Fake TLC promo isn't far from the real thing

A few months old, but new to us—this wonderful fake promo for TLC, advertising shows like 12 Wives 12 Problems, Dwarf Hoarders, Uterus Cannon, Cake Whores, Old Face New Vagina and 9 Fat Kids 1 Dessert. The real TLC, home to such actual programs as 19 Kids and Counting and I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant, is getting more outlandish all the time. Its newest show, Strange Sex, premiered on Sunday, and featured one woman with two vaginas and one with no vagina. (For the record, both of their faces looked young-to-medium.) Via Kottke.

Filed under Nudd, Parody, TLC, TV, Vaginas
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Ashley Madison is jilted even by 'Kennedys'

Could there be a more appropriate place for an Ashley Madison pro-adultery commercial than in a miniseries about philandering former president John F. Kennedy? The dating site that promotes—nay, revels in—stepping out on your significant other tried to buy time during the upcoming miniseries The Kennedys, which will air on little-known cable outlet Reelzchannel. (The History Channel, which was originally scheduled to run the controversial show, dropped it due to its reportedly playing loose with the facts.) But the Ashley spot is a no-go, with a Reelz honcho huffing and puffing to the New York Post about the tawdriness of it all. The marketer is used to this reaction by now, having had many of its commercials turned down, most notably for the Super Bowl. (Little surprise there, and no doubt that's why Ashley Madison even makes those high-profile attempts.) But for The Kennedys, which has had networks and advertisers running scared, Ashley Madison's low-tech spots about two-timing might've given viewers a bit of entertainment they apparently won't find in the miniseries. Critics have sliced it to ribbons, with The Hollywood Reporter's Tom Goodman calling it a "hamfisted mess." Good luck on those ratings!

Filed under AshleyMadison.com, Stanley, TV
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Teen wolves just not as carefree these days

In 1985, being a Teen Wolf meant surfing on the roof of a van and showboating at high-school basketball games. But judging by the trailer for MTV's series reboot of the Michael J. Fox comedy classic, lycanthropic life is a lot darker and more complicated in 2011. Your senses become magnified, your love life becomes dangerous, and worst of all, you sometimes feel you owe your entire existence to the Twilight franchise. Terrifying, indeed. But even with its angsty glares and exposed abs, the new Teen Wolf actually looks pretty good. And today's Teen Wolf still gets to showboat at high-school athletics. Too bad it's lacrosse, so no one will be in the stands to see it.

Filed under Griner, MTV, TV
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Tom Colicchio camps out in HBO food truck

HBO's Game of Thrones has hired celebrity chef and Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio to be the bread to its circus. All this week, Colicchio is serving free food (including meats like rabbit, duck, squab and venison) from trucks in NYC and LA. Each day's cuisine is based on a popular type of food from a fictional region in the medieval-fantasy series, which premieres April 17. Yesterday, it was Kings Landing, which meant crispy tout with almond butter and cumquat chutney, roasted rabbit with preserved lemons, honey, scallions and braised pistachios, and lemon-cake dessert. The only way to find out the menu and truck location is to follow the Game of Thrones Twitter feed. Food trucks are all the rage now in promotional marketing. But while I wasn't tempted by Air France's offer of free airline food, or the History Channel's Swamp People food truck, this stunt has me wishing, for once, that I lived in New York and not Atlanta. Of course, if this were super faithful to the Game of Thrones series, a couple of the portions will be poisoned.

Filed under Celebrity endorsements, Cullers, Food and drink, HBO, TV
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Tiny giraffes from DirecTV ads now for sale

Gregor the Russian billionaire might be the lead in DirecTV's "Opulence" and "Epic Win" ads from Grey New York, but we all know who the real star is—the miniature giraffe. And now you can reserve your own over at PetiteLapGiraffe.com, a brilliant site created for the (sadly, fake) Sokoblovsky Farms, "Russia's finest purveyor of Petite Lap Giraffes." You can watch a live cam of their "bull" giraffe, Vladimir, or look at photos of the cute little critters relaxing in the bubble bath. It's a great example of taking an awesome random detail from a TV campaign and running with it online. The site, concepted and built by Grey (with The Mill in New York handling special effects), offers lots of great tips on owning a tiny giraffe. "PLG's love being indoors in filtered air conditioning. If they can listen to music of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov it is dream," notes the copy, which is all humorously written in broken English. And look, they're tidy: "PLG's are very clean. With training they will go in box like cats. Allergies never a problem." Well, I'm sold. Too bad I'm No. 14,870 on the waiting list, with an expected delivery date 21,000 years in the future. Opulence—eventually, I will has it. Hat tip to Kristen Heptinstall on Twitter.

