Text Offenders

The Alamo Drafthouse Theater has one simple rule. Text during a movie and you'll be escorted out. Apparently, this didn't rub too well with one customer. After watching the clip, do you feel angry at Alamo for kicking her out? Do you applaud them? I personally could care less, but you have to admire the courage it took for Alamo to take a stance and stick to it. It's strong views like this that create pure emotion. It doesn't matter if you hate them or love them. All that matters is that you took the time to feel something towards Alamo Drafthouse and that's not something a lot of companies are willing to risk.

McDonalds UK: Make Up Your Own Mind

Since 2006, Quality Scouts (independent members of the public) have been going behind the scenes at McDonald’s and its suppliers, to find out for themselves what really goes into McDonald’s food and report back on this site. In 2010, these visits will continue to delve into other aspects of McDonald’s business, reflecting the broad interests of over half a million visitors to the site so far - and counting. You’ll also be able to find out more about the latest news from (and written about) McDonald’s in our News and In the Media sections.

Make Up Your Own Mind is almost a totally unbranded site that gives people access to desired information related to McDonald's (i.e. food sources, practices, etc). They have open farm visits, in-depth video reports, and a section to submit questions. There have been over 23,000 questions submitted so far. Talk about transparanecy!

Mathematics & Creative

With our hyper-focus on efficiency, mastery of the mechanics, tuning of the tools set -- what can we really expect to do long-term for the brand? Even though they all have certain performance goals and sales targets, was the brand marketer's ultimate goal always such large-scale ROI? What about competitive marketshare; brand visibility; consumer advocacy; and so on? The way we operate now suggests that mass efficiency and uber ROI are the only imperatives. This cannot be an authentic long-standing objective that clients really have in their heart of hearts. We absolutely bred that beast with our math and our fancy tools.

Now, so much more goes on at the dashboard, on the trading desk, and in the backroom that is solely about the math. (...) Is really good math now good enough to count as strategy? This "Math State" is dangerous. This commoditized state makes our agencies and our teams more disposable than ever before. And when all is said and done -- probably dumber.

Ad Age published an excellent article that debates how much of a role mathematics should play in online advertising. It's easy for people to see this as an attack on metrics, but I believe one of the commenters said it best, "here's to the Distinctive Ideas - Smartly measured." You can read the full article here.

Touch The Rainbow

This cracked me up, make sure to put your finger on the skittle! Credit goes to BBDO Toronto, you can see a few more of the spots on AdPulp.

Update: Apparently this concept was "borrowed" off of a viral video made back in 2009 on Youtube. You can watch the clip here. Oh well.

Facebook Releases First Film

Warner said on Tuesday that it would allow Facebook users in the United States to rent the film “The Dark Knight” directly on the social networking site, and pay for it using Credits, Facebook’s virtual currency. If other studios make similar moves, Facebook could tap a significant revenue stream, bolstering its Credits currency as it seeks to create a rival to PayPal and other payment systems. (...) The rental costs $3, or 30 Facebook Credits.

A month ago I was making fun of people who bought Facebook gift cards at the grocery store. Using real money to buy virtual fruit on Farmville was just about the dumbest thing I'd ever heard. I guess it looks like I'm the dumb one. Facebook's inevitable transition from virtual goods into digital goods will make their gift cards as useful as any iTunes or Amazon gift card. You can read the whole article on the NYTimes website.

On a side note, big thumbs up to the whole 'credits' concept instead of directly associating cash with transactions. I can't speak for everyone else but usually when I go to fairs and have to trade in cash for tickets to purchase food/rides I tend to forget how much I'm actually spending, haha.

Uniqlooks

Japanese retailer Uniqlo has launched ‘Uniqlooks’, the brand’s new fashion community. The site affords customers, fans and visitors the opportunity to populate the global community with images of themselves wearing Uniqlo merchandise in varying combinations. The photographs represent the brand’s global audience, whose looks can be voted on by visitors. From our perspective, Uniqlooks seeks to engage fans and brand advocates by making their community both their models and their stylists.

Uniqlo is definitely giving H&M a run for its money. The excerpt above is from PSFK. They mention that the site has a Sartorialist vibe to it, but I couldn't help seeing a little bit of Lookbook's personality in it as well. Definitely a big fan of this idea. Sites like this and Polyvore really let the customers define your brand and share great insight into how consumers view your products. You can visit Uniqlooks here.

