Turn your tweets into lovely wrapping paper

Prediction: We will see a ton of Twitter applications as part of holiday campaigns this year. Samsung is getting in on the act with a tool created by The Barbarian Group. The Tweet Wrap app allows you to turn your tweets—or others' tweets mentioning holiday terms—into wrapping paper. The app is pretty slick, with six different templates as options. The end result is a little befuddling, however. The first time around, I create wrapping paper with tweets I wrote making fun of Tumblr, posting links to AdFreak and complaining about PR people. I'm sure my nieces and nephews will enjoy that. Next, I tried a holiday theme and got tweets from random strangers who had appended the #merryxmas hashtag. Not exactly thrilling. The good news: Samsung is willing to send actual wrapping paper to the first 3,000 users of the app.

Filed under Holidays, Morrissey, Samsung, Twitter
Permalink | Comments (1)

Samsung memory card survives ride of hell

This two-minute-plus clip by the Viral Factory for Samsung memory cards works better as a piece of filmmaking than as a vehicle for marketing communications. A memory card is put in a "proof machine" and subjected to trials ranging from heat and submersion in water to rubber sharks and cute puppies. It does hold your attention in a likable, cheeky-geeky way—but there's no real payoff, since we know the card will function a-ok in the end. My main objection is seeing the product name right in front of the frame for most of the video. Makes it seem less viral and too much like ... advertising. Yuck! Via Campaign.

Filed under Europe, Gianatasio, Samsung, Technology, Viral Factory
Permalink | Comments (0)

Samsung printers fast as a speeding rocket

Here's an amusing video from Austria in which two guys—one operating a Samsung printer, the other a competitor's machine—submit to a speed-copying challenge ... with rockets strapped to their backs that will go off after 40 seconds if they fail to complete the task. Also funny: the note at the end that says, "To take part in a live demonstration, apply at samsung.com/printer." Perhaps we will pass. Via Copyranter.

Filed under Nudd, Samsung, Technology
Permalink | Comments (0)

Samsung Bluetooth thwarts dopey hunter

This Samsung Bluetooth ad by Cheil Worldwide shows off the device's versatility by placing it in a new environment. Instead of helping trendy city dwellers look like schizophrenics on the bus, which accounts for about 90 percent of my Bluetooth interaction, the hands-free phone helps a deer and eagle outwit a Ted Nugent type in the woods. OK, that's an unfair characterization—the Nuge would totally be wearing a loincloth. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem like the wildlife needs technology to outmaneuver that guy. Plus, now every other animal in the forest will think they're talking to themselves.

Filed under Animals, Cheil Worldwide, Kiefaber, Samsung
Permalink | Comments (1)

Samsung's 3-D televisions hold city hostage

Samsung's 3-D LED TVs take over a city in this U.K. spot from CHI &  Partners. Large flat-screens are strategically stacked and positioned all over town. At one point, a Godzilla-sized kitty on a roof stares hungrily at a street-level goldfish bowl. Later, a whale frolicks in an urban park pond. (The cat's long gone, not quite so bold with seafood that size.) For the grand finale, using a great many screens, a vast waterfall seems to open up mid-thoroughfare, with people and traffic teetering on the edge. Like there aren't enough potholes downtown already! In a sociologically significant moment (I guess), some folks use their phone-cams to video-capture various scenes on the monitors. Or else they're watching Lost. There's a "making-of" clip, for those with an overpowering need to waste seven more minutes of their lives after watching the 60-second spot.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under CHI, Electronics, Europe, Gianatasio, Samsung
Permalink | Comments (7)

Great works of art are more awesome in 3-D

If this video for Samsung's 3-D LED TV had simply presented 3-D renderings of legendary works of art, it would've been a winner. Seeing a 3-D Mona Lisa from the side, for example, transformed the image into an entirely new experience. But that's just the first 20 seconds of this 1:40 clip. We quickly move to Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, which morphs into two very randy Vitruvian Men. And who knew gun-wielding mafiosi, military choppers and alien hordes lurked just "out of frame" in paintings by Vermeer, Seurat, Raeburn and others? It's way over the top (Rich Fulcher's voiceover is amazing) but has great fun making the point that with this technology, you can see more. As for Whistler's mother being "a freakish hag" engaged in an insane staring contest—well, duh. That's pretty obvious in two dimensions. Via @luckthelady.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Arts, Electronics, Gianatasio, Samsung
Permalink | Comments (5)

Samsung shows you who's still on MySpace

Ever feel distrustful of someone whose social-network profile-pic pose is exaggerated or contrived? Well, your skepticism is justified, according to this Samsung promotional video, in which monsters work the angles to look more presentable on Facebook and MySpace. Admittedly, it's a bit random to release such a Halloween-themed spot in March, but you have to give credit to Samsung for being one of the only brands brave enough to build an ad largely around MySpace. Despite what you might have heard, MySpace still has a massive user base, with almost 120 million visitors worldwide in January alone. While some might ding Samsung's marketing team for featuring a social network that's "so 2007," I'd say they're probably playing it smarter than competitors who think Facebook is the alpha and omega of online life. Via Presurfer.