Filed under Animals, DirecTV, Grey, Griner, TV
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Man does 60 things in 60-second ad for DVR

This amusing DDB spot shows how the MySky DVR turns New Zealand husbands into the biggest wussies on the planet. (In contrast, DVRs make Aussies behave like dim blokes—dimmer than they already are, I mean.) The ad suggests "60 things in 60 seconds your husband could do instead of watching TV," because now he can record shows to watch later. Welcome to 2005 technology, New Zealand! Our emasculated hero's activities include cooking, cleaning, helping with the housework, exercising, taking bullfighting lessons, unclogging the sink, washing the dog (with a hose), washing the cat (with his tongue), massaging his wife's feet and brushing and braiding her hair. Whoa, is this dude whipped! The funniest segments show him shaving his chest and back. Nair's more effective—not that I'd know from experience. Now, if you'll excuse me, my wife's calling. *whip cracks*

Filed under DDB, Gianatasio, New Zealand, TV
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Why is Cindy Chandler pitching HughesNet?

As a rabid fan of the great sci-fi series Lost—my fiancée got me the six-season boxset for Chrismukkah—I still often think about that great finale. After the Smoke Monster wreaked havoc on the Temple, what became of the dwellers who sided with Smokey? Did they move on to a better place? Flash back (or forward?) to the other night, and I was flipping through my thousand DirecTV channels when I stumbled upon the commercial below for the HughesNet—a satellite-based high-speed Internet service. Innovative, I thought. The pitchlady seemed oddly familiar. Then it dawned on me who she was—former Oceanic 815 flight attendant Cindy Chandler, who, last we saw, had sided with everybody's favorite black column of smoke (who was in the form of John Locke). Given that HughesNet deals with satellites, the Internet and former Oceanic employees, this can only be an elaborate conspiracy to get HughesNet customers to go to the island. I guess there is life after Lost—at least for some.

Filed under HughesNet, Levith, TV
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Marketing predictions for 'DWTS' season 12

On Monday night, ABC announced the season-12 cast for Dancing with the Stars. The lineup—probably the weakest to date—features Sugar Ray Leonard, Hines Ward, Ralph Macchio, Chris Jericho, Lil' Romeo, Kendra Wilkinson, Kirstie Alley, Wendy Williams, Chelsea Kane, Petra Nemcova and Mike Catherwood. After the jump, Octagon First Call's David Schwab makes his predictions for the marketing potential of this year's dancers.

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Even Joe Buck hates Joe Buck in Fox spots

Everyone hates Joe Buck. This is an established truth, one that we've remarked on for years. The Fox broadcaster is so universally maligned, you expect his mother to publicly criticize him next. But no—now it is Joe who has been outed as a self-hater in Fox Sports Marketing's campaign for the network's Super Bowl telecast. The spots (directed by Smuggler's Renny Maslow and edited by Arcade Edit's Greg Scruton) feature Dr. Phil McGraw addressing a conflict on the Fox broadcasting team between those who've won Super Bowl rings and those who haven't. Buck, as one of the non-winners (aka losers), is labeled a self-hater. In Joe's defense, he denies loathing himself—though on Dr. Phil's show, of course, this simply means you do loathe yourself, plus you are in denial. The press release explains further: "Sure, Strahan, Terry, Howie, Jimmy, and Troy have rings upon rings, but the sniping and feelings of inadequacy coming from Joe, Curt, and Frank has got to come to a stop." Here's hoping Joe will be somewhat less inadequate than usual come Sunday. Three more clips after the jump.

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Filed under Fox, NFL, Nudd, Super Bowl, TV
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CW sacrificing subtlety for 'Vampire Diaries'

The CW doesn't seem worried about collateral damage from being in the blast area around MTV's Skins. As the latter watches a sixth advertiser (Schick) run scared from its hammered, naked teenagers, the former is pressing ahead with yet another bluntly moronic promo campaign based around annoying wordplay. In the tradition of Gossip Girl's "OMFG" spots, the CW is now promoting Vampire Diaries with the lines "Catch VD" and "Got wood?" Classy, as always. By many accounts, Vampire Diaries is a decent show. Does it need a bottom-feeding ad campaign?

