LONDON – A television ad for Nutella has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority, after receiving more than 50 complaints, for misleading viewers by claiming the chocolate spread could be part of a ‘balanced breakfast’.
LONDON – A TV ad for Premier League broadcaster Setanta Sports, which used the expression ‘puppies’ as a euphemism for women’s breasts, has been cleared by the advertising watchdog despite 36 complaints.
As HBOS unveils a mixed message in its results, Stephen Foster wonders if its marketing is to blame while senior economists continue to tempt a downturn with their gloom and doom pronouncments.
Gamespot’s Dubious Honors Awards for despicable use of in-game advertising:
2004 (Need for Speed Underground)
2005 (SWAT 4, where the dynamic in-game ads made one of the first appearances)
2006 (Fight Night Round 3, a boxing game with the Burger King’s King in it)
2007 (Need for Speed ProStreet):
“Need for Speed ProStreet isn’t exactly an example of in-game advertising restraint. Playing the game offline isn’t all that offensive, but as soon as you jump on to Xbox Live, the deluge begins. The game has dynamic ads that start downloading the very first time you get online. What’s worse and even more ridiculous is that the game’s Xbox Live achievement points have ads attached to them. That’s right, even the achievements in this game are brought to you by a commercial sponsor.” Video review of the game below.
Also note the readers’ choice selections as well as nominees.
Yes, the mysterious Real Ray site turned out to be a Coke campaign based on the charming GTA-styled TV spot. They did send out a couple of clues by email over the past month in an attempt to make it ARG-like.
The Generator X – Beyond the Screen event i mentioned earlier involved a series of talks by artists, architects and designers. I went to the second evening of public presentations, liked everything i saw and heard but i’ll just focus on a few projects mentioned by Aram Bartholl (here’s his website but it’s his blog that gets my vote) because 1. i had missed all his other talks so far and 2. haha! i’ve lost the notes i took during the other talks.
Sascha posted a write-up of a talk Aram gave almost a year ago about the way his work looks for connections between the virtual world and the physical one so i’ll just take the story from here and focus on the artist’s latest projects.
Chat, presented at ars electronica, the 24th Chaos Communication Congress and more recently at Club Transmediale is a mobile performance that allows 2 participants to send each other text messages, like in World of Warcraft or Second Life. As soon as they’ve been entered, the texts appear in comic-strip-like balloons above the speaker’s head.
In 3D worlds, chatting contrasts with chat “rooms” as the online form of conversation has been re-endowed with a spatial dimension: the typed-in message appears in a dialogue bubble above the avatar’s head and follows their proxy on its way through the virtual world. Other players within a certain range can read these messages and, in turn, can type an answer on their own bubble. Chat translates this form of conversation into the physical, public sphere.
Aram reminded how much is about money in Second Life and how this might explain its success. In the vitual island, you can make money out of data thanks to the digital right managements embedded into the game.
For the Second City project that ars electronica commissioned him last Summer, Aram invited other artists and turned a part of a deserted shopping street into an exhibition space that was focusing on physical representations of the virtual world.
One of the projects developed in Marienstrassen allowed passersby to walk in a “shopping panel” and buy a Trabi or any other good for their avatar and get a laser cut plastic token in the shape of the object purchased as a receipt
Another project part of Second City was Export to World. Created by Linda Kostowski and Sascha Pohflepp, the workshop commented ironically on the design and production of merchandise in virtual worlds. Their shop offered custom-made or purchased virtual objects. Shoppers would enter and buy the object of their choice at a price determined daily by the current Linden dollar/euro exchange rate. Instead of seeing the good suddenly appearing in their inventory, purchasers would receive a 2D paper representation of it which they could manually cut and shape into a 3D model of that object. The final results are paper representations of digital representations of real objects, including all the flaws that copying entails.
The Bubbagum machine was particularly impressive as this real photography seemed to have been photoshop’d. It wasn’t, that’s the real effect of a paper virtual bubble gum machine. Not sure i’m expressing myself very clearly here…
Export to Life, Bubbagum machine
Anyway, Aram ended his presentation with this slide of a project he is working on: WoW weapons which he plans to carry around the city. Just the thought of such a performance taking place somewhere in Curry Wurst Paradise makes me say once again that this city is the best place on earth.
UPI, March 29, 1989:
“The Soviet Union has signed a deal to sell advertising space—in space, of all places.
The Tass news agency said Wednesday that Glavkosmos, the Soviet commercial space agency, signed a contract with a Swiss firm that includes selling advertising space on cosmonauts’ space suits and painting two 6-by-9-foot advertising messages on the hull of the orbiting Mir space station.
