If you want to see The Shining in a whole new way, check out this tracking shot of lovingly reproduced sets from the movie. It’s a promotion for The Stanley Kubrick Season on Britain’s Channel 4, and it’s also a fine bit of short cinema on its own. Via YesButNoButYes.
—Posted by David Griner
Which network would air an animated sitcom featuring NPR’s Car Talk guys as characters named Click and Clack talking about “social and environmental†issues? Oh, please God, let it be Fox. Or at least Comedy Central or Turner’s Adult Swim. Those nets are inspired (and evil) enough to handle such fare with the postmodern disdain it deserves. But if the network is PBS … d’oh, it is PBS! The show’s called As the Wrench Turns. Per the AP: “Storylines include Click and Clack’s loony fundraising efforts for their bankrupt radio network—which involves their joint run for the White House—plus outsourcing their radio show to India and creating the first-ever pasta-fueled motor vehicle.†(Hard to believe from that synopsis that Wrench suffered multiple rejections and took about seven years to get into production.) The series “plays out like a family-friendly Family Guy or The Simpsons,†which is one too many uses of the word “family†in the same sentence for the show to be any good. Maud Flanders must be rolling in her grave. After all these years, I still can’t believe they killed her off. Worst episode ever.
—Posted by David Gianatasio
LONDON – Top Up TV, the paid-for service available on Freeview, has signed a deal with Warner Bros to bring shows from the Hollywood studio to its video-on-demand offer.
LONDON – Touch – the urban music magazine produced by The Colour House – has closed following what it described as “shrinking advertising revenues”.
LONDON – Platform A, the umbrella unit for AOL’s ad businesses, has forged a deal with sister company Turner to handle online display sales for several TV channels.
LONDON РBauer Consumer Media has promoted FHM business director Rimi Atwal to the new role of publisher of Top Sant̩ and the parenting portfolio, which covers Mother & Baby and Pregnancy & Birth.
You’d think it couldn’t be done, the “Lowering of dignity” bit that is, but the annoying ringtone with the equally annoying ad from Peach mobile which shows president Robert Mugabe as a caged gorilla has been canned. Peachmobile protested, saying that they had a constitutional “right to mock Mugabe because he is a despot.” (From The Times: ‘Racist’ ringtone advert banned)
The ASA found, “… the respondent is infringing on the rights of Robert Mugabe by portraying him in an offensive an undignified manner and as such the commercial is demeaning and lowering Robert Mugabe’s dignity. A hypothetical reasonable person would be offended on viewing the commercial as it unnecessarily and intentionally demeans Robert Mugabe.”
The ASA ordered that the commercial be withdrawn immediately.
LONDON – UK consumers are actively seeking out coupon promotions as a result of an increase in the cost of living.
Bizbash reports that to promote the new Eddie Murphie movie “Meet Dave” 20th Century Fox took a 15-foot-tall foam head on a cross-country tour in the US.
“The sell [for the movie] has always been Eddie Murphy in Eddie Murphy. Eddie as the vessel and Eddie as the captain of the vessel,” said Iannelli. This concept was key as the movie centers on Dave Ming Chang—a human-shaped ship—that is controlled by a miniature crew of aliens.
This explains this photograph, where people can walk into Eddie Murphy’s giant head (how Malkovich) and hang out in his ears. Ew, gross. But if you ever wanted to get inside the head of a celeb, I guess this is your chance America.
LONDON – Online fashion retailer ASOS.com partners with marketing software provider smartFOCUS as part of aggressive growth plans
Chinese women, like me, prefer being fair skinned, to the point they even carry umbrella’s around to shade their faces from the sun. I’m hiding in giant hats on the beach to avoid ten bazillion freckles, but they’re just following their own ideas of style (pale being ‘classier’ than any orange spray on tan – can’t we all agree that it is?).
Taking their target markets avoidance of sunlight to heart, Ponds demonstrate what Pond’s white beauty UV protectant cream does – it hides you from the sun. I’d want some, if I didn’t know any better and actually have to slap on spf 50 every day – UV protect creams are wussy, Swedish southern sun is not. 😉 That said, this is a cute execution, printing extra long posters that fold over themselves – with the logo and Ponds packaging printed on the other side, to create a natural shadow. (alternative view inside)
LONDON – Microsoft has revealed it would consider proceeding with an acquisition of Yahoo if its shareholders elect a new board next month.
GCap Media-owned Capital 95.8 has signed a sponsorship deal with make-up brand Rimmel London to support its summer series of music events.
LONDON – UBC Media Group is close to securing the future of its music download service Cliq after it secured a deal to offer the service via DAB radios Âmanufactured by Imagination Technologies.”
LONDON – AOL has signed a deal to bring Turner Media Innovations online display advertising inventory, which includes the Cartoon Network channel, under the umbrella of its Platform-A online ad division.
LONDON – Wells & Young’s, the UK brewery, has redesigned its Waggle Dance brand to emphasise the ale’s honey flavour and position it as a quirky and distinctive beer.
Former Burson-Marsteller CEO Chris Komisarjevsky has joined rivals Edelman as a strategic adviser to president and CEO Richard Edelman.
LONDON – PublicisLive, the Geneva-based events division of Publicis Groupe, has won a seven-year contract with the World Economic Forum to organise the annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
LONDON – WCRS has created a series of digital escalator panels to highlight 118 118’s evolution from a numbers service to a questions-answered service.
From DDB New Zealand comes this reminder that the Rubik’s cube has been driving us all nuts for 25 years. Some are more obsessed with solving them than others….
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