Best Dressed: Remember this dress that Best Actress front-runner Sandra Bullock wore to the Golden Globes? Well, it’s a Bottega Veneta gown made with a Japanese chiffon so heavenly it can only be cut out using the tip of an angel wing (okay, it’s cut by lasers, which is cooler). The fabric is actually so light that it is impossible to wrinkle it, no matter how hard you try…so if Sandy ever finds herself on a bus that will explode if it goes less than 50 MPH, she should wear this so she has one less thing to worry about.
Best Picture: Designer Tavis Coburn created retro re-imaginations of the five films nominated for the BAFTA – the UK equivalent of the Academy Awards. Check out his throw-back work that actually looks quite modern. (via Shelly Silver)
Best Actor / Worst Spokesperson: Great news, a few years ago Hyundai signed down-on-his-luck Jeff Bridges to do the voice over work in their commercials. Now, he’s a lock to win an Oscar. So Hyundai bought advertising space during the show to run their spot with Bridges! The Dude, that’s awesome for Hyundai! Oh, except that The Academy rejected the commercials because it doesn’t allow nominees or presenters to participate in commercials that air during the ceremony. Getting around that, Hyundai is replacing Bridges’ voice for the evening with a rotating cast including: Kim Basinger, David Duchovny and Catherine Keener.
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I don’t know how I missed this viral ad from Samsung, but it is one of the best ones I have ever seen and I’m so jealous I didn’t think of it. Tapping into our cultural obsession with cuteness, the video shows various adorable baby animals and how they creatively use the Samsung Ultratouch cellphone (hint: not as an actual phone). This ad combines two of my favorite things: cute animals and miniature dioramas. What could be better?
I’m continually fascinated at the lengths that publications must go to stay relevant. Augmented reality covers from InStyle Magazine, Thrillist’s jetsetter parties, and the New York Times debut of the Times Wire are all examples of the great innovations media must create just to stay afloat. In today’s Los Angeles Times, another example hails. Rolling Stone magazine has announced the launch of a restaurant and nightclub chain in Hollywood. Set to battle the existing Hard Rock Cafe and Planet Hollywood type of establishments, creators insist that the Rolling Stone venue will cater to a “more upscale Hollywood crowd.” It’s a scary media world when even the most classic and timeless of magazines has to create a branded restaurant experience.
It’s no secret that print magazines have to figure out a way to stay current to sell ads. Today, WWDreported that InStyle is entering the previously-techy world of augmented reality with its December cover, featuring Taylor Swift. Readers who hold up the cover to their webcam will see Swift, surrounded by snowflakes, spring to life in a 45-second video that ends when she signs her autograph on screen.
Publishers are fighting hard for ad dollars, and this sort of experiential cover is a smart way to bring in new advertisers. In fact, InStyle’s publisher has extended the augmented reality theme to a special “gifting in 3-D” marketing program and has gained upwards of 12 new advertisers and will see a 3.6 percent increase in pages.
You know those annoying FreeCreditReport.comcommercials with the guitar-playing guy singing a catchy song about how you can easily check your credit report online? Well, it turns out that FreeCreditReport.com isn’t exactly free (who’da thunk it, with the word “free” in the name and all?). When you sign up to receive your credit report, you have to provide your credit card information, and if you don’t call and cancel within 7 days (and they don’t make it easy for you — I’ve done it), your card is charged $15 per month.
Apparently, many people have been reeled in by the catchy jingle and charged for their supposedly “free” credit report. Now, the FTC is fighting back with their own online videos — complete with a guitar-wielding dude and catchy jingles — to promote AnnualCreditReport.com, which is actually 100% free. The videos are spot-on parodies, and it’s very clever of the FTC to give them a dose of their own medicine.
I’ve just learned from our beloved receptionist Shelly that an upcoming issue of Entertainment Weekly’s print edition will be embedded with a video player that will run ads for CBS shows and Pepsi. All I can think of is how much this baby is costing the network.
Apparently, the ad will arrive in subscriber mailboxes wrapped in a heavy-paper package. The screen, said to be about 2”, will start playing automatically as the page flips open with a speaker embedded below it.
This sounds too crazy to be true — I wonder if it will turn into a collector’s item.
Izea, the company that has caused controversy in the past by facilitating paid blog posts, launched its Sponsored Tweets service today, which does the same via Twitter. Although the site mentions that disclosure is required and has something called a “Disclosure Engine,” how much disclosure can you really fit within 140 characters? Standard practice for PR folk is to include “(client)” somewhere in the tweet if you’re twittering about a brand you work for, but even that is difficult to include in the allotted space. Admittedly, I include it when it fits and sometimes skip it if it doesn’t. I figure that my followers probably already know which brands I represent because I mention them relatively often, although that may not even be a fair assumption.
