- Foursquare was all the rage at SXSW this year. And they had a killer party with Ashton Kutcher in attendance. Now a new, location-based app, CauseWorld, allows you to check in to a box of Tampax. And other products. For charity. So it's all OK.
- YouTube now offers something else to distract us from the video we are viewing: ad overlays.
- In partnership with LookBook, American Apparel has figured out how to pimp itself without resorting to near naked teens in underwear.
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Believing the Cheltenham Race has more drama than the whole of Hollywood combined, online betting site Paddy Power erected a Hollywood-sized sign of their own for the event. See it all unfold here.
It seems there's a lot of negative reaction to this year's SXSW. Revision3's Jim Louderback complains he's been blackballed and wonders why the event still needs panels...even though he snuck in and participated on three. The Huffington Post's Mayhill Fowler says the event has grown too big and lost its edge. ReadWrite Web's Jolie O'Dell wrote a post entitled "Why SXSW Sucks" on her personal blog which now has 127 comments and counting.
In reaction to O'Dell's article, SiliconAngle defended the event in an article entitled Why SXSW Doesn't Suck (and used a picture I took last year thank you very much) citing the fact they got 15 to 20 hours of usable video content from the event.
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During his keynote at SXSW, Twitter Founder Evan Williams says the day will come when Twitter will be connected to, for example, a baker's oven, to inform customers the cookies are ready. Kind of silly but the ramifications of that kind of application is huge.
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In a poll during a panel about what life would be like without the times most people do not even want to imagine that scenario.
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Outside Champions at Courtyard Marriott
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Anyone who's ever been to the hospital, a doctor's office or any other location where nurses are present are fully aware of the fact most nurses do not fit the sexy stereotype often attributed to them. In fact, most nurses are just as pedestrian as the rest of us. Which is why a recent bus back campaign has English nurses in a snit.
A bus company is pimping its Royal Hospital route using the headline, "Ooooh matron!" accompanied by an image of a woman wearing a nurses outfit easily classified as less utilitarian. Nurses aren't taking kindly to the campaign but the Diamond Bus company is refusing to removed the posters from its vehicles calling the campaign "bright and positive."
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Six months ago, two dudes from Twenty Three Engagement Marketing created a Facebook fan page using Alex Bogusky's name. They then created a ransom video offering to hand over the fan page if Bogusky would buy one share of the company for $1. yesterday, Bogusky bit and tweeted he'd agree to the offer.
The agency, which bills itself as being "six months old and ready to conquer the world," is drawing up an agreement which will inure Bogusky has no "creative superiority" over the shop. Hmm. As if he'd actually care but, hey, the dudes might as well cover their asses while they can.
File under stupidity.
As we recover from our post-SXSW stupor, we're playing catch up on the idiocy we've missed since partying ourselves into oblivion on sixth street. Here's a Lynx parody entitled The Specs Effect. It's from Specsavers and, yea, it's got a lot of bikinied girls running towards a doofus spraying himself with body spray and donning a pair of glasses so scary, he scares off the sea of bottyliciousness.
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Several years ago when Facebook opened itself to the masses after having been exclusive to those with a .edu email address, I asked a college-aged student what she thought of the move. Her answer? "Creepy."
That icky feeling is now represented in a Back of the Class video in which the hair band laments the fact "My Mom's on Facebook."
Almost 200,000 people have viewed the hilarity.
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While I dig myself out from under the onslaught of digiliciousness otherwise known as SXSW, the least I can do is share with you the images from the conferences I've taken to date. There's a lot. There's the pre-show gathering at the Driskell. There's the lingerie-fueled TechSet party. There's the Capybara. There's the Digg party. There's the Tumbler party. There's the Powered Party. There's the Barbarian Group party. There's the Mashable party.
And that's not all. It takes forever to crop/edit/fix a couple thousand images. So when the rest are ready, I'll be sure to share. Oh, and I've got shots of Bob Garfield. And since we're name dropping, there's Mashable's Pete Cashmore, Justine Ezarik from iJustine, Twitter's Evan Williams, Ashton Kutcher (yea, that one), Foursquare founder Naveen Selvadurai, Lewis Howes and more.
Here's everything I've got so far.
