Travelocity's gnome keeps going and going

I've never really gotten the Travelocity Roaming Gnome or understood the campaign's enduring popularity. Wasn't there a traveling garden gnome craze that inspired the ads, or was it vice versa? I'd Google it, but I think I'll wait for Microsoft and Yahoo! to release a new search product before I do any more research. In McKinney's latest Travelocity spot, we get to stare at the back of the gnome's head as he "watches" stock footage of travel destinations. Viewed from behind, the freakish creature looks a lot like an upside-down ice-cream cone from a Monty Python cartoon. There's a social-media tie-in that allows folks to use Twitter and Facebook to choose where the gnome should go next and upload photos to win prizes—or something. There's nothing wrong with vacationing on the cheap. But sadly, this campaign is flying coach as well.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on July 30, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (6)
Filed under Gianatasio, McKinney, Travelocity

Gold's Gym can't look at your nasty cankles

Gold's Gym and McKinney are making war on "cankles," a slang term for how an overweight person's calves don't narrow at the ankle. Gold's is ramping up efforts to warn consumers about this aesthetic affliction (which is, ironically enough, outpacing "muffin tops" and "saddlebags" as the No. 1 bathing-suit killer in America) with direct mail and a Web site, Say No to Cankles, where there's a contest in which people vote on who has the best legs in Hollywood. While the fitness chain considers this a fun, lighthearted way to tell people to get in shape, making fun of people's specific body parts for aesthetic reasons and then comparing them to celebrities who can afford nutritionists and personal trainers isn't really going to help. There's a line between highlighting obesity's health risks and flat-out ridiculing fat people. Getting rid of the celebrity stuff and the tacky Facebook applications will put Gold's Gym on the right side of it.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Published on July 2, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (4)
Filed under Fitness, Gold's Gym, Health, Kiefaber, McKinney

Your filthy, furry drug habit will not go away

Pugsley of Rabbit directed this entertaining and memorable "Above the Influence" spot from McKinney for the Partnership for a Drug Free America. A stoner dude's "problem" takes the form of a shaggy humanoid creature who's with the kid all the time, causing mischief, though only his friends are aware of his existence. Teens are so sensitive to peer pressure, the idea of losing face with classmates may well prove effective. And yet, as I watch that beast drag its claws down the halls, causing no real damage to anyone or anything and generating plenty of attention for its host, my gut reaction, and this may be true for many 12- to 17-year-olds, is: Cooool. I want one. UPDATE: Above the Influence has disowned this spot, saying it "was not approved, is not being distributed anywhere and not slated for distribution in the future." Too bad.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on February 18, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (7)
Filed under Anti-drug, Freaky, Gianatasio, McKinney, Partnership for a Drug Free America, PSAs

McKinney wants to sit down and have a talk

McKinney has redone its Web site with an interesting "conversational" twist. Seeing as search has become the way people navigate online—Google's top search term is "google," after all—McKinney is using a search box to power a Q&A motif. It sits front and center on the page, inviting visitors to ask a question. It does a pretty good job of returning answers, or at least it's better than the Cliffbot over at Cliff Freeman. I asked it how many employees McKinney has and got the answer 160. Asking about the shop's clients brings up a whole slew of them. The artificial intelligence fell down when I asked for some recent ad campaigns. Nothing's perfect.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Published on February 11, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (5)
Filed under Agency web sites, McKinney, Morrissey

Enjoy the text-heavy trainers at Gold's Gym

There are several lessons to learn from McKinney's campaign for Gold's Gym. First, these places play excessively loud music, ranging from rave/disco and thrash-rock to Italiano, all of it brain-numbingly bad. Also, too many leg lifts make a person hallucinate and see troubling messages with each rep: "pressure," "critics, "cynics," "your own doubt." Yikes, I'm not getting on one of those things. Finally, everyone in the place is in much better shape than I am, except for that beefy guy in the "Anti-Pasta" spot. He looks angry and stupid, like he wouldn't have anywhere near enough IQ points to "know [his] own strength." So, I'm gonna pass on a membership. One wrong look, and that big ape's liable to snap me in half like a twig.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on November 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (6)
Filed under Fitness, Gianatasio, Gold's Gym, McKinney

Anti-drug ad campaign is now also anti-bug

McKinney has whipped up a handful of new Above the Influence anti-drug ads for the ONDCP starring oversized animals and insects dressed as humans. See all three ads here. The one above shows a pair of slug buddies about to do some serious lines of salt. In the others, a couple of rat-girls prepare to pop some Rat-X, and some slacker wasps get set to inhale some bug spray. The headline on each ad reads, "What's the worst that could happen?" To answer that, Copyranter points to Cecil Adams of Straight Dope fame, who suggests that, in the case of the slugs, the worst that could happen would probably involve the "hiss of desiccating slug fluids." Adams suggests a good alternative is "to put out a pie tin filled with a half inch of beer. The slugs drink the beer, pass out, and drown." But then that would probably be alcohol abuse.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on November 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4)
Filed under Anti-drug, McKinney, Nudd, ONDCP

New McKinney anti-pot ads get it half right

McKinney and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America have released the latest ad strike in the "Above the Influence" campaign. The campaign consists of a series of fake ads recruiting teens for jobs as burrito tasters, couch security guards and TV remote-control operators. The teens are sent to microsites (like this one for burrito tasting) that redirect to AboveTheInfluence.com. The kicker? Copy at the bottom reads, "Hey, not trying to be your mom, but there aren't many jobs out there for potheads." At first, I was majorly excited that they were focusing on the monetary downside of smoking pot and not on the OMG-you're-so-gonna-die-if-you-smoke-pot part. But the awesome fake recruitment ads are only part of the campaign. A separate but equal series of ads appearing in the same mags will focus on the you're-so-gonna-die aspect of drug awareness, featuring animals dressed like teens involved in life-threatening situations. In one execution, two slugs do some salt, and through the power of metaphor we are educated about the deadly nature of weed. Teens, who are of course immortal, still don't respond as well to the abstract threat of death as they do to the everyday threat of social stigma.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

Published on October 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (15)
Filed under Anti-drug, Cullers, McKinney, Partnership for a Drug Free America