Besides the advertising patches on the space suits and the outdoor space billboards, clients will have the opportunity to have a 3-minute commercial filmed by cosmonauts onboard the Mir.”
Earlier:
This is from an article on BBC back in 2007: “Researchers from Mid Sweden University have constructed an interactive paper billboard that emits recorded sound in response to a user’s touch. The prototype display uses conductive inks, which are sensitive to pressure, and printed speakers.
The key to the billboard’s capabilities is a layer of digital paper that is embedded with electronics. This is printed with conductive inks, which, when applied with pressure, relay information to a micro-computer that contains recorded audio files. Sound then streams out from printed speakers, which are formed from more layers of conductive inks that sit over an empty cavity to form a diaphragm.”
Would make nice packaging. Or talking money, whispering “Spend me.”.
From the creative media planning department: an ad for a mattress company on Brazilian TV’s test card after the end of the day’s programming. (via Ads of the World).
And below is what one of the first test cards ever looked like (from Test Card Gallery, an amazing site with lots of history and test cards from around the world).
The Super Bowl has come and gone. There were some good ads and there were some stupid ones (like the Planters nut perfume ad… creeeepy). Being in the industry, I find that we can be harsh critics, note example above. When ad (brand) people get together to watch ads the gloves come off. Good ads have to pass the scrutiny of insiders who share a love for the craft. That last statement is mostly true for award shows. In reality ad people are a cynical bunch who can find something wrong with perfection because we know it is an oxymoron in this line of work. We don’t hate everything, just most things that suck. It’s difficult to gauge what ad people like and what they are going to piss on. One moment they could be laughing enjoying themselves, the next moment they take turns jabbing someone else’s baby(creative work). If you’ve ever wanted to see elusive ad people in their native environment, here’s your chance. The footage you are about to see gives you a rare glimpse into what happens when ad kids attack.
In case you missed these figures this morning, two reports were released today pegging the size of internet advertising
The Internet Advertising Bureau released their annual report this morning estimating the 2007 US internet ad spend at $21.1 billion, representing roughly a 25% increase over 2006’s figures (roughly $16.9 billion if memory serves correctly).
Meanwhile, the Kelsey Group released their annual report estimating the global internet ad spend at $45 billion (their US estimation was $22.5 billion) and forecasting $147 billion in online ad spend by 2012.
Thats a lot of cash, but I also think $147 billion is a little bit of wishful thinking. Just looking at the state of advertising on the web (and via other digital outlets such as Second Life), the internet’s signal to noise ratio would be seriously crippled if the only means to get to that result were increased ad placement.
It’s a hit-or-miss affair for brands hoping to break in.
Hunting season has come early this year in Malaysia as speculation is rife that The Star – Malaysia’s leading English-language newspaper – is poised to take over The Sun, its closest rival.
There’s nothing that Ivy Wong likes better than a challenge, and she got her wish by joining TVB.com.
Christoph Peter-Isenbuerger dislikes telling people what to do, but he knows what the brand wants.
At a glance, NTT DoCoMo appears to be a notable success story.
Can Lowe India’s newly-appointed chief executive succeed where other expats haven’t dared to venture?
Asia might be notoriously shy when it comes to sex, but that’s changing.
Cookie cutter houses and neighborhoods are as common as cookie cutter Realtors in pant suits. They have mean handshakes and aren’t afraid to use them. A single sale can produce generous margins, enough to stock up on bland business cards that feature stock image houses and executive photos of themselves. Some agents are bold. They’ll even create magnetic calendar versions of their cards just in case we forget what month it is when we’re reaching for a midnight snack. Why not create a huge billboard identical to your business card? Because when I decide to buy a house, nothing says “buy†like a yearbook photo and a phone number. I have nothing against these peddlers of the American dream who provide a much needed service. I do have something against business as usual. The housing market is where it is because of lender over-speculation and loan baiting. Real estate agents aren’t bad people, just bad marketers in the advertising award show sense. Now that people are buying less square feet if any at all, real estate agents have to work harder for their cut. Those in the know will work smarter. There is some hope for the industry. I found a real estate ad that appeared to have a concept and even appealed to a specific target.
I found the ad in RVA magazine, a local Richmond artsy community publication. They have designers who create ads that fit the magazine’s image. In this competitive landscape (wink wink) agents around the country can benefit from a little creative risk, at least until the market gets better. In an unrelated note, Richmond area home values are on the rise.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
