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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MacGruber movie is sure to be a work of art
He couldn't survive 30 seconds in an oil refinery, or 30 days on Twitter after the Super Bowl, but Saturday Night Live character and Pepsi pitchman MacGruber (played by Will Forte) is getting his own feature film. Yep, that's right. They've begun production on a full-length MacGruber movie packed with mullets, meta '80s references and ... what else could they possibly put in there? Lots of obscenity, if you ask SNL star Bill Hader, who read the script and called it a "hard-R comedy." As SlashFilm notes, that would make MacGruber one of the only R-rated SNL movies since The Blues Brothers. (The Ladies Man was also R.) Why go the raunchy route? Maybe they figure kids will be tempted to sneak into an "adult" comedy, thereby creating the only audience on earth who would willingly go see a MacGruber movie. —Posted by David Griner |
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Published on August 12, 2009 | Permalink
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Jackson hair-on-fire footage finally unveiled
Video footage of one of advertising's seminal moments has finally been leaked 25 years later—that of Michael Jackson's hair catching on fire, due to mistimed pyrotechnics, at a 1984 shoot for a Pepsi ad by BBDO. See the video here, which Us Weekly released exclusively this week. The accident at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A. on Jan. 27, 1984, left the pop star with serious burns and allegedly kick-started his addiction to prescription drugs. |
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Published on July 16, 2009 | Permalink
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Pepsi Throwback ads resurrect 1970s relics
Here are nine new 15-second spots from TBWA\Chiat\Day that Pepsi unveiled today to promote Pepsi Throwback, its nostalgia beverage featuring '70s product packaging and, to my personal delight, real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. The retro theme extends to the media buy, as the ads are running on Hulu alongside old shows like Hill Street Blues, Battlestar Galactica (the original) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The spots are pretty amusing, showing the Throwback can interacting with artifacts from the '70s. But Pepsi's notion that the '70s are "considered new" because millennials weren't around to experience them the first time ignores the fact that the '70s have been mined for nostalgia for years now. Also worrisome: Three other ads were made in conjunction with the folks at CollegeHumor.com, who wouldn't know funny if it flashed them and took a picture. But at least Pepsi is stepping up and producing ads to fit Hulu's specialty content. That alone makes them look like they have a clue. |
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Published on May 18, 2009 | Permalink
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Drink Pepsi and climb to the summit of rock
CLM BBDO in France (which won a Grand Clio yesterday for this Alka-Seltzer print campaign) created this new Pepsi spot, in which a young man, thirsty for glory, ignores the advice of teachers, parents and employers and scales all obstacles in pursuit of his dream ... of being a rock star. This involves a literal climbing of giant objects. He's good at that, anyway, so if he ends up being terrible at music and feeling a Tenacious-D-like cosmic shame, he can always try a career in professional rock climbing. |
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Published on May 13, 2009 | Permalink
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Are the Super Bowl brands still on Twitter?
Last month, we wondered how long all those Super Bowl ad characters would last on Twitter. The answer was a bit surprising, if only because the personality with the highest potential—the mulleted and inventive PepSuber—was one of the first to drop off. The Pepsi-SNL crossover character quickly racked up over 1,000 followers but abruptly stopped posting on Feb. 24. H&R Block's Tax Guy Murray, the man threatened with death for boning up the Grim Reaper's taxes, deserves credit for playing out his ad's story line. On the day of his supposed passing, March 11, Murray posted a flurry of updates about when Death came calling. (Don't worry, Murray escaped unharmed.) The spammy but prolific E*Trade Baby has kept up his shtick pretty consistently. But strangely, it's SoBe Lifewater that takes top honors with its Sobeworld account, which has the most followers (1,196) and has been impressively interactive with other users. Sadly, this probably means we're in for another 10 years of dancing lizards. —Posted by David Griner |
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Published on March 19, 2009 | Permalink
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Pepsi logo fulfills God's plan for humanity
Remember when the new Pepsi logo debuted a few months back, fulfilling 5,000 years of aesthetic philosophy and epitomizing our relationship with the cosmos? No? Well, it happened. An internal document from the Arnell Group has made its way online, illustrating the copious and absurd rationalizations (PDF file) behind the firm's redesign of the logo. There's discussion of the Earth's magnetic fields, the Theory of Relativity and all sorts of other cockamamie horseshit that shows how Arnell is "applying universal laws to establish a blueprint for the brand." Fast Company describes it a bit differently: "One of the most ridiculous things ever perpetrated by somebody calling himself a designer." But hey, if you're hired for an obscene amount of money and all you do is smash together the logos for Barack Obama and Korean Air, it doesn't hurt to defend your decision as the manifest destiny of humanity's creative endeavor. Via Gawker. —Posted by David Griner |
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Published on February 11, 2009 | Permalink
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Will the Super Bowl brands stay on Twitter?