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Piers Morgan, dog-eat-dog celeb interviewer

CNN is betting a lot on Piers Morgan, whom the network has installed on Larry King's old throne. The company's PR department bombards me with a half dozen updates on him every day. (The latest mentioned in passing that CNN is covering the State of the Union. Well, I should hope so.) But the fact is, the British interviewer (seen above in a not-Photoshopped ad for Burger King) has an uphill road to climb if he wants to become an American TV personality on par with top celebrity interlocutors like Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey. In fact, Morgan made a bet with Oprah, his first guest, that he would get the first you-better-cry interview with Michael Vick, the football star and reformed dog killer. Looks like Morgan will probably lose that £200 bet. (Someone tell him we gamble in dollars here, please.) Vick yesterday said he's interested in doing Oprah's show, according to Eagles beat reporter Jeff McLane. Morgan? "I don't even know who that guy is," Vick said. Ouch. Chin up, old boy.

Filed under CNN, Morrissey, Piers Morgan, TV
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Donny Deutsch becoming Bravo's love guru

Bravo is getting another millionaire matchmaker in sometime adman Donny Deutsch, who will reinvent himself as a relationship expert as host of an upcoming show called Love Live. The live, half-hour program will premiere as a special at the end of January, with the potential of becoming a regular series, reports the New York Post. As the paper points out, Deutsch's expertise in terms of relationships may derive mostly from having been in lots of them. (He's been married twice, for starters.) On the new show, the 53-year-old ex-host of MSNBC's The Big Idea will field questions from Skype, Twitter and e-mail and dispense wisdom to the lovelorn. In that regard, we presume he'll return to a favorite mantra repeatedly: When in doubt, take off the shirt.

Filed under Deutsch, Nudd, Speedo, TV
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HBO's shows: Do not attempt them at home

Folks use crazy costumes and kooky contraptions to re-create scenes from True Blood, Entourage and Eastbound & Down at home in seasonal spots by BBDO (and director Tim Godsall of Biscuit Filmworks) for boxed sets of HBO's top series. The Eastbound & Down clip is probably the best, because it's the most raunchy. But why build a dopey home theater with vampire cutouts to connect with your girlfriend? Just do what I do: Bite her on the neck a few times. The campaign includes a Make Your Own HBO microsite, so you can play the fool as well. See the other two ads after the jump.

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Filed under BBDO, Gianatasio, HBO, TV
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Norway TV promo packs in D-list celebrities

Norwegian TV show Golden Times brought together a random group of D-list celebrities to sing "Let It Be" in this bizarre promo. The show itself involves interviewing fading celebrities about what they've done, so the spot works from a thematic standpoint, and it is nice to see David Faustino again. It's also really sad that he a) is still coasting on his Married ... With Children role, and b) somehow thought he was singing "Let It Be" for charity. But show business never claimed to make sense. Hearing Tonya Harding sing will keep me awake at night, though. Ditto George Wendt, but only because he can actually sing.

Filed under Celebrity endorsements, Europe, Kiefaber, TV
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DirecTV's robots make a mess of your home

This DirecTV spot from Grey New York, with the robots rampaging through a guy's house as he quietly fetches a bowl of ice cream, is visually awesome—and expertly highlights the product feature of watching and pausing live TV from room to room. Imagine how great it would be, though, if these cyborgs trashed the "Opulence, I has it" guy's house. You'd have gold busts, poker-playing dogs and mail-order brides flying everywhere. MJZ's Rupert Sanders, whose previous credits include the Halo 3 "Believe" spot, directed the new ad.

Filed under DirecTV, Grey, Nudd, TV
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Hairy toddler Hoff promos A&E reality show

Did you know A&E were making a reality series about David Hasselhoff and his two daughters, who are "aspiring singers"? Well, they are. And to promote the Dec. 5 premiere, they've rolled out this clip from Digital Kitchen showing a pint-size Hoff trucking down the beach, the ocean breeze gently caressing his toddler chest hair, as hot women look on. "Some people are born awesome," says the tagline. They later devolve to where they drunkenly eat burgers off the floor, but that's OK. The Hoff is badly in need of mothering at every age, so this promo is right on. Look out, Huggies jeans-diaper boy. There's a new kid in town.

Filed under A&E, David Hasselhoff, Digital Kitchen, Nudd, TV
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Obama learns Arabic for French TV channel

A French TV station is promoting its new Arabic broadcasts by showing mock footage of President Obama, Bill Gates, Queen Elizabeth II and Chinese president Hu Jintao learning the Arabic language. Obama supposedly doesn't know a foreign language—something he has called "embarrassing" in the past. But at this point, Arabic probably wouldn't be his first choice—given that certain segments of the media already wonder "if the president hasn't been concealing some greater fluency with the language of the Koran." See the other three spots after the jump. Via Ads of the World.

