People are always trying to lose weight. There are millions of books written to help people lose weight. We have health clubs on every corner. And we have an endless supply or advertising urging us to do the wackiest…
Rather than the road to the White House, PETA gives us its Road to the Greenhouse which gives us candidates such as Selery Clinton, Fruity Giuliana, Broccoli Obama, Dijon McCain, John Breadwards, Mike Huckelberry, Spread Thompson and more. Predictably,…
New York state’s latest anti-smoking ads, featuring Skip Legault, the guy whose tobacco habit cost him most of his right leg, leave out an interesting fact: Legault still smokes half a pack of cigarettes a day! This curious tidbit was dug up by the New York Daily News, which is showing Legault’s TV commercial and his print ads on its Web site. Legault, 48, says his neighbors in upstate New York are confused—understandably so. “They wonder why I’m doing what I’m doing and I’m still smoking and telling everybody to quit,†he says. It almost sounds like Legault thinks cigarettes bring him good luck as well as bad. “I’ve lived longer than the doctors told me and it’s tough to change something while you’re still going,†he says, somewhat ludicrously. Though it’s not exactly false advertising, Legault does sound guilty about continuing to puff away while doing the ads. “The more I watch my commercials, the sicker it makes me feel,†he says. Well, he’s not alone there. The next thing you know, Throat Hole Guy will fall off the wagon.
—Posted by Tim Nudd
Gawker Media, publisher of the famed Gawker, Defamer, Lifehacker and other blogs, has, over the years, experimented in various ways with generating advertising revenue. One of the tactics they put in place a while back was to forgo the…
The phone goof thing can go either way. Unfortunately, in real life, phone calls like this actually do happen so it’s not surprising Hoboken New Jersey agency Hammerhead Advertising (nope, we’ve never heard of them either) used the goof…
Stretching the metaphor to the limit, Hewlett Packard has launched a small business campaign called Happy People which illustrates how a well- tuned office environment (courtesy of HP, natch) can conjure the brilliance of Mozart. If, in fact, the…
Shake Well Before Use points us to Engadget’s collection of the best of the worst ads seen at this week’s CES conference. Predictably, one involves word play on big boobs. Check them all out here….
LONDON – Ipsos Mori has revamped its senior management team with managing director Mike Everett taking over as CEO from Brian Gosschalk, who has been promoted to CEO of Ipsos Western Europe.
Not much to say about these Volkswagen Toureg ads other than what does a woman standing in what looks to be a prehistoric dinosaur landscape and a man standing in a rocky, desert-like landscape have to do with selling…
LONDON – For the third successive month, the Scottish Daily Record, combined with the Free PM edition of the Daily Record, has reduced the sales gap against the 20p Sun in Scotland.
Yes, yes, Second Life is apparently alive. While haven’t been there in months, commerce seems to be alive and well or at least the promotional aspects of commerce. Here’s an ad campaign for Hang the DJ clothing shop. Just…
How many phrases are used to describe GSD&M’s Roy Spence in this ABC News article?
Let’s see:
“quirky message guru”
“advertising guru”
“soul-searching message guru”
“branding and messaging whiz”
“Idea Man”
You have to get way down into the article and infer a little to add “chairman of a struggling ad agency.”
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Unilever is expected to hand Lowe Worldwide its $300 million global ice-cream business early next week, establishing Lowe as a major Unilever food agency for the first time and dealing a major blow to longtime incumbent McCann Erickson, according to executives familiar with the situation.
LONDON – Nationwide has shortlisted Carat and MPG to pitch against incumbent Mediaedge:cia for its £20m media planning and buying account.
LONDON – The sale of Emap’s Irish radio assets to Communicorp Group has been approved, a deal which paves the way for the sell-off of the rest of the Emap group.
Network Rail’s media and public affairs chief has resigned as the beleaguered company fights to restore its reputation following a disastrous start to the year.
No one wants to get their ass kicked to a soundtrack, but for the ass-kicker, a little stirring music can provide just the right atmosphere. This must be why Taser International has released a new Taser that doubles as a 1-gigabyte MP3 player. Brilliant! They say the hybrid is partly intended for women, who may be more inclined to take a Taser on a jog with them if it plays music, too. But who are we kidding? Someone over at Taser International has always wanted to zap someone silly while this song surges through their head. Via Mental Floss.
—Posted by David Kiefaber
Bologna gum seems like a terrible idea at first. It’s not bologna- flavored, which helps, but who would want to chew gum that’s packaged like bologna, right? Well, think about it. Neither item is particularly expensive, they’re both an ambiguous pink color, and they’re both made from mysterious ingredients that may include spider eggs. Practically a match made in heaven, this gum. Plus, the tagline “Blow your lunch!†is a keeper. We’d suggest putting it in Spam tins, but you can probably blow bubbles with that stuff already.
—Posted by David Kiefaber
Dabitch of Adland shares a funny tale on her personal site from the dark side of adbloggerdom.
A bloke from the UK calls, I can hear that he’s in a rather noisy spot, cups hitting tables and chatter in the background and he tells me that he has a blockbuster idea for a commercial that would sell every unit of Levis (or whatever) brand they had. It’s that great, it’s so great he almost doesn’t believe it himself, he’s got three outrageuously good commercial ideas and two great ones, and he wants me to tell him how to get them sold.
I didn’t know what to say to the poor chap who “saw my company on the internet at this internet café and thought I could possibly help him with contacts to sell his commercials”.
Strangely, this call is not out of the ordinary. The Swedish art director living in Malmö gets this treatment regularly.
It is a bit odd that this questions has been asked at least once a week recently. My reply is the standard; “animate it, stick it on youtube, hope you get lucky.” The people asking this sincerely believe that one hit commercial might make them rich for life, a bit like those people who dream of doing one novel and retiring. The truth is, a career creating commercials or novels never relies on one or three good ideas, but hundreds of thousands, and you have to work really hard for a long time before you get anything done. Ever.
I love that last bit. It’s so true. And so hard for the impatient to accept.
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.
