Copyranter notes this new advertisement for New York's hip Nolita nabe. Apart from the genuine bizarreness of the whole thing, we'd just like to say how totally excited we are for the Chelsea version, which will simply put the tail on the other end. Click to enlarge.
Sometimes, news comes along that puts a spring in your step and a gleam in your eye. (No, not Britney Spears going to rehab just now! Well, okay, yes, it does.) But it's also how we felt when we heard that Hallmark was introducing "'Journeys,' a collection of 176 greeting cards "that help people through a difficult time, empathize with them, celebrate a success, or simply brighten their day with a smile." Like the "Sorry You're Infertile" card above!
The Banana Republic ad with the architects—it's everywhere! And it raised some questions for us. So we asked an architect—we'll call him Frankie Lloyd—who works at "a large firm downtown with an eccentric, megalomaniac starchitect at the helm" how the ad stacked up to his reality. The answers may surprise you!
As rumored, Google will be purchasing in-game advertising startup Adscape Media for $23 million. While this is widely interpreted as further evidence of Google's plans for a Second Life-style virtual world of its own, it's more likely another case of Google's mania for blazing new trails in automated online ad placement. The sprawling virtual plains of World of Warcraft are just begging for dynamically updated billboards. Adscape has nothing but its tech to offer at present (no clients or actual products), but that will just make it easier for Google to seamlessly absorb and build upon.
It's all your fault. You TiVoing netizens aren't watching television commercials or reading newspapers and magazines. Advertisers need to make a certain number of impressions on you in order to acquire and retain you as a customer (their words, not mine). Subsequently, the messaging ploys, especially in New York City, are becoming more and more bizarre. Marshall McLuhan — whom I was supposed to have read in college instead of playing hockey and being a poseur existentialist — must have a pretty smug look on his skull right about now.
I hate American football. I hate American advertising. I'd rather have been anywhere — even at this avant-garde horseshit (sorry. ed.)— than in front of a TV Sunday evening. Because unlike the revered windbag ad critics (Hi ya, Bob Garfield!), I spend my days/nights/weekends "crafting" ads. If I didn't have to write this stupid column, my Super Bowl XVI report would've looked a lot like last year's.
The Whitest Kids U Know sketch comedy troupe claims that Budweiser stole the idea of their sketch about how slapping has replaced fist bumping and used it a Super Bowl commercial for Bud Light. The Bud commercial is after the jump. See for yourself — we think the similiarity is pretty, uh, striking.
As You may remember, advertising industry authority Ad Age named You ad agency of the year. I know I know, big fucking whoop. You didn't even attend the awards ceremony and you sold the hardware on eBay for five bucks (btw, it now sits on Donny Deutsch's nightstand with a newly-engraved name plate.)
While we're generally content to let our wrong-coasted siblings over at Gawker have all the adventures in contextual advertising, we ran across this Little Miss Sunshine For Your Consideration ad in rotation around today's story about What Went Wrong with Paramount/DreamWorks' Oscar campaign for Dreamgirls. (Refreshing the page a few times might also yield a peek at the Dreamgirls FYC spot fighting for too-little-too-late pageviews.) If you watch Fox Searchlight's animated attempt to rub in "Little Best Picture's" nomination triumph closely enough, you may be able to see a single, fleeting frame in which the Sunshine's drug-addled grandpa symbolically shoves Beyoncé out of the film's iconic VW bus.
Let it never be said that Madison Avenue isn't creative. From the looks of it, ad agencies are doing their best to maintain any sort of revenue stream:
A good man is hard to find.
