Hasta La Creative!

LONDON – Depressed? Lonely? Don’t worry: help is at hand. Coca-Cola is appointing three ‘happiness ambassadors’ to travel the world and spread their happiness and enthusiasm wherever they go.

LONDON – Fallon is launching a limited edition scarf, designed by Giles Deacon, to tie-in with its Cadbury Caramel Nibbles print campaign featuring the Cadbury Caramel Bunny.

“Amnesty’s flame is in danger worldwide. Defend it. Buy a candle or make a donation.”

Advertising Agency: Air, Brussels Belgium
Creative Directors: Gregory Ginterdaele, Marie-Laure Cliquennois
Art Director: Marie-Laure Cliquennois
Copywriter: Quentin Watelet
Photographer: Marc Paeps and Stock images
Retouching: Yelle@livingroom.be
Published: October 2009

It must be slow in the Capital these days; it seems that although our world is going crazy, the president and his staff have taken time out to wage a media attack on Fox News, making the rounds on all the Sunday morning talk shows, with one glaring exception: Fox. The gloves were certainly off as Obama’s team struck back at Fox News accusing the network of opinionated reporting. Some of the quotes from the barrage include:

Fox is “not really a news station,” said David Axelrod.

Fox, said Rahm Emmanuel, “is is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective.”
They also urged the other networks not to treat Fox News as a news station because the White House certainly did not think of Fox as news-oriented. A week ago, communications director Anita Dunn opened the White House offensive on Fox on a Sunday show: “Let’s not pretend they’re a news organization like CNN is.”  She then stated that Fox was the communications arm for the Republican Party.

The cable news networks are highly competitive, and Fox is not only the second highest- watched cable TV network, but it carries 9 of the top 10 cable news shows as of Q1 of 2009. Despite the heavy competition, the White House’s attack has actually begun to backfire.

Helen Thomas, the senior White House reporter in Washington (serving from JFK to
present) warned the Obama administration: “Stay out of these fights,”  and Washington Post’s blog stated: Where the White House has gone way overboard is in its decision to treat Fox as an outright enemy and to go public with the assault.

Some have even called the attack “Nixonian” in nature. However, the White House has an out. If the strategy fails, Anita Dunn can be tucked away easily, as she is expected to leave the administration by the end of the year.

While Fox has not attacked Obama directly, they’ve unloaded on his aides, especially Dunn. Her statement naming Mao Tse Tung as one of her favorite politicians did not help nor did her speech explaining the censorship-like control exercised during the election. If team Obama felt they couldn’t control the message, or the press, they would use YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook to communicate.

While America thought that the Obama Campaign was tech-savvy, it was really just an exercise in message management.

Jeff Louis has over ten years of brand-building, media strategy, and new business experience. His passion is writing and his strong suit is sarcasm.  You can follow Jeff on Twitter or become a fan on Examiner.com.

Throughout life, people become programmed to react in certain ways to certain stimuli. Fire drills, car alarms, and air-raid sirens all mean imminent danger and usually make us spring into action. If you are like me, police sirens have a special place in your heart, and you have an uncanny ability to be the person singled out from a group of speeding cars, forced to begrudgingly hand over a license and registration. Anytime I hear a siren closing in, my heart jumps up into my throat and I take my attention off the road in front of me and start looking for those ominous flashing lights.

Just last week as I drove along on my way to a meeting, I heard a shrill siren that almost made me drive off the road into the storefront of a McDonalds. I strained to see a police car or ambulance through the rain, but there was none. The siren was from a commercial on the radio. This brought to mind an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry David takes a friend’s new car out for a spin and hears a loud car horn. Thinking the sound came from the driver behind him, he slams on the brakes and is rear-ended. The two drivers holler for a while, and then Larry realizes the car horn was actually from an AAMCO commercial on the radio. It was a funny moment in the show, but it probably really happens to some unlucky drivers.

Seriously, how is putting loud sirens and car honking in radio commercials even legal? Faux sirens or car horns can be extremely unsafe for those on the road, causing unnecessary distraction and serious accidents. Furthermore, scaring the crap out of potential customers is definitely not going to get a company more sales or positive brand recognition. With all the energy the FCC expends fining DJ’s for saying “butts” on the air, it’s surprising the FCC hasn’t focused on an issue that potentially puts people in actual danger while on the road.

Anna Vortmanis a marketing and advertising manager specializing in branding and new media. Contact her at avortman@gmail.com.

LONDON – Tesco is aiming to capitalise on the popularity of TV talent shows such as The X Factor with the launch of branded karaoke pods outside stores.

What if we stop using paper for our medical records? Paperless medical records are a beautiful thing Advertiser: Kaiser Permanente Agency: Campbell-Ewald, Los Angeles

Une magnifique vidéo de skateboard pour la marque DVS Shoes. Intitulée Wood, elle a été réalisée dans le cadre du concours “Transworld Skateboarding’s 2009 Skate & Create”, par Colin Kennedy sur des effets visuels de Ryan Marcus. La vidéo et son making-of sont à découvrir dans la suite.

Et le making-of très réussi :

Previously on Fubiz

• Where The Wild Things Are Store
• Duracell Ultra Print
• Foot Locker Campaign

(TrendHunter.com) If I were a kitchen, I would want to be one of the Philippe Starck Warendorf Kitchens—particularly the Primary Kitchen. I would be the Angelina Jolie of Kitchenland, and all other kitchens would look up…

LONDON – Northern Foods’ stunt around the creation of a fictitious “biscuit safety authority” has sucked in a number of district councils with some even organising “supervised” tea breaks, according to a report in the Daily Mail.