Even with the proper disclosures, will paid tweets work? Twitter is one of the only corners of social media that has barely been touched by advertising, especially now that Facebook has been inundated with it, almost to the point of MySpaciness. We’ve already got ads vying for our attention in every other medium and on every other website, and Twitter is currently one of the few places where opinions actually remain authentic. With the recent spate of Twitter spammers, the site has become filled with enough unreadable junk. If you saw ads popping up in your Twitter stream, would you unfollow those users? I feel like I might.
Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC launched an interesting interactive billboard that displays home listings on Monday in Times Square. The campaign boasts a mobile component, asking people to text in the word “homes” along with their ZIP code. The display pulls in the highest, median, and lowest priced houses in that area and posts them on the billboard within seconds of receiving the text.
When visitors first walk past the window display screen, seaweed and underwater plants move in response to their presence. A window sign instructs them to call a number on their cell phones and create a digital fish for the aquarium using voice commands. Once it’s been customized, users can move their fish around the tank using their keypads.
Once they’ve finished playing with the fish they’ve created, users receive a thank-you SMS message to their cell phones inviting them to visit online for additional activities and information.
The ads will appear in empty store windows in Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York and Washington D.C. during the month of April. As long as the people playing with their fish don’t block the entire sidewalk and get in commuters’ way, it seems like a pretty cool mobile campaign.
The ad wars: Microsoft vs. Apple. Apple recently did away with their ad campaign featuring actor Justin Long, and replaced it with a new set that teaches consumers about how environmentally friendly Apples are.
I’ve got to give this one to Microsoft. Their ads communicate that the product is easy to use. Apple tells me how my laptop won’t be too toxic once it’s in the landfill. I’m all for being environmentally friendly - but when I’m spending over 1,000 bucks on a computer, I’m not imagining it anywhere near a landfill.
I noticed something very intriguing about an ad for the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the 6 train this morning — the photo caption was credited to a Flickr user! (I was so suprised, I even documented it with my bad-quality BlackBerry camera.) It turns out the Met held a Flickr photo contest, and the winning picture was featured in the ad.
In an interesting coincidence, Getty Images just launched a new Flickr partnership today. Getty can now contact Flickr members and ask them if they want to share their images for use in a special Flickr-branded Getty collection. Flickr has long been a great place to find beautiful photography, and it’s fantastic that its users are getting the respect they deserve from the photo industry.
Anyway, Jack in the Box, purveyors of delicious burgers made from a meat-esque product, dove into the viral video deep end with this commercial that aired during the Superbowl. (Note: The Jack in the Box campaign is not realated to this VV powerhouse).
Here is how the video works (spoiler alert): Jack Box, founder of Jack in the Box, gets hit by a bus. The video then directs consumers to visit HangInThereJack.com to see a series of videos about the state of his health. They also have a Twitter feed (sample tweet: “Jack just got the best hommade ‘glad you made it out of your coma’ card ever”), a Facebook page (sample comment: “stupidest marketing campaign ever”), and a place where consumers can post their well wishes.
They’ve engaged more than 4 million consumers, but is the campaign a success? Looks like advertising notables are split…some think that watching a brand image bite it might not equal bigger burger sales.
Though, it seems unfair that a bus would hit Jack, rather than that pretentious clown Ronald McDonald.
Facebook is hoping that users will interact with branded fan pages a little more effectively after they redesign the pages to closely reflect the way actual user profiles look right now.
Word on the street is that many advertisers are livid over the change because they have put so much money into designing their pages in the current format. That’s a lot of money down the drain.
It seems as though Facebook’s goal in 2009 is to annoy everyone.
You know what I would do if somebody wrote me a letter saying that I had to stop posting things with my signature tone of obnoxious sarcasm? I would take that letter, cry for a good 45 minutes, and then treat myself to an ice cream cone.
Anyhow, Dave Brandon, CEO of Domino’s Pizza, was faced with a similar situation when Subway’s lawyers (or Law Artists, as I’m sure they prefer to be called) sent him a note telling him that he had to pull his company’s advertisements that claimed consumers preferred Domino’s oven baked sandwiches 2-to-1 over Subway.
But, what did Dave do? He filmed a video of himself oven-baking the letter and then urges consumers to do the same (via click of a button — oh Internet, what will you think of next!).
Over 100,000 people have baked the letter so far — the corporate equivalent of a “your momma’s so fat…” joke.