Axe Angels

Don't know if this is a stretch or not, but I want to call this the classiest spot Axe has made to date. The real spotlight of this ad, however, is actually the music. The song, "Sexy Boy," is a cover from the duo Air's album, Moon Safari. The song was re-recorded with an all female choir and released under the fictional band name, The Fallen Angels. It's available for sale on iTunes and it's been selling pretty good. I love when advertisers do things like this to include a side stream of revenue.

Guy: Did it hurt?
Girl: Did what hurt?
Guy: When you fell from heaven, heh.
Girl: (rolls eyes)

Previous: Viagra Gets Classy

Imported From Detroit

The incredible copy and pace of this spot are perfect examples of how to hold someone's attention for two minutes. That's all I'll cover for Super Bowl advertising. It's hard not to sound like an ass, but the rest of the spots were just painful to watch (sans Groupon, even though they offended most haha).

The Groupon Giant

In the economic wasteland of the past three years, the biggest success story has been a website that gets us to buy stuff we never knew we wanted: helicopter-flying lessons, hot stone massages, professional photo portraiture, obscure ethnic food, hot air balloon rides. More precisely, what we buy at Groupon—the two-year-old startup that, with projected revenue of more than $500 million this year, was called the “fastest growing company ever” in a recent Forbes cover story—is the right to buy all that stuff at a huge discount, so long as we all act fast. In other words, what Groupon sells (as its clever name indicates) is coupons, but with a social twist. It’s been such a huge moneymaker that scores of copycats have emerged, including other startups like LivingSocial and 8coupons.

Wired takes some time to observe the bargain junkies of today and the lengths they go to save a buck. In the article, a super saver, Lolly Miltz, racked up an $80 tab at the grocery store and spent less than a dollar out of pocket thanks to her coupon savy. The article also covers how Groupon affects businesses big and small in good and bad ways. You can read the entire five page article on their website here.

Pink Ponies: A Case Study

In 2010, [a Canadian agency], John St. took on its toughest challenge yet. Make Chelsea Bedano's birthday party a success in an already cluttered birthday market. The results were astounding.

Amazing creation/self promotion that mocks those 'inspirational' agency case study videos. Basically, John St. uses standard agency case study lingo and applies it to an 8 year old girl's birthday party. Funny, clever, and charming.

It Has Begun

I know these have been out for a little bit, but this was the first time I ran into them in person. They were displayed at the front of my local grocery store along with other gift cards to places like Amazon, Best Buy, Chili's, etc. I'm all for people making money off of new ideas. I'm just a little worried about the people who actually buy this garbage. I wonder if there will ever be any actual benefit or value to virtual goods. Time will tell I guess.

Windows Helps You Get A Life

Microsoft needs to get a pat on the back or something. They did a great job rebranding Microsoft Live into Bing and continue the great work with their direction for the Windows phone. They decided to play a little more offense and a little less defense by calling out everyone who spends way too much time on their phones. Watch the spot above and tell me you can't relate. See one more commercial here on YouTube.

On a side note can anyone tell me what agency is behind this campaign?

Scott Pilgrim vs. Fark

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World paired up with interenet news forum, Fark, to help promote the release of its DVD coming out this November. The website integrated a hidden easter egg that could be revealed after entering the famous Konami code. After entering the code, a game unlocks that mirrors the movie. You have to answer trivia questions to defeat all seven exes. After you defeat them, you can enter in your info to win a free copy of the movie, a TotalFark account, as well as other stuff. The buzz around the game is fairly positive and definitely sits well with the target demo. Everyone understands its an ad but no one cares because its fun. It helps that the majority of the questions actually require a semi-significant level of pop culture knowledge. There's just one thing I can't get past. As "innovative" as this ad is, I couldn't help but compare it to Ralphie's dissapointment after he decoded Annie's message in A Christmas Story. I guess the good news is that some ideas will never go out of style.

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine!

Lebron Gives Us A Classy Middle Finger

W+K and Nike seem to be a match made in heaven.
See also: Nike: Boom, Tiger Woods Apology, and World Cup: Write the Future.

