iCity: UK

UK

Go places. Music is original.

Advertising Agency: Paragon Marketing Communications, Kuwait
Via: Adblogarabia

Quiznos: Evil hand

Evil hand

Advertising Agency: Cliff Freeman and Partners, New York, USA
Creative Director: Tom Christmann
Art Director: Kristen Koop
Copywriter: Jeff St. Jean
Editor: Tony Chang
Aired: July 2008

Levi’s: Moonwalker

Moonwalker

Advertising Agency: Cutwater, USA

Dare coffee: Responsible

Responsible

Advertising Agency: BMF Sydney, Australia
Executive Creative Director: Warren Brown
Creative Director: Simon Langley
Art Director: Nils Eberhardt
Copywriter: Benn Sutton
Business Directors / Account Directors: David Flanagan, Simon Jarvis
Strategic Planner: Gareth Cooper
Media Agency: Starcom

Science Dolls – Particle Physics Gets all Cute and Fuzzy (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) From the mind of artist and “particle zoologist” Julie Peasley comes the cutest, fuzziest pack of critters to come out of a particle accelerator this side of the Atlantic. 

PhD physicist Derek van Westrum…

Ear Piercing Maintenance – The ‘Lobe Wonder’ Saves Your Ears

(TrendHunter.com) Ear piercing maintenance? I normally don’t pay much attention to beauty trends, but the before and after picture is pretty influential. It appears that these patches can help to save a great deal of…

Electronic Ink Publishing Almost Here?


Readius reader. Image: NYTimes.com

You might have seen one of yesterday’s top tech stories about sales predictions for the Kindle e-reader (378K to be sold in ’08). If true, it’s a good news for Amazon, but also an important development for the publishing industry, and by extention, the ad biz.

During the first couple of years of this blog, I’ve posted fairly often about various applications of the electronic ink technology: from newspapers to packaging and price tags. Then the interest subsided, mostly because few of those prototypes seemed to be anywhere close to being widely marketed. Now, it again looks like the technology might take off if recent developments are any indication.

First, the cover on 100,000 retail copies of September’s Esquire will be printed (if printed is the right word here) in electronic ink, according to a recent NYTimes story. Esquire’s publisher, Hearst, had invested in E Ink and “has exclusive use of E Ink’s technology for use in print through 2009.”

Second, while the current crop of electronic readers is not terribly exciting, there are new and seemingly better devices almost around the corner.

It’s been a while since I last read a fiction paperback, getting my fix instead off a PC screen from lib.ru and Gutenberg. I’d welcome a reader, though, and the few things I’m looking for in such a device are a not-too-fancy but reasonably sized screen (long-form reading off an iPhone is no fun), a battery life sufficient for a coast-to-coast flight, portability and the ability to fit on my lap in an airplane or a bus (laptops are hard to open at a good angle), relative sturdiness, and support for common formats (txt, pdf and html) and foreign alphabets.

Understandably, I was anxious to get my hands on Kindle, but important as it is for bringing the electronic ink to the masses, it was a disappointment in its current iteration.

While Kindle looks much better in person than on pictures and has a few nifty things going for it — the built-in net connectivity that you don’t have to configure, for example — its many usability peculiarities make it hard to love. I could never get used to the back button which is like clicking “back” while looking at a Flash object in a web browser, and I couldn’t understand why you need two differently functioning buttons for “Back” and “Last page”. Getting your own files onto the device requires too high of a learning curve and I’m not sure if it supports other languages.

One device I’m looking forward to is Readius (pictured above), which is supposed to launch in the States in 2009, and will have a rollable 5″ screen. (NYTimes wrote about the device last month.)

