I was amazed to read that the fictional paper company from
the popular TV show “The Office” has become a real company. It became a real
company when NBC teamed up with Quill (part of Staples) to market real
Dunder Mifflin paper according to AdFreak.
The paper became a
real product in 2011 and now they are expanding their product lines.
Anyway, more good Dunder Mifflin paper,
they are getting their own Super Bowl ad. The brand is Crowdsourcing their
first TV ad. Dunder Mifflin has teamed up with crowdsourcing platform Tongal to create the ad.
So apparently, Nokia has decided to join the Apple bashing world when promoting its latest phone, the Lumia 920. Although, I have to say that the folks at Nokia weren't as clever as the folks over at Samsung at pointing out the shortcoming of the phone from Cupertino. I've discussed the Samsung ad in the Samsung-Apple Throw Down. Nokia points out the lack of color options available to iPhone users. But even that isn't completely true because the iPhone is so popular that you can pretty much have the casing customized with whatever you want.
I have yet to find the agency behind this creative but for now, I am assuming it was done in-house. Because the spot is yet to air on TV.
Here we go again, Samsung pokes fun at Apple's new flagship product the iPhone 5 with this feisty commercial above. Just in case you don't already know, the commercial makes fun at Apple's marketing language with respect to the new iPhones's features. My favorite example is the comment about how the headphone jack is now on the bottom of the device and how that fact is viewed as a technological miracle.
The message is, clearly, that the iPhone 5 just doesn’t measure up to Samsung’s flagship phone, the Galaxy S III. Of course I could sit here and argue the pros and cons of each phone until I am blue in the face but I'd rather leave that to those who care. But the spot is funny because it pokes fun at those early adopters who make an event each of being first in line to get the new phone. What do you guys think the big idea that Samsung's agency 72andsunny was for this spot? Please let me know in the comments below.
Who else is excited about the return of Dexter on Sunday, September 30, 2012? I know I am. At the end of last season Debra, Dexter's sister caught him stabbing his victim in the middle of the chest. I happen to capture this image while riding on Access Paratransit in L.A.
The image has the van's radio antenna going right through the image. It seemed appropriate to welcome back the dark passenger for a new season, being as cutting people in half, well pieces is what he does.
Does anyone else think this might be the end of Dexter? The reason I say that is because of the cut on his left cheek. By the way, this is known as "Out of Home" advertising. The promo was on the back of a metro bus.
This truck yields for no one! After Nike Football’s MRAP-inspired promotional vehicle and its Transformer Mobile Retail Store, Jordan Brand will be introducing a new addition to its vehicle fleet – the Rise Above Truck. Covered in matte black motif along with an oversized Jumpman logo, the Truck is quipped with outdoor speakers and lights for those quick pick-up games. On board are also measuring instruments, including a vertical jump sensor, as well as countless pairs of Jordan Super.Fly. The Jordan Brand – Rise Above Truck will be making stops at basketball venues cross country this summer. To follow its movement, simply sign up for Jordan Brand Twitter profile at @jumpman23.
Here are a few of Inside That Ad's favorite ads from this year's Cannes Lions festival. The featured ads below were among the top print ads—the Grand Prix and gold winners from the Press Lions contest. Once, again in this post I only display four ads and the agencies that created them—staying true to Inside That Ad's mission.
Agency: JWT, Shanghai, China
Client: Maxam, A Chinese toothpaste Brand
Copy on Ad: Don't let germs settle down
Agency: JWT, Shanghai, China
Client: Maxam, A Chinese toothpaste Brand
Copy on Ad: Don't let germs settle down
Note: The second shows more detail in the ancient ruins created on this tooth.
Agency: BBH, London
Client: Axe
Agencies: Fabrica, Treviso, Italy, and 72andSunny, Amsterdam
On the eve of the Wimbledon mens final I thought I would share with you some tennis ads that are considered to be some of the "most viral" spots on the net.
In a 2008 Nike tennis ad campaign, Rhys Darby from Flight
of the Conchords teaches Roger Federer about the secrets of playing a
magical air guitar. It turns out Federer was better then expected.
The second Nike spot with Federer and Rhys Darby, this one shows an outstanding display of tennis and house crashing.
As you all know, Nike's ad agency is Wieden + Kennedy.
The Maarwan Youhnis advertising parody series takes a clever jab at popular companies by remixing their logos with that of other easily recognizable ones.