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Filed under Barack Obama, Europe, Nudd, Politics, TV
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Conan drives explosives-packed car off cliff

This is more like it. After 22 previous promos, and some mucking around with a huge orange blimp, Conan O'Brien is finally getting serious about promoting his upcoming TBS show. And that means filling a 1969 Dodge Dart with illegal fireworks from New Hampshire and unpopped popcorn, dousing it with gasoline and driving it off a cliff. Two words: bad ass.

Filed under Conan O'Brien, Nudd, TBS, TV
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Christ, not another five TBS spots for Conan

Is this getting to be too much Conan? It probably is. After the five new blimp spots this morning, Team Coco just released another five O'Brien promos—four in which he goofs off for the camera, and one where he's sitting at his desk waiting for Nov. 8 to get here already. That makes 22 promos so far. We've now put them all on one page. Have at it.

Filed under Conan O'Brien, Nudd, TBS, TV
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Conan moving his TBS campaign to a blimp

TBS is humorously connecting its upcoming Conan O'Brien show to its Major League Baseball playoff coverage by introducing the Conan blimp—a bright-orange dirigible that will lurk over baseball stadiums up and down the East Coast this month. The campaign also includes promos with O'Brien and the blimp's pilot bantering inside the blimp. AT&T is sponsoring the whole thing (going so far as to annoyingly bake a short commercial right into the blimp-intro video). See four more blimp clips after the jump, and all the previous Conan promos here.

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Filed under Conan O'Brien, Nudd, TBS, TV
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Conan O'Brien pulls a Paris Hilton in TBS ad

It might not be quite as hot as Paris Hilton washing a Bentley for Carl's Jr., but Conan O'Brien does his best soap work in this sudsy TBS promo, washing his desk in preparation for his new show, premiering Nov. 8. Also, check out two more "Missing You" promos after the jump—making 11 in total, following these four and these five.

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Filed under Conan O'Brien, Nudd, TBS, TV
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Shaggy blue monsters learn to use the DVR

A shaggy blue monster family (called the Spenglers, for some reason) who just moved to England from America star in WCRS's new sitcom-style campaign for BSkyB's Sky+ DVR services. Campaign compares them to the beasts in Where the Wild Things Are, but this gang is much more annoying, grousing about missing their favorite shows and complaining that assimilation in the U.K. means buying food in supermarkets instead of eating the neighbors. Here in the U.S., we shoot the neighbors. We also get our food from supermarkets—we just rob them. Do the research, mates! Spenglers? Where did that come from? The school spot is below; see the grocery-store spot after the jump.

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Filed under Europe, Gianatasio, TV, WCRS
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L.A. Times readers livid at full-front-page ad

If the Los Angeles Times thought it was a good idea to pass off a grisly Law & Order: Los Angeles advertisement as the front page of its newspaper on Wednesday, they were the only ones. Reader e-mails and phone calls were nearly unanimous in their distaste for the ad's placement, prompting a response from the Times that will probably just piss them off even further. The paper's vp for communications, Nancy Sullivan, claimed that "this is an exciting, innovative ad that takes the show's beloved, 20-year 'ripped from the headlines' concept and puts it front and center for Southern California." Uh, no. While we all appreciate the weak spin, back on planet Earth this came off as a grasping commercial decision made in poor taste at the cost of some of their already-dwindling readership. Just because the show rips off current headlines doesn't mean it should replace them. Unfortunately, this is just the latest in a string of ads disguised as editorial in the Times.

Filed under Controversy, Kiefaber, NBC, Newspapers, TV
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TV spots fool Canadians into eating broccoli

The Television Bureau of Canada has been blowing its own horn after revealing that a campaign by Toronto agency John St. was a hoax. Excuse me, an experiment. The ads (one below, two more after the jump) touted the "miraculous" nutritional value of broccoli and ran for five weeks earlier this year—but they weren't for broccoli at all. They were intended to prove that TV advertising can sell anything. And indeed, broccoli sales in the Great White Wasteland apparently shot up 8 percent. That's impressive, but there's not much else to do in Canada besides eat broccoli, is there? Plus, the stuff's healthy and relatively cheap—it's not like pitching overpriced minivans. And I suspect any mass-media campaign for anything broadcast anywhere would have some effect if it suddenly filled a void. Besides, if TV advertising's biggest boast is that it can sell lots of broccoli in Canada, the Internet has nothing to worry about. Now, pass the baby carrots!

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Filed under Canada, Food and drink, Gianatasio, John St., TV
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More lovesick losers pine for Conan's return

We posted a handful of these "Missing You" Conan O'Brien promos last week. Here are five more, in which desperately lonely people pine for their ginger prince, who returns to the air Nov. 8 on TBS.

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Filed under Conan O'Brien, Nudd, TBS, TV
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