Gadget Waterproofing – ‘Golden Shellback Coating’ Waterproofs Cellphones, iPods & Laptops (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) Golden Shellback Splashproof coatings mean that you no longer need to worry about your precious gadgets getting ruined by water damage.  The coating gives the devices a water repellent barrier, which means…

Easily Misinterpreted Ads – KFC Waiters With Mouths Taped

Check out these KFC ads.  At first, you probably think of the AIDS “Speak no Evil” campaign which featured celebrities with their mouths taped. This could be interpreted as the KFC staff not being able…

Benetton Uses Prayer to Stitch Up Chinese/Tibetan Differences

benetton-china-tibet.jpg

One thing I love about Benetton: it never knows when to leave well enough alone. “Victims,” the current issue of its company magazine Colors, uses the tragedy of the SouthWest China earthquake to try mending the China/Tibetan conflict.

If the Olympics Can’t Unite Mankind, What Will?

visa-come-together.jpg

The Olympics has a way of bringing the sap out in advertisers.

Coke Learned Nothing From the Diet Coke/Mentos Phenomenon

cocacola_cap.JPG

Because Coke’s My Coke Rewards was performing dismally, some employees – all of whom were expressly forbidden at the outset – were asked to participate in the brand’s My Coke rewards online promotions.

Vintage Photo Makers – Wanokoto Labs (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) Wanokoto Labs offer a neat website that allows you to age any photo by 100-150 years with just a couple of clicks. Sure beats having to use PhotoShop, that is, if you even have it.

You don’t even need…

Weight Loss Lip Gloss – FUZE Slenderize by Too Faced Cosmetics (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) Cosmetics company ‘Too Faced’ developed ‘FUZE Slenderize’ lip gloss inspired by Fuze energy drinks and has added to their label ‘Guilt Free’.

Okay I ask, when have you ever felt ‘guilty’ applying lip…

Easily Misinterpreted Ads – KFC Waiters With Mouths Taped (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) Check out these KFC ads.  At first, you probably think of the AIDS “Speak no Evil” campaign which featured celebrities with their mouths taped. This could be interpreted as the KFC staff not being able…

Britney Spears Come Backs (Take 2) – VMA’s Released Promo Spot (VIDEO)

(TrendHunter.com) It seems like MTV wants to give Britney another chance, especially after her brutal act for the song ‘Gimme More’ last year. The pop sensation took part in the VMA’s promo ad, along with its host Russell…

Mother UK Wins Stella’s Weaker Brew

ws_Stella_Artois_Earth_1440x900.jpg

We’ve confirmed with Mother UK reps that the matriarchal agency has won a Stella Artois project for InBev, over incumbent agency Lowe London. Brand Republic reports that TBWA was also involved in the review.

The project is for a special brew of Stella, which only contains 4 percent alcohol by volume. Stella may be tasty, but it’s no chocolate malt. Less alcohol means the beer isn’t brewed as long, which results in a different flavor. Stella light?

Comments (View)

function() {
links = document.getElementsByTagName(‘a’);
query = ‘?’;
for(var i = 0; i = 0) {
query += ‘url’ + i + ‘=’ + encodeURIComponent(links[i].href) + ‘&’;
}
}
document.write(”);
})();

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

Ice Cream to Catch a Predator

icecreamtocatchapredator.jpg

Some advertising hoaxes are funny, some are just disturbing. The above pic is a fake Breyer’s ad that was making the rounds a couple of years ago. I recently got a few email forwards about it, so it must be making the rounds again. Thankfully it is indeed a fake.

Comments (View)

function() {
links = document.getElementsByTagName(‘a’);
query = ‘?’;
for(var i = 0; i = 0) {
query += ‘url’ + i + ‘=’ + encodeURIComponent(links[i].href) + ‘&’;
}
}
document.write(”);
})();

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

I Never Want to See this Again.

Honda’s ‘Last Comic Driving’ Promo Gets Pre-Empted


NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Who was this season's winner of NBC's "Last Comic Standing"? If you live in New York, and haven't bothered to look it up online, you may not know. And that means most viewers in the nation's No. 1 TV market didn't see a special promotion from Honda specifically designed to go along with the NBC summer reality series.