Using Apple, Louis Vuitton, Red Bull, Blackberry and McDonald’s, the artist compiled several fake campaigns using each company’s claim to fame against them in a satirical manner.
Red Bull, for example, is chastised for not actually giving its customers wings that allow them to fly. Youhnis’s rendition of an advertisement for the company shows a woman falling onto a car after unsuccessfully attempting to fly when drinking the energy drink.
Louis Vuitton is mocked for its extremely high price point through the artist’s creation of faux toilet paper baring the brand’s logo and eluding that the fact that the brand’s customers can wipe their behinds with luxury.
I tried to find more information on Maarwan Youhnis but couldn't get anything else besides circling back around to the article already referenced, can anybody else add anything?
Today being two days after Independence Day I wanted to share
one of my favorite patriotic advertisements. The spot below was created by
Wieden + Kennedy for Levi's featured a recording of the great American poet
Walt Whitman reading his poem titled, “America”.
Anyway, thanks guys! Finally, please do me a favor and subscribe to by
blog via the follow widget on your right, subscribe by email and if you are on
any of the social media sites listed (also on the right) please connect and be
social with Inside That Ad
Did you know that Orbitz Worldwide has discovered the Apple Mac users spend as much as 30% more a
night on hotels, according to our friends at Campaign
Outsider. To that end the travel company is showing them more expensive
travel options then those shown to their Windows PC counterparts.
This effort by Orbitz demonstrates how tracking people’s
online activities will generate tons of useful information to marketers in
their quest to capture the consumers’ attention and of course their dollars.
Now, also according to Campaign Outsider Orbitz isn’t showing the 2 groups
different prices on hotels, but it tends to show Mac heads higher prices.
As technology and cookie tracking become more
sophisticated this sort of targeted salesmanship will become more commonplace. I believe technology will eventually enable marketers to advertise to every single consumer individually.
Anyway, thanks guys! Finally, please do me a favor and
subscribe to by blog via the follow widget on your right, subscribe by email
and if you are on any of the social media sites listed (also on the right)
please connect and be social with Inside
That Ad.
What’s the verdict on the Empower Network? I put together the
video above to try to start a conversation about the network, is it just
another online marketing scam or is it a legitimate online business opportunity?
I want a constructive debate in the comment section below this post.
The reason, I am considering posting some of Inside That Ad’s
articles after joining the Empower Network. If I joined, I’d probably sign up
for the $100 product right off the bat. A friend of mine told me that staying
on the $25 level would be profitable, what do you guys think? Is it a scam or a legitimate online business opportunity?
Anyway, thanks guys! Finally, please do me a favor and
subscribe to by blog via the follow widget on your right, subscribe by email
and if you are on any of the social media sites listed (also on the right)
please connect and be social with Inside
That Ad.
I am sure you’ve all seen it by now, the new advertising
reality show “The Pitch” on AMC. Yes, I’ve watched and will continue to do so
because I love anything to do with the ad business. But they really do
dumb-down the business and make it seem like everyone can do it.
I’ll elaborate, the only thing they are the two competing
agencies sitting around discussing ideas. While simply glancing over all the
other elements, preparation, and creation that actually goes into making an
advertising new business pitch. Finally, they don’t really focus any department
but they don’t discuss account management. Yes, I am a little bitter I guess.
Overall, they dumb-down the advertising business so that it
fits the reality TV genre. But I’ll watch. If you all enjoy the show, please let me know in the comments below.
So, does anyone know if the
spot for Fiat above is actually a preamble for a porno? I realize that sex
sells, but can you be anymore obvious? The spot does try to tell a story about
a man lusting after the Abarath, to the extent that he actually visualizes the
beautiful Catrinel Menghia. She does a great job of acting the role of the
temporarily angry, Italian woman. By the way, Menghia is actually Romanian.
The element that I think
really saves the spot is the one sided Italian conversation between the two
characters. A rough translation of the conversation is as follows:
“What are you looking at? Uh? What are you
looking at? (slap) Are you undressing me with your eyes? Poor guy… you can’t
help it? Is your heart beating? Is your head spinning? Do you feel lost
thinking that I could be yours forever?”
Don’t get me wrong, I like
the spot but the sexual innuendo comes on a little to strong for my taste. I
should note that this spot's initially aired during the Super Bowl so it must
have tested well for the agency.
