Uzi USB Drive Marketing Campaign

I don’t normally promote the music or activities of mainstream hip-hop.  But this Marketing campaign for the "Get Busy Committee" caught my eye, especially wit h their custom-made Uzi-shaped USB drives… Clever since their new album is called "Uzi Does It."

Being a novelty USB junkie… I thought it was pretty cool :)

[Wired]

Brilliant Advertising: McDonald’s do Lobsters

I love the way they did this ad. Very creative :) Combines artful photography, functional branding and it communicates the specific targeted message very, very well.

Technorati Tags: McDonalds, Advertising, Cool, Lobster, Creative

Is Advertising Really Pure Evil?

When it comes down to the bare bones of the issue, or is it the beating heart, whatever… the main thing is… they want you to buy more stuff. This is a pretty simple concept and it has been said before, blah, blah, blah. The power play comes in at the juncture where what they’re selling coincides with what you need. The thing which tips the power in the advertisers favour is when they convince you that you need something you don’t. This gets more complicated when you take into account wants versus needs.

Further complicating things is context. The context today is we’ve moved far away from worrying about needs. We WANT STUFF. Lots of Stuff. Shiny, pastel-coloured, Curvy Stuff which will make us happy and able to satisfy our every sense and then do it all again. We also want it all NOW. Instantly. None of this patience shit and waiting for things which are ‘worthwhile’… I know what’s worthwhile because I feel it now and I want it right fucking now.

I don’t believe Advertisers have any sway, not really, in terms of ‘Making us buy more stuff’. They are merely the temptation… WE make the choice. It is within us… the choice of wanting stuff we don’t need and also to want it right now. So is advertising pure evil? No. Advertising is just showing us what is within us… in the end WE choose. I would say that advertising is only evil if that is what we see within ourselves. You don’t have to buy the product and even if you do… do you need it right now?

Advertising is just stimulus and we can either react automatically to whatever whims and desires move us or be a little bit more AWARE of what’s happening around us and choose to RESPOND to stimulus in our own best interest.

Advertising is only really effective because we all only operate on auto-pilot, we set ourselves up with bad habits of wanting things we don’t need and things we want right now. So when it finally flashes before our eyes and ears we simply react. And, if we are all operating on auto-pilot, that makes us less human because the real thing which makes us human is our ability to choose.

You can’t blame the stimulus… advertising is not the enemy… you are.

Philips Cinema: Police vs. Crazed Robber Clowns in Bullet-time!

Philips Cinema has launched this really really cool ad that keeps you mesmerised by it throughout the entire two and some odd minutes it plays for.  The scene is a robbery at a hospital by lunatics dressed as scary-looking clowns (something I think would be very at home in a Batman-Dark Knight scenario).  The entire thing is in bullet-time in which a single moment.

I would have liked a point to the entire story (maybe I’m missing it), but I think the main point is not the content but rather the ad itself.  Obviously because this is an adventure supposedly purporting the beautiful benefits of having a Philips Cinema.

I would definitely say it’s effective advertising. I want a freaking Philips Cinema now.

Check out the ad… be blown away.

Technorati Tags: Philips, Cinema, Clowns, Cops, Shootout, Advertising, Brilliant, Cool

Ewwww! – Iggy Pop’s Insurance Peddling Antics

My only reaction every single time this idiotic ad for swiftcover, the UK Insurance company came on was “What the F@&*?!?!?”  This has got to be the worst ad I’ve ever seen, very worthy of the switch-the-channel-everytime-it-comes-on habit.  Yech.  And Iggy Pop… what the hell were you thinking?

The first comment on the Youtube Video site sums it up pretty well.

Oh Iggy what have you done?
You were THAT desperate for cash?
‘Get a life’?
This sort of life? Not exactly the same as Lust for Life is it Iggy?
Any other lifestyle recommedations Iggy, like McDonalds or Starbuck?

Indeed.

Technorati Tags: Iggy Pop, Swift Cover, Advertising, Bad

ABSOLUT’s Currency with Kindness Campaign

ABSOLUT has this really interesting campaign (I think so) in which we see this parallel universe where the cash is kindness. Can you imagine buying food at a restaurant and hugging the entire staff as payment, or how about kissing the cashier when buying movie tickets. hmph.

You can view the ad itself at Adgabber – Kindness as Currency. The entire campaign is a big departure from ABSOLUT’s previous campaigns but at least its fresh, I think I would be really bored and not even bothered with putting up this blog post if it was yet another re-incarnation of that bottle imprinted on another art piece.

Thing is, apart from the marketing campaign, they are also taking it to the real world with the UK-based conversation agents ‘We Are Social’.

London’s cinema-goers exchanged compliments and high-fives for free snacks and drinks; at participating cafes, caffeine junkies were granted free coffee for a smile. – Adrants

You can keep track of other random acts of kindness done by the campaign by following @AbsolutKindness on Twitter. Or you can check out more of the effort at the dedicated microsite.

Right… now that the marketing bullshit is out of the way. I don’t believe Vodka is able to make you a nicer person and you have to admit that this is more marketing bullshit to sell more drinks by duping everyone into believing random acts of kindness are due branded vodka.

Technorati Tags: absolut, kindness as currency, marketing, advertising, adrants

Good For Budgets: The Trillion Dollar Marketing Campaign

I like this.  Nice concept too using Zimbabwean Dollars to market an independent newspaper in a country where the currency is worth less than the paper it’s printed on.

TBWA\Hunt Lascaris South Africa are running a campaign for the independent newspaper, The Zimbabwean, which is actually produced in the UK.  The campaign uses all those worthless high denomination Zimbabwean dollars (Caused by the governments useless policies) so the campaign actually does cost Trillions.

more pictures

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, TBWA\Hunt Lascaris, Advertising, Trillion Dollar, Campaign, Marketing

Brilliant Vampire Marketing Campaign

I just love this campaign from New Zealand for the upcoming season launch on HBO, TrueBlood.

Perfect mix of two things I totally dig, great marketing and cool vampire celluloid :) They should also hand out ‘Stake’-like toothpicks, shaped like crosses. Any other ideas?

via PSFK

Technorati Tags: Marketing, True Blood, Vampires, New Zealand, HBO

Quick, Someone Yell ‘Cut!’

Came across this brilliant ad for the UK Women’s Charity organisation. Starring Keira Knightley, I think the ad is very hard-hitting and it goes straight to the truth of the matter. Donate.

I’d also like to add that I think the very wide spread use of alcohol in Britain is a very definite contributor to domestic violence… and yet there’s still tons of pubs all over the place and Beer is still seen as a staple of British Culture. Well if it remains a staple, you can assume bad behaviour of all kinds will remain as well, no matter how controlled the city is and no matter how many CCTV camera’s watch on.

What Arab Boys do at Shopping Malls…

This is an interesting twist for in-store marketers… The opportunities if we only had our target markets just sitting and staring at our store displays!

Can you imagine the statements after some official gets to see this picture? It won’t be that young men should control their hormones and get a clue… it’ll be that shop owners are no longer allowed to display mannequins in their underwear in the window.

I guess with the current laws in place in a heavily restrictive society, you can’t expect anything else. A trend which may arise from this… Increased internet purchases of Blow-up dolls? Rise in female clothing retail stores, owners being young men ofcourse?

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