On Friday the masses arrived in Austin for SXSW. As is always the case, it was a meet and greet fest of epic social media proportion. Even Robert Scobel is here if anyone actually cares. The panels began at 2PM but most of the afternoon was spent hanging in the hallways meeting people as they arrived.
By the time all that meet and greet was over and lunch was had - at which we waited an hour and a half for our burgers (which were very good) - it was time to start drinking. After all, this is SXSW. Laura Fitton held a gathering at Champions. Jason Falls had a party. There was the TechSet party. The Mix at Six. And a late night, flash mob-style gathering at the Driskill. And that's just what we made it to. There were at least 20 other events going on throughout the city. We're sure the Pastries and Pasties party was good but we went last year.
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Did you know if you check in (on Foursquare, that is) to two hotels in one night you earn the Hookup badge? Well, yes you do. Even if you didn't actually hook up. And that's what's so representative of Foursquare's stupidity.
Now, don't get us wrong. We love Foursquare. We're obsessed with it. We check in everywhere we go. It's a game. It's fun. And at SXSW it helps you find out where the people are and where the action's at. So no complaint's from that front. But when you can add your own venues, such as "Missy Ward's Cleavage" (this is true), and have it stay in the system for weeks, it goes beyond being funny. And you really have to wonder about those people with thousands of points. If you do the math, they'd have to traverse the country and check into hundreds of places each week to attain their position in the rankings. You just have to wonder.
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Yes, it's exactly what you think. Well, not really. That would be gross. Or not. Depending on your propensity to appreciate certain smells. OK, we're just grossing our selves out here. Just go watch this twisted new Axe commercial and wallow in the stench.
An organization, I Am Not Ashamed, aims to create the world's first video bible. With a campiagn supported by print, online, outdoor and social networking, the organization is asking people to submit video of themselves reading passages from the bible. The goal will be to cobble together all the submissions into one searchable video compendium of the Bible.
So if you see random people citing bible verse on a street corner, don't immediately assume they are homeless kooks or religious freak with nothing better to do than shove their views down other's throats.
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Recently, AgencySpy railed against the ad industry for its propensity copy other's work. Today, AdFreak addresses a similar issue, the propensity for the ad industry to latch onto a particular song and use it over and over again in different brand's commercials to the point where "advertisers [should] find a new favorite song before this one attains sentience and enslaves humanity."
Temper Trap's "Sweet Disposition" is the "it" song now and is making apperances in Chrysler, Rhapsody and Dient Coke ads. Not to mention the movie 500 Days of Summer, 90210, Greek, The Good Wife and The Deep End.
Here at Adrants we've beat this one like a dead horse over the years and have nothing left to say about the issue.
OK, maybe we do. And it's simple. Be original. We know that's not easy to accomplish. After all, there are no new ideas left. Everything's been done. Done to death. Over and over and fucking over. But, every once in a while, a tiny little piece of originality slips through and it's beautiful. Sublime. Enjoyable. And brilliant.
So strive for brilliance. Strive for beauty. Strive for something you've never seen before. Because you know what? If you do and you succeed, you'll be able to call the work your own and be proud of it. And you can feel good your original creation will find a place in the industry's pantheon of creativity. And you won't have angry bloggers calling you a copycat.
This new UK-based Bing campaign is ridiculous. It tries to paint the rest of the search portals (ahem, Google) as idiotic dunderheads that can't understand what your searching for. In one commercial, a woman is looking for the Euston tube station in London. A dunderhead answers her by prattling on about the eustation tube connects which connects the ears to the back of the throat as if no other search engine could possibly offer the right result.
But the most ridiculous thing about this campaign is the real world version of the scenario painted in the commercial. Do a search for Euston tube station on Google and it's the first result. Do the same search on Bing and its also the first result. Not exactly a product differentiation there.
Hey, it's better than a naked Chuck Liddell working out. Yes, Reebok has discovered the wonders of viral video booty. It's so easy, we wonder why every marketer doesn't do it. It's a simple, three step recipe. Find hot girls with nice asses. Dress them in bikinis or thongs (or hot pants if you're not daring enough). And film them shaking their asses.
Oh yea, there's a fourth step. Don't forget to slap your logo on their ass.
We get strange emails here at Adrants all the time but we've never received one asking if the creation of a "viral" video was out own doing. That's what one reader asked this morning about this Master Kong video which describes a form of meditation which is supposed to increase creativity.