This is one of those spots
that the viewer remembers the commercial but not necessarily the product it was
advertising. What do you guys think?
The agency behind this spot
is The Richards Group out of Dallas.
Sorry about the long absence but I have been distracted by
studying for the GRE and applying to Ph.D. programs. Yes, my top choice would
be the University of Texas at Austin for the Advertising Ph.D. program. So
anyway, I hope you forgive me and keep coming back to check for updates.
A couple of weeks ago (November 4, 2011) I got the
opportunity to attend BlogWorld & New Media Expo at the L.A. Convention
center. The expo mainly featured individual bloggers, small application makers,
and keynote speakers. Most were there to discuss how to successfully monetize
their blog.
The best part for me though, was listening to Pat Flynn, a keynote speaker talk
about “How to be Everywhere: Building a Profitable Brand by Thinking Outside
the Blog.” His main message was about how to proliferate the blog’s brand using
social media (a.k.a. Being Everywhere).
The main platforms for social media he discussed were:
1.The Blog- Letting the reader know what you want
them to do on your site from the very beginning.
2.Podcasts on iTunes- Creating them and always having links
back to your blog.
3.YouTube- Freating videos related to some of your
blog posts and inserting keywords of some of the popular videos.
4.Facebook & Twitter- How to engage your
audience. Also, not to get to automated on these sites, it may cause a
disconnect between you and your audience.
Well, until next time. I promise I won’t be gone for this
long again. The next post I’ll be
back on advertising. I simply wanted to share my experiences from BlogWorld
with you out there.
I wanted to do a series of posts that feature people with disabilities. To see if the majority of the ads focus on the disability also known as “pity ads” or do they focus on the person as an authority or the product. Also, I want to see if most of the spots that feature a disability are advertising a product related to disabilities in general.
The ad below is for overstock.com, besides being all about the O the spokesperson in the ad is Briana Walker. Walker uses a wheelchair but the wheelchair is never shown in the ad. I am ok with the fact the chair was never shown that way it doesn’t take away from what is being advertised.
This is a great brand awareness spot and Walker did a great job in it. This is defiantly not a pity ad.
Brianna Walker Overstock Ad
Ad agency: Ads done in-house.
Stay tuned for more disability related ads in the following week.
I saw the ad above via Adfreak and just had to write about it. First. If my search results simply appeared at my door I’d be a happy man for the rest of my life. I’d simply type 25 million dollars daily. I’d be set for life.
Anyway, the ad above was done for xxxchurch.com, a Web-site that aims to help people who are addicted to pornography according to their Wikipedia page. The ad does a really great job in bringing their tagline to real life, literally. It also managed to bring porn stars, children, and animals. Those three distinct elements are what drew my attention to the spot above.
So the whole premise of the ad is that unmonitored kids online could lead them to unknowingly go to sites that aren’t appropriate for them. So for example, a misspelling of milk on a Google to MILF and the search brings some expected visitors to their door. They show several example of this, but last example brings in the famous male porn star Ron Jeremy holding two sheep. Now, how do you explain a male porn star and two animals to the kids?
Also, here is something I couldn’t understand though, are they against porn itself or the illness of porn addiction? If xxxchurch.com is against porn, why are famous porn stars working with an organization that condemns their profession? It’s a creative way to try to help people though even though I think their brand may not really have a clear cut identity in my opinion. When I first the name XXXchurch I thought it tried to mix porn and religion, that’s not the case it just seemed that way to me when I looked at the name, brand, and the fact that the organization describes itself as "the #1 Christian porn site, again according to their Wikipedia page.
But back to the ad, very creative, bringing elements in that were unexpected that garnered attention. Successfully bringing the tagline: “Porno is just a typo away” to life through advertising of course.
Finally, I got some information about the commercial above that is actually one of the main reasons I developed this blog. I found out that XXXhurch’s founder Craig Gross produced the spot in-house and wrote the script. He also hired the porn stars, animals, and one of the child actors is his very own.
Well hope you all enjoyed this one. Please read, comment, and subscribe.
