RIP Goes Out to the King of POP

I am sure you all know by now that Michael Jackson, the king of pop died today at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. The news of the tragedy caused some site to temporarily crash due to so many people logging on to read about the tragedy. A lot of famous people have been dying off recently and I don’t know what its all about.

The ad above is a commercial Jackson did for Pepsi. Where a freak accident occurred and his hair caught on fire. I think that may have been his most famous advertising moment. It’s a bit mean spirited to say about a person who just died today but it’s the first thing that came to my mind.

The agency behind the commercial is BBDO. I wonder what the agency did to convince Michael to keep doing the commercial even after being burned. Do you guys think they made as much money back in the eighties for a TV spot as they do today? I’d love to read your comments.

Jackson was certainly controversial throughout most of his career but he is by far one of the greatest entertainers ever to live. He did his last moonwalk. The king of pop is now gone forever, 1967 to 2009.

Best,
A.B.

BK Blowing Away

First let me say, the ad above is not a CP+B production, according to Adfreak it came out of Singapore on behalf of Burger King. The copy for this ad, if you can believe it is “Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled.” First, I can’t believe this ad didn’t get censored to hell especially in a conservative country like Singapore, don’t they give you 20 years for being in possession of a single marijuana joint or something like that?

Second, the ad is by far the most overtly suggestive ad I have ever seen. I am curious to know how the general public responded to it. Do you guys think the product itself did well in terms of actual sales? Also, can you believe that a seven inch burger actually exists?

Best,
A.B.

High on Religion

Can religion and recreational drugs play nice together? When you first take a look at the ad above you would think so. This ad directs users to WonderCafe.ca, a forum for religious discussion and debate. The site belongs to the United Church of Canada. They can’t be Catholic because a stunt like this would require a million Hail Marys, or maybe a flogging, whatever works I guess. That’s why if I had a choice I’d go with the other guys.

By the way, I haven’t found a similar discussion forum for advertising. I’ve found lots of blogs, now we even have a social network, and several creative sites but no forums to stimulate discussion and debate.

Also, Smith Roberts Creative Communication created this ad.

Best,

A.B.

Agency.com

Find more videos like this on AdGabber

So I found the infamous Agency.com pitch viral video that they did for Subway via Adrants and Adgabber. The only thing is I couldn’t understand what was so inappropriate about it. I understand that it seemed kind of dumb and may have embarrassed the client but I didn’t see anything offensive, did you guys? The article Adrants said, “They publicly masturbate but there was some backslapping. But people have to understand that the video is an agency pitch video so there has to be a congratulatory tone to the video. What do you guys think?

Best,

A.B.

Bing Keeps you from Looking Like a Moron or Does it?

Sorry for the long delay between posts everyone. But I can’t write posts in my office anymore because of recent changes to my work schedule. Anyway, let’s talk about Bing baby. Bing is Microsoft’s latest attempt to catch up with all mighty Google with respect to search engines. The campaign claims that Bing is the “Cure” to search overload.

If you watch the spot you can understand what they tried to do with this particular creative execution. They are simply saying that with traditional search engines your results are loaded with sites that seem related to what you searched for but they really aren’t. The way they visually demonstrate this is by having one person say something they are looking for like “cheap tickets” and others would make a million suggestions for similar terms. After even 10 seconds of listening to this you will be extremely annoyed and that when they make the statement Bing is the cure to search overload.

This spot and several others like it were done by JWT. Microsoft is all about being the cure to diseases these days. In this particular spot, they are curing “Search Overload Syndrome” or S.O.S. JWT has provided the software giant with several other diseases to cure. They say Internet Explorer 8 cures F.O.M.S and S.H.Y.N.E.S.S. The other diseases I read about via Adfreak.

What do you guys think about Microsoft being a cure for your search ailments? I never really thought of Microsoft as the cure for anything, I thought of them as the problem. But hey, as you all know these are all just my opinions.

Best,

A.B.

American Legacy "Truth" efforts, are back with a vengeance and what has replaced them are relatively simple. But the dancing, singing, and voice boxes are gone for now at least. The “Truth” campaign brings you humorous mock interviews for tobacco exec positions. Applicants are told that the company kills millions but they have a great benefits package.

The theme for the campaign is “Do you have what it takes to be a tobacco exec?" The humor is silly but I think the creative executions got the point across without causing people to become physically ill. Actually, that only happens to me when I think about the voice synthesizers

The ad agency is Arnold, one of the largest in Boston.

Best,
A.B.