LONDON – The extra-terrestrial communication project, ‘A Message From Earth’, set up by social networking site Bebo and production company RDF is to be made into a TV show due to its ongoing success.
With the U.S. government scrounging $85 billion from the couch cushions to save insurance and investment giant AIG, it’s hard not to laugh at ads featuring the company’s tagline, “The strength to be there.” The TV spots, in rotation since 2007, feature kids chastising their parents for entrusting their future to things like corporate pensions, when they could apparently (and unwittingly) be dumping their life savings into subprime mortgages over at AIG. Check out three of the ads over on Consumerist. (Wall Street Fighter has a bunch as well.) Maybe it’s not too late for AIG to hitch itself to a new tagline for its bright new future. If they hurry, maybe they can beat Jim Cramer to trademarking the phrase, “We’re all communists now.”
—Posted by David Griner
LONDON – The New York Times and International Herald Tribune are to feature Breakingviews, the syndicated financial opinion column, in their weekday editions from next week.
LONDON – BBC One’s ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ powered on with 6.4m viewers in primetime last night, as Channel 4’s update of the original ‘fly on the wall’ series ‘The Family’ brought in 2.7m, according to unofficial overnight figures.
LONDON – Universal McCann became the first media agency in five years to win an award at the Euro Effie’s last night, picking up the Bronze-Euro Effie for its work on its now defunct Intel account.
LONDON – Trafficlink UK and UBC Media have signed a three-year deal to supply traffic and travel to Jazz FM, the soon-to-relaunch radio station.
LONDON – Quiet Storm has been appointed to handle the advertising account for Red Stripe in Jamaica after a two-way competitive pitch.
LONDON – A new price comparison website that targets disabled web users has launched, promising to make charitable donations for every transaction that it processes.
LONDON – Blinkx, the video search engine, launched a web-based version of its broadband television offering today (Thursday), enabling consumers to use BBTV without downloading software.
(TrendHunter.com) At the risk of making Trend Hunting look easy (it’s not) I simply stumbled across the site of a photographer known as Mr Means and was totally struck by the style of his work and the portraits in his portfolio.…
LONDON – Google has launched a version of its maps service for mobile devices, now incorporating the street-level imagery of Street View.
LONDON – Orange is to spend £2.6m on an ad campaign for its RockCorps programme, which encourages young people to volunteer and get involved in charity projects.
LONDON – Lloyds TSB’s £12.2bn rescue plan for HBOS raises speculation on how it will deal with the extensive overlap of banking and insurance brands in their two portfolios. As well as principal banking brands of Lloyds TSB and Halifax, the company has a number of rival insurance brands such as Scottish Widows and Clerical Medical.
LONDON – Ed Richards, the Ofcom chief executive, has said the BBC’s core programme and services budget will not be harmed by any of the three options he outlined to reform the current “broken” public service broadcasting model.
“Hello, I’m a PC, and I’ve been made into a stereotype,” says a John Hodgman lookalike into the camera, dressed in brown suitjacket and tie, against an all white backdrop. Yep, this is the next phase of Microsoft’s $300 million advertising campaign and they are going straight for Apples “Mac vs PC”. This won’t be the entire campaign though, how would that look if your campaign was built around spoofing another – instead they are making lots of different ads to appeal to different people. Commercials featuring author Deepak Chopra, singer Pharrell Williams and actress Eva Longoria are set to hit the small screen soon. The tagline: “Windows. Life without walls” is the ribbon to tie all of this together – and it’s actually making some sense now as we read in the New York Times that David Webster, general manager for brand marketing said:
“They’ve made a caricature out of the PC,” he added, which was unacceptable because “you always want to own your own story.”
So, out come the “regular joes” who aren’t so regular as ads stars “everyday PC users, from scientists and fashion designers to shark hunters and teachers, all of whom affirm, in fast-paced, upbeat vignettes, their pride in using the computers that run on Microsoft operating systems and software”… Oh wait, this is beginning to sound like all other testimonial campaigns, ever. Hmmm. If they only shoot the hands I’d think it was a campaign for HP laptops. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how this turns out, though I admit that I’m already liking the Hodgman spoof. Hodgman rules though, you don’t mess with the Hodgman!
See website to go with campaign: Life without walls
When it comes to educating the public about sex, nobody beats the French for racy entertainment value. But RFSU, the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education, comes pretty close.
(TrendHunter.com) You use VoIP, right? Most of you will say yes, but if you’re asking, “What is VoIP?” then I’m guessing you’re also one of those people who still has a giant retro car phone laying aroudn, so it’s time…
When you’ve got nostalgia on your side, you’d be damn silly not to take advantage.
(TrendHunter.com) Family Tree by Bobby Neel Adams is a creative photography project that explores the human body and the process of aging.
Adams uses collage techniques without the aid of photoshop to study the physical…
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.