—Posted by David Griner

Filed under Griner, MySpace, Samsung, Social networks
Permalink | Comments (2)

Ozzy phones it in again in new Samsung ad

Ozzy Osbourne. A chimpanzee. Which one never evolved? That question popped into my head as I watched the chimp invite the corpselike Ozzy to join his band in this commercial for Samsung's Solstice phone. If you thought Leo Burnett's earlier Samsung spots with Ozzy were soul-crushing, check out this iteration. Does Ozzy mumble incoherently? Are his "expletives" bleeped out? Do he and the chimp make goofy faces? Lord have mercy, it's all in there! Come to think of it, since every word Ozzy says is impossible to understand, his profanity would also be incomprehensible. Why bleep him at all? Eons ago, when Ozzy was a heavy-metal god, some folks worried that his music would rot people's brains. His music won't, but this campaign will! And hey, wasn't there a movement to ban the use of great apes in commercials? Can we add Ozzy to the list of creatures that should never be used in ads again?

—Posted by David Gianatasio

See also:
Ozzy Osbourne still somehow gets ad work
No more chimps and gorillas in advertising?

Filed under Celebrity endorsements, Gianatasio, Leo Burnett, Samsung, Telecom
Permalink | Comments (1)

Samsung creatures scuffle on N310 laptops

When Samsung last ventured into the realm of Web video, Welsh sheep in LED vests were involved. The result was "an Internet sensation," according to my AdFreak colleague Dave Kiefaber, who knows a bit too much about the Internet and sheep for my liking. Which brings us to Samsung's latest effort for its N310 mini notebook. At a Samsung trade show booth where the units are on display, male and female Gumby-type characters spring to life (I think they're supposed to be holograms) and battle in a bloodless imitation of Itchy and Scratchy. It's gotten nearly 200,000 views on YouTube in less than a week, and it certainly held my attention. But I'm not sure what it's trying to say about the product. And as for it being another "Internet sensation" ... baaaaaaaah!

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Gianatasio, Samsung, Technology
Permalink | Comments (1)

Oh, Jesus Christ, another pathetic scam ad!

The plague of scam ads will likely never quite leave the award-show circuit. Still, some take the cake. The Dubai Lynx, a Middle East offshoot from the folks who run Cannes, is dealing with a mini-scandal after a Qatar shop called FP7 won awards for a print ad depicting Jesus taking a picture of a group of nuns. The ad was supposedly for Samsung, which was none too amused when it found out it was using the Son of God to hawk cameras. (Samsung does use sheep in ads, just not, apparently, shepherds.) This will cause the usual hand-wringing about how festivals fail to do the bare minimum to determine if an ad actually ran anywhere. The more interesting question, for me at least, is what other products the industry can get Jesus to endorse. Via AdPulp.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Filed under Award shows, Dubai Lynx, Morrissey, Samsung, Scam ads
Permalink | Comments (1)

Samsung taking liberties with Welsh sheep

Hey, Wales got the Internet! About time. And they're already responsible for an Internet Sensation involving the only thing I've ever associated with Wales: sheep. Specifically, Welsh national sheep-herding champion Gerry Lewis was recruited to help a group of filmmakers with a video in which sheep in LED vests are "herded into astonishing shapes on a mountainside." The shapes include a giant sheep, a game of Pong, and the Mona Lisa. The video was made in celebration of, and using, Samsung's various LED products, which are also available in Wales now. For a first effort, this is pretty cool. In time, they'll reach Eagle Man levels of weird, for sure.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Filed under Electronics, Europe, Kiefaber, Samsung
Permalink | Comments (4)

Ozzy Osbourne still somehow gets ad work

Ozzy Osbourne turns up in this new Samsung Propel campaign from Leo Burnett, and what a surprise: the big joke is that no one can understand him because he mumbles. It's like a flashback to 2002, when his reality show was popular—but then Ozzy probably has flashbacks that go back a lot further than that. So, he uses the phone's multicolored text messaging to make himself understood. It's tough to buy Ozzy texting. Even if his hands stopped shaking long enough, you know his spelling would be atrocious. Most important, the Oz Man is one of those pop-culture figures who doesn't need to speak a word, via digital technology or otherwise. There's no looking away when he's on screen, regardless of the anemic material, so I guess these spots succeed in spite of themselves. Here's Ozzy with Black Sabbath live on U.S. TV back in 1975, when he really had something to say.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Gianatasio, Leo Burnett, Samsung, Telecom
Permalink | Comments (0)