Laptop keyboards nationwide are stained with wing sauce and nacho cheese following the intensive Twittering of Sunday's Super Bowl. But it wasn't just football and advertising fans doing the talking. Brands themselves used the popular social site to get characters from their commercials chatting with viewers in real time. Results were mixed at best. I actually found that PepSuber's Twitter banter somewhat redeemed Pepsi's strange Saturday Night Live crossover ad, especially when he corrected my misspelling in a post by offering to make the missing letter out of a paperclip. H&R Block, a veteran brand on Twitter, gets a passing score for its TaxGuyMurray account, which chronicles Murray's brush with death in the ad itself. Then there's the E*Trade Baby, who basically just spammed everyone. But here's my real question: What's going to happen to these accounts? The three I just mentioned were still active on Monday, but how long will their corporate overlords keep it up? Will these little-loved characters be quietly abandoned one day when they've lost all their cultural novelty? Not that I doubt the lasting power of PepSuber, but come on, he didn't even survive his own Super Bowl commercial. —Posted by David Griner |
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Published on February 3, 2009 | Permalink
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Diet Pepsi knows the limits of youthfulness
Partners Film's Joachim Back directed these Canadian Diet Pepsi spots for BBDO in Toronto. The tag: "Forever young." The premise: Diet Pepsi drinkers are asked, "Is there anything else youthful you'd like to experience?" The guys initially dream about stepping back in time to enjoy a sleepover (above, in which one guy is beaten senseless with a pillow) and recess (below, where another guy gets wedgied). They quickly reconsider. As average as these commercials are, I actually prefer them to the Coca-Cola-esque happy-happy approach taken by newly crowned U.S. Pepsi shop TBWA\Chiat\Day. For one thing, BBDO resurrects Huey Lewis's "Hip to Be Square" in the "Recess" spot, which beats the Apples in Stereo jangle-pop of TBWA's effort by a mile. Also, frankly, it was cathartic to see someone else get a wedgie for a change. Some wounds never heal. |
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Published on January 21, 2009 | Permalink
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The flip side of Pepsi's 'Dear Mr. President'
Is Pepsi's "Dear Mr. President" YouTube campaign simply a refreshed version of the "Farewell Mr. President" YouTube series from last year? Greg Olliver, the currently pissed-off creator of the latter, thinks so. He just came across the Pepsi effort by R/GA, which encourages citizens to film little love notes to President Obama. In his earlier campaign, Olliver filmed citizens offering little non-love notes to President Bush. "From the way Pepsi's videos are shot, the editing, the 'Dear Mr. President' opening, to the ENTIRE CONCEPT ... it appears to be a complete rip-off of my idea," Olliver tells us. Possibly so. Whatever the case, it's a pleasant reminder that America didn't just welcome a new president today—it got rid of an old one. |
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Published on January 20, 2009 | Permalink
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Pepsi and its celebrities glom on to Obama
It's inevitable, considering President-Elect Obama's approval rating is hovering at 70 percent, that marketers want in on the action. Pepsi is pulling out all the stops. It's combining its newfound Obamaphilia with its longtime obsession with celebrity in a series of "Dear Mr. President" videos. Deep thinkers like Desperate Housewives hottie Eva Longoria, Nascar driver Jeff Gordon and quintessential Obama brand celeb hanger-on Will.i.Am are featured in the call for submissions. They're promising an "open letter" video montage from Americans to Obama, courtesy of the soda giant. (Let's hope Obama not only doesn't heed calls to Twitter while president but also skips watching user-generated ads.) R/GA created the videos. —Posted by Brian Morrissey |
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Published on January 16, 2009 | Permalink
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What some people won't do to get a PepsiPepsi made headlines last month for canning (ha!) BBDO. The Omnicom Group shop might be off the domestic account of the beverage brand it helped shape for five decades, but the agency retains chores overseas. These ads by CLM BBDO in Paris help explain why. Who needs TBWA\Chiat\Day? The message is so clear, the work could run stateside without translation. OMG, that chimp's gonna drive off with a truckload of bananas because he gave the driver a Pepsi! OMG, that geek'll give mouth-to-mouth to an unconscious beach babe because he traded the hunky lifeguard a Pepsi! Yeah, humor this sophomoric seems positively American. C'est si bon! Via Ads of the World. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on December 1, 2008 | Permalink
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Diet Pepsi will meet you at the Peach Pit
—Posted by David Kiefaber |
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Published on May 7, 2007 | Permalink
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