's extremely effective. As a new form of media, it's dead out of the water without some more interactivity. It's too bad it can't respond to its environment and work together with an out-of-home campaign. But the future is coming. This is just one small step for media technology, but one giant leap toward my dream of auto-updating periodicals that can respond to nearby ads. |
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Published on August 20, 2009 | Permalink
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'Economist' loves vintage pop-culture trivia
This Economist billboard from BBDO appeared in Dallas, so of course it makes the point that people in Texas are idiots. Not really. The message is that we're so immersed in pop culture (even 30-year-old TV shows) that we're ignorant of current events. But isn't that especially true of people in Texas? The ad makes the magazine seem kinda snooty, but I'll keep it in mind the next time I need a source for boring and violent global news and insights I can't understand. The answer to the J.R. question, of course, is "Kristin." Not that I'm old or vapid enough to remember losing about 1,000 bets by backing "Sue Ellen" when the episode originally aired. |
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Published on June 15, 2009 | Permalink
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Creativity a staple of China's butt-cream ads
Continuing our (well, OK, my) butt theme, here's a hemorrhoid-cream magazine ad from China that's actually somewhat subtle with its message. Binding the ad into the middle of the book allows the small staple to symbolize the discomfort of hemorrhoids. I suppose it's still a little unpleasant to come across a giant butt while you're reading. But at least it's not an ad for staple removers. Via Ads of the World. —Posted by David Kiefaber |
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Published on April 17, 2009 | Permalink
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Euro ads wild, woolly for Chicago magazine
Euro RSCG's ads for Newcity magazine attempt to portray the Chicago weekly as a free-thinking alternative news source for folks who wish to be "unassimilated" from the mainstream. This might have been a better approach 10 years ago, before the Web and mobile media were hyper-ubiquitous and put myriad news sources at everyone's fingertips. Also, the images of a guy shearing sheep's wool off his leg ("Reject the herd mentality") and a woman tearing off her face ("Emerge from the ordinary") are a tad off-putting and actually kind of conformist. (Woolly legs and masks are the truly rebellious way to go, particularly at work.) Besides, the way print media is headed in Chicago and elsewhere, Newcity won't have to worry about the competition much longer—provided it can itself survive. |
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Published on April 7, 2009 | Permalink
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Print media isn't going down without a fight
It seems print media dies a little more each day, yielding to the inevitable onrush of digital formats. Not so for the swingin' Swedes at Tare Lugnt magazine, who "published" the third installment of their body-art journal on a guy's leg. Ouch! Hope it wasn't a double issue. To generate some publicity, I volunteered for the same treatment here at AdFreak. (I wanted to get the Twitter fail whale tattooed on my back, and you can probably guess where the blow-hole would go.) But I withdrew the offer when the staff began poking me with needles before we'd even bought ink.
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Published on April 6, 2009 | Permalink
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Hot women love dudes who spit brown juice
First off, I had no idea that smokeless-tobacco dippers considered themselves a "brotherhood," though I guess inbreeding could explain why they persist with such a dangerous and disgusting vice. Which brings us to the Mad Men-era vice of Playboy magazine, which is publishing a 12-page co-branded Skoal advertising supplement with its 55th anniversary issue in January. Voters at SkoalBrotherhood.com chose playmate Kara Monaco (she's pretty hot, but that won't last if she dips) and rodeo/football star Walt Garrison (soon to be jawless) as the lead interviewees for the section. Skoal, which is celebrating its own 75th birthday, says site visits jumped almost 400 percent during the promo, which suggests the product is just as deadly to brain tissue as it is to mouths, cheeks and gums. Speaking of which: Here's that jawless guy from last year's Canadian anti-dip campaign, one of AdFreak's freakiest campaigns of 2007. (Keep watching this space for our 2008 freakiest-ad contest.) Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to chew some sugar-free gum. Mmmm, delicious. And it's not rotting my face! |
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Published on December 16, 2008 | Permalink
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'The Atlantic' turns the page with new ads
In the face of falling magazine sales across the board, The Atlantic (formerly known as The Atlantic Monthly) is boosting its ad budget and trying to reach a new, younger audience. With the help of Euro RSCG, it's launched a campaign under the magnificent tagline: "Think. Again." And there's a brand-spanking-new print redesign by Pentagram to go along with it. The ad campaign is centered around questions that range, like the magazine's broad choice of topics, from the serious ("Which religion will win?") to the trivial ("Is the doughnut doomed?"). The agency is posting the questions in odd locations out in the world, like on restaurant menu boards, store shelves and shampoo bottles. They also appear as giant neon signs in videos that ask people on the street for their answers. Everything's gathered together on the "Think. Again" microsite, which also presents articles from the magazine on each topic. The site's sound design seems to have been created by a 6-year-old playing the xylophone near a wind chime, but the videos do draw you in. Some of the articles, strangely, are over a decade old. Maybe they think that's retro cool. Think again. —Posted by Rebecca Cullers |
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Published on October 15, 2008 | Permalink
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Is time running out for tween magazines?
—Posted by Rebecca Cullers |
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Published on October 13, 2008 | Permalink
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Anomaly gets celebrities to play Ping Pong
The celebrity interview magazine is a time-honored if often shallow institution. The time is right to spice it up a bit. That's what James Cooper, a creative at Another Anomaly (the spin-off of regular Anomaly), hopes to do with Celebrity PingPong. The magazine, created by Cooper and a class he taught at Miami Ad School, features interviews with artists, actors and writers while they show off their paddle skills. The idea came to Cooper, a self-described "Ping Pong nerd," as a way of getting interviewees to relax and open up. The magazine promises to be "a bit like Freud's couch, but with less mothers and more top-spin." Cooper walks the walk: He knocked a ball around while giving a talk about the project this past weekend at the Interesting New York event. The first issue, a 60-pager featuring interviews with graphic designer Kate Moross, author Jerome Charyn and rapper Kenan Bell, is out now. Initially, CPP has spec ads created by Miami Ad School students. Cooper hopes to tap into Anomaly's stable of brands to make the magazine a regular business. He's lined up other notables for chats, including author Salman Rushdie. I could see this working. Ping Pong has that retro-cool feel about it nowadays. Cooper says his bosses are totally behind the effort. "We're Anomaly, we're supposed to do silly things," he says. Anomaly is hosting a launch party tonight, featuring a Ping Pong tournament. —Posted by Brian Morrissey |
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Published on September 18, 2008 | Permalink
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Levi's sticking magazines down its trousers
How many times have I been asked, "Is that a magazine in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?" At long last, I can truthfully say, "It's a magazine!" This is thanks to a newsstand promotion by TBWA\Tequila\Hong Kong, which is dressing magazines up in Levi's 501 jeans. The press release enthuses: "You get your magazine from specially created displays by 'unbuttoning' a miniature version of the new Levi's 501." The periodical in question is called East Touch, ratcheting up the sophomoric snicker factor even more. And if some immature joker stuffs a few battery-powered issues of Esquire down those pants instead, well, who am I to judge? âPosted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on September 11, 2008 | Permalink
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