We politely responded to the inquiry writing, "If it is for Adrants, it's news to us. And if we were to release a "viral," it'd be filled with big breasted women in tiny little bikinis jumping on a trampoline. Or something equally stupid and befitting our less than respectable position in this industry:)"
Somehow a reality TV star who recently had ten plastic surgeries in one day including the addition of ginormous breasts is qualified to appear in a Ron Howard-directed PSA for credit card reform. It's stupid. It's funny. It's dumb. But it's impossible not to watch. If only to see whether or not those ginormous breasts will fall out of that tiny dress.
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Apparently, Gothamist editor Jake Dobkin has no love for the New York Times and he made that very clear with scathing post on his Facebook page last month. That didn't seem to dissuade the Times from tossing a bunch of money Gothamist's way for a site-swallowing wallpaper ad. Nor did Dobkin's hatred of the Times stop his organization from accepting the Time's money.
You see? There really is a separation of church and state. That or, as Gawker posits, "Bitch, we OWN you."
You know those OnStar commercial that are based on actual customer calls? Boring right? Aside from a few really famous customer service calls where the callers freak out, most calls are just plain boring. So if a brand is going to highlight them in a campaign, they kinda need a little help to maintain interest.
This new Zappos commercial from Mullen accomplishes this with a simple customer service call re-enacted by puppets.
Why are we writing about this crap? Why do we ever write about this crap? Banned ad! Woo hoo! Look at our banned ad! It's so controversial, It's so offensive.
...yawn...
"Bookmaker Paddy Power's latest commercial has fallen foul of regulators who fear it likely to cause widespread offense. The advert - depicts four wheelchair bound actors 'doing a runner' on their bill from a curry house. One of the actors wears a branded Hearts & Balls rugby shirt, to raise the profile of a rugby-based charity that helps players who have been impacted by catastrophic injury."
It shouldn't be banned because it's offensive. It should be banned becasue it is horrifically uncreative and ridiculously stupid.
- In 2010 32.5 percent of the $368 billion marketers plan to spend will go towards digital with 30.3 percent spent on print.
- GlaxoSmith Kline wistfully tricks us into cervical cancer awareness.
- Make the Logo Bigger writes, "First P&G gave mom props during the Olympics, now Dove looks like they're seconding the motion during the Oscars. (Or maybe mom only gets the love during events beginning with O? (Came. Out. Wrong.)"
- Like that trick where you pull the table cloth out from under the dishes? Then you'll love this grand scale version from BWW.
- Alright. Alright. Alright. We'll link to your stupid snailpaper video. Now can you please stop sending us three emails a day?
- Chat Roulette gets augmented with advertising.
Good God! Who knew squash could be so hot? Directed by Jonathan Leder, this promotional video for Jacques Magazine features a very hot looking Michea slapping the ball around the court. As she runs across the court bending perfectly for the upskirt shot, her ample breasts bounce unrestrained underneath her pink top which can't conceal the affect the excitement of the game has had on them. And if that weren't enough, at one point she looks as if she's about to have an earth shattering orgasm. All from playing squash.
We think we'll be taking up the sport soon.
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Absolutely love this Hyundai slingshot commercial which aired during the Oscars. Making us all aware of the number of crazed teenagers who will get their license this year, this Hyundai commercial which aired during the Oscars urges us and them to consider buying a safe car. Because, while you can't bungee jump inside a car, there's a lot of other dangerous things you can do. And you might as well have safety on your side.
Sounding a bit like a double entendre-laden line from a bad porn flick, this BBDO Toronto-created work for Frito Lay's new Multipacks informs us, "It's hard to fit fun into a small space." But, according to the company, it's quite possible. As long as you believe junk food is fun and small is actually a normal serving size.
Don't even watch the second commercial in the series. It's lame. And besides, it doesn't fit into our twisted view of this campaign thereby making it impossible for us to make another really bad joke disguised as an attempt to be witty.
If you're a bored rugby player who likes to play poker, you'd probably find yourself in a commercial like this one for PokerStars.com, the official gaming and casino partner of the English rugby team.
The brand grabbed rugby stars James Haskell, Ben Foden and Delon Armitage to play the world's largest game of poker. And large it is.
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