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Archive for April, 2006

The Running Man (2)

27 Apr 2006

Ahah! I’ve finally found what it’s all about. In my previous post about ‘the double billboard’ Marco pointed me in the right direction saying “itâ€™s the Nike campaign â€œYouâ€™re faster than you thinkâ€ from Taxi Canada. Maybe 2004?”, so I went to look around on Google Images and after some keyword magic I came up with another similar ad:

The campaign features Bernard Lagat, and in this case a transparent decal was placed on this shelter to show distance runner Bernard Lagat crashing through. I love it when I get some answers. Cool campaign too.

Thanks, Marco

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Posted in Advertising, Campaigns, Marketing

Sticky Bus

27 Apr 2006

In the category:”what’s that on your window?” we find this ad to promote road safety. Pinheiros seems to be a borough of the city of SÃ£o Paulo, so I suppose that would make this a local ad for the Brazilian city. Could be that I’m wrong though. Anyway, this ad reminded me of another ad with a dead kid which was placed face down on the windshield (pun intended). Remarkably enough, this seems to be a way to grab people’s attention.
I’ve seen this ad on another site too recently, but I can’t seem to track it down. I checked my feeds but it’s gone. Weird. It seems so familiar.

Thanks, Ben

3 Comments

Posted in Advertising, Campaigns, Marketing

KaylaX & MarlaX

27 Apr 2006

I’ve been getting a lot of comments on my blog recently from different people with different email addresses. The IP address is always different too and there’s no http link specified in the url box, mostly just ‘#’.

It doesn’t qualify as spam because it goes nowhere and the comments don’t advertize a product or service. Most of the comments are in the meme of: “Hey, good article, I liked it a lot. MarlaX” or “Great blog, KaylaX” and so on.

What’s up with this? Is it a way to get into the unapproved commenting area? Because when I approve the comment, the next time somebody posts from that same IP with that same email address, the comment normally slips through without me having to confirm it. Then again, as soon as an http address is inserted it moves back to the moderation cue.

Akismet doesn’t seem to catch it, because it doesn’t look like spam at all. Perhaps I should just remove the words KaylaX and MarlaX and approve the comments because hey, they’re nice comments after all.

Still, I wonder what’s the deal with this.

Technorati Tags: KaylaX, MarlaX

1 Comment

Posted in Blogging, Blogs, General

Urinal Fun

27 Apr 2006

If there is one time and place where you can catch a man’s attention, it’s when he goes for a pee in a public place. Especially when there’s other men standing around him, he’ll only do two things (unless he’s gay): look straight forward or look down. Both places are ideal spots to display a message or call for action. Here are two campaigns that do this exactly, and they do it very well.

ESPN – Soccer Urinal (via AdsOfTheWorld) :

Agency: Duda Propaganda, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Miniature soccer goals were placed on green urinal deodorizer blocks in several pubs. Moth balls were placed in front of the miniature soccer goals. The sign above the urinal says: “Soccer is good everywhere, but it is much better on ESPN channels.”

Oliver Fire Department: Be a Fireman (via ihaveanidea) :

Agency: Rethink
Creative Directors: Ian Grais / Chris Staples
Art Directors: Hylton Mann
Copywriter: Heather Vincent
Photographer: Dave Robertson

Both ads justify what I’ve been doing all my life… First of all: starting imaginary fires to put them out with my ‘fireman tools’, because the day starts great if you’ve just saved a life… (ever since I was a kid I’ve been making siren noises when I went to the bathroom, … only when I grew older I stopped making the noise) and secondly: aiming for something when I’m in a public restroom (either ‘the notorious fly’ that’s been placed in the bowl, or in this case a mini soccer ball). Going for a wizz is a fun and private moment. I’ll even throw in a secret: if it’s winter and there’s snow, I try to write my name in it when I’m forced to go outdoors, and if you sponsor me next winter, I’ll write the name of your brand and make it viral.

2 Comments

Posted in Advertising, Campaigns, Interactive, Marketing

Microsoft Assimilates Massive ?

26 Apr 2006

Microsoft is planning to buy Massive. That’s what a lot of news sources are publishing. If it’s true, it’s yet another great leap for the already very strong company. Massive in an in-game advertising heavyweight and has a piece of the pie in this section of the industry. In a deal worth $200 million to $400 million, Microsoft expects to acquire the 80-person North American stronghold in an effort to bring the technology behind much of the ads found in video games today in-house. Quoting from C|Net:

But by buying Massive, Microsoft is putting itself in a position to cash in both from the sale of games, and from the revenue generated by the inserted ads. This will also allow Microsoft to maintain more control over how the ads are placed and to consider new business models in which it could potentially allow the ads to subsidize lower prices on its game titles.

In-game advertising is a growing market. More and more games have links to the online world and the software can be tweaked everytime a player logs in or connects to the game servers. A lot of brands are already actively participating in this market and when Microsoft goes ahead with this plan, it’ll most certainly develop a nice cash stream. It’s an ad ad world we live in.

Closely connected to this announcement is the fact that Microsoft recently decided to incorporate the Ad-ID for it’s interactive advertisement. The Ad-ID has been developed by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA).

Ad-ID provides the foundation for advertising digital trafficking and tracking, as well as digital connectivity. It is the equivalent of the retail communityâ€™s â€œUPC code.â€ By assigning a unique system-generated identification code to all advertising assets, including television, video, online, print, radio, outdoor, wireless, etc., Ad-ID improves the accuracy and efficiency of many advertising processes from delivery through billing, and will ultimately contribute to improved tracking and measuring advertising effectiveness across campaigns.

If you wonder why this is:

“Microsoft believes the future lies with identified, targeted, customized advertisements, and the best way to effectively track and measure results from advertising assets is by using Ad-ID – a universal code which provides end to end system connectivity.”

Read more in this .pdf announcement (90.5kb) from ad-id.org

Related:
In-game advertisement roundup

3 Comments

Posted in Advertising, Corporate News, Marketing

Moses Parting Sea

26 Apr 2006

To promote the screening of the movie ‘Moses’, automated doors of the malls around the Mocha Film Club were decorated with the image of a sea, so that when you’d enter, you could have a Mosesy experience and lead your people through the water. How biblical !

Title: Parting Sea
Agency: McCann Erickson, India
Creative Director: Prasoon Joshi
Art Directors: Puneet Kapoor, Rahul Mathew
Copywriters: Rahul Mathew, Puneet Kapoor

via ihaveanidea

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Posted in Advertising, Campaigns, Marketing

Nike Speed

26 Apr 2006

This ad is super fine. I know some buildings that are actually built like this, except that the windows aren’t so skewed, but this seems simulated. If it is, it’s a very clever find from the ad creator and it’s very cool to look at. No details present on the agency or creatives behind this, but very remarkable. It seems that this is an optical illusion and that in fact the ad itself is covering the entire front of the building, creating the bended architecture in an overlay – (you can see some windows covered with a grey foil, revealing the original structure). Mucho gusto this.