Saw the ad above on Copyranter (they got it via), it’s an ad for Superette, an Auckland, New Zealand boutique chain that wanted to promote their sale for short-shorts. So, what’s the unique medium used for advertising? They placed indented plates on bus stop seating areas and park benches to leave imprints on people's thighs. The goal is that the plates make clear imprints on people's backsides so that they attract the attention of on lookers (a.k.a. perverts) to the featured sale. Oh, and when I say they I mean DDB Auckland.
Well, I have a few issues with the ad above and the way it was executed.
Talk about intrusive advertising. I don’t think I want any advertising on my skin unless I put it there in the form of a tattoo not indented skin marks. Why, because that means that no circulation is getting to that area of the skin.
Wouldn’t it be uncomfortable for those who have the marks of the ad on their skin? I think so.
Would the indentation ever really be that clear? The answer is no because everyone has different weights and sizes so the ads would never really be that clear unless they got the absolute “perfect person.”
Finally, who is the target audience for the ad? They are advertising for “SHORT-SHORTS” and women buy them right? Why would they look at other women’s thighs?
Also what if people wore their jeans or any form of pans that cover their thighs.
Maybe they were hoping people would notice the indentation plates before sitting on them. Wouldn't that cause people not to sit down due to the advertising, which would then turn them off on the brand for causing the inconvenience?
So my final conclusion is that this type of advertising was meant to ive the advertising blog world something to talk about. Or did I miss something about the audience, advertising execution or the message itself? Let me know!
The ad above was displayed as a billboard on the corner of Hollywood and Highland in Hollywood, California. The billboard grabbed my attention because of the gorgeous blond it focused on. I took the picture myself about two months ago. The featured pretty lady is Victoria Secret supermodel, Marisa Miller as Captain Morgan’s sexy first mate. I’ve wanted to write about this billboard because when I saw I thought how awesome is it that a woman like that is just watching over us.
I am a little unclear which ad agency is behind the campaign but I am 90% sure that it is WPP's Grey, New York. Although according to a December 9th Adweek article creative duties for the brand have been transferred to Anomaly, an agency in New York according to Adweek.
Ms. Miller will be doing much more then sword fighting as the Captain’s first mate. Other responsibilities include involvement in several consumer touch points including digital, point-of-sale, social responsibility communication and event appearances.
Once again people, sex always sells. Not to mention that the pair work well together, Ms. Miller a supermodel that will certainly appear to the target audience and Captain Morgan rum is a party icon in its own right.
What do you guys think please leave your comments below.
Michael Vick, the superstar quarterback who was put in jail for illegal dogfighting
is back to advertising. Vick was in jail for about 21 month and most of his blue chip marketers such as Nike have let him go. But he is back, even if it’s on a much smaller scale as a spokesman for Woodbury Nissan in Philadelphia/New Jersey according to an AdAge article.
According to the article will not receive any monetary compensation for the spot you see above except for the use of Nissan Armada. As stated earlier the spot above is on a much smaller scale compared to what the QB used to do in the advertising game but it does get his name back out there.
The spot above shows Vick in familiar roles of signing autographs, throwing car keys, and diagramming a sales strategy, for those of you who aren’t regular football watchers these are all references to the game we love.
This spot has been view thousands of times online. There is no doubt in my mind that this spot will encourage other advertisers to take a chance on Michael Vick especially because of the love the fans are showing him. Who says you can’t get a second chance at redemption.
Also it's important to mention that in car advertising local dealers operate as their own individual business so they most likely did their own adverting
When I first saw this elaborate setup of a Chicago bus stop that was transformed into a small part of the Absolut universe I was amazed at the attention to detail it encompassed. Then I thought to myself, this would do well as a portfolio piece but not in real life situations. Chicago weather gets so cold and wet during the winter season that the Absolut bus stops would be ruined right after the first rain or snowfall.
The other question that came to mind is whether or not people would appreciate having something so eye-catching to sit on while waiting on their bus. It might make people feel awkward to sit at a bus stop like the ones pictured above. Therefore, this marketing attempt may result in an unwanted backlash towards the vodka brand. You should also know that the only thing already in place when the shelters were created was the ceiling. The seats, plants, and obviously the colors are all original.
From an advertising creative point of view the bus stops are works of art that people should and will admire. The ultimate question is will these creative attempts sell more Absolut vodka? Also, each one of the bus stops is named after an Absolut flavor. The ones shown above are: Absolut “Lemon Drop,” Twist” and “Bloody."
The agency behind this work is TBWA Chiat\Day, New York