Jay-Z feat. Droga 5 - Decoded

Droga5 put together a unique interactive campaign to help promote rapper, Jay-Z's, new book Decoded. It has all the typical usual trends (facebook, twitter, search engines, sharing) blended in with some traditional heavy hitters (outdoor ads and radio), but don't compare it to your typical "go online and share your brand experience with us" type of baloney. Here's an excerpt from an article in the NYTimes:

Beginning Monday, reproductions of entire pages of the book will appear unannounced in locales referred to in those pages. (...) If in certain pages Jay-Z is talking about something related to Times Square, then those pages might be on billboards in Times Square. (...) [The] rest will be offbeat, printed in one instance on the bottom of a hotel swimming pool, in another on the lining of jackets in a store display window (...)

Microsoft will host a Web page, Bing.com/Jay-Z, that will function as an online scavenger hunt (....) [that] showcases a 3-D map based on photographs (like Google Street View), which enables users to click on a spot on a map, then amble around at street level and look anywhere, as a pedestrian might. (...) Players will follow clues to bring them in the general vicinity of pages, while a “proximity meter” on the screen will indicate when they are getting closer. Players who are the first to discover the pages will be eligible to win a signed copy of the book and the grand prize, a trip to Las Vegas to see Jay-Z and Coldplay in a New Year’s Eve concert.

“People were lining up to be part of this, like premium hotel brands and sports stadiums,” Mr. Droga said. “It’s a sincerely mutually beneficial partnership. At the center is Jay-Z’s book, but all the players at the table stand to benefit.”

To me, the campaign is really more about getting pages of the book out there rather than a contest. And if that is the goal, I think this is a really clever way of doing it. Read the full article at NYTimes and order the book on Amazon.

Making A Change For The Better

In an effort to differentiate itself from the other beverages in the category, PepsiCo's Sierra Mist has decided to tap into the growing market for real sugar sodas by phasing out its existing formula, which uses High Fructose Corn Syrup, in favor of the real sugar recipe of Sierra Mist Natural. "There's not a strong reason to choose one [lemon-lime] brand over another.... And when we asked consumers what would re-engage them in soda, 'natural' was the No. 1 concept."

Real smart move by Pepsi to give Sierra Mist such a unique selling point.  Adage reported that 7up is also taking steps to move away from HFCS. Hopefully this will start a mad dash towards real sugar for the entire industry. Or at least I hope, haha. You can read the rest of the article at The Consumerist and more about unique selling points at this previous post.

Puma: The After Hours Athlete

Droga5's latest work for Puma Social. Incredible copy in this short clip. Not sure what the site is trying to accomplish. At a quick glance, it looks like your typical "share your brand experiences" type of site. I really like the demo they've decided to go after. Very unique for a sports lifestyle brand.

Belve Is A Bunch Of Bull

Belvedere and Peter Arnell recently launched a campaign to promote the adoption of the nickname 'Belve' when ordering drinks out at bars. Their aim is to create a universal slang term similar to Coke or Chevy.

Having a short, memorable name is important when it comes to the “bar call,” said Peter Arnell, chairman and chief creative officer at Arnell in New York, referring to the moment when a customer at a bar asks the bartender for a drink to be made with a brand-name liquor. Saying “Belve” instead of “Belvedere” makes for “a consumer-friendly bar call in this sound-bite world,” Mr. Arnell said, and suggests that those who say it are “in the know.”

I have no problem agreeing with Arnell that memorable nicknames come in handy when ordering drinks, but you can't just force a name with $10-12 million in ad dollars. Kleenex is a perfect example. They never asked to become the standard reference to tissues. It just happened. The Belvedere name is unique and already has a strong, classy reputation. I would have rather they focused on embracing their name rather than diluting it into something unfamiliar.

Read the rest at The New York Times

Flashback: OK Soda

OK Soda was a soft drink created by The Coca-Cola Company in 1993 that aggressively courted the Generation X demographic with unusual advertising tactics, including endorsements and even outright negative publicity. It did not sell well in select test markets and was officially declared out of production in 1995 before reaching nation-wide distribution. The drink's slogan was "Things are going to be OK." Wikipedia

The entire Wikipedia article covers the soda's inception, the different tactics used to promote the drink, and its early demise. I didn't really dig too deep into this; I just thought it was interesting. You can watch a YouTube clip that W+K did for the soda here. More background on the soda here.

Canada, Eh?

I'm a big fan of these Canadian tourism TV spots. The point of view filming really puts you in the moment, and all of the clips use actual uploaded footage from people. Even better, they're all only 15 seconds long! You can see more spots like this on their YouTube channel, but be prepared to skim through 365 clips to find them.