Tom Green Channel

Oh Tom Green you crazy canuck. He is at it again trying to find a way to broadcast his half-funny, half-annoying face to the masses. Remember his original show? The slut-mobile was my favourite episode, peeing statue was number two. Fast-forward 8 years...

The Tom Green channel on the web displays his real home phone number for any and all to call and ask questions on air. Celeb guests like Perez Hilton, Tony Hawk, Dr Drew and Kenny+Speny come on over to Tom's house and bring items for later resale on eBay to raise funds to keep the show on the air. Viewers get to vote on what the funds are actually spent on (necessary vid equipment or a useless stuffed bear, for instance). Podcasts on iTunes, yep. Blog, yep. Mass calls to submit user-gen YouTube vids of you watching him. All he needs now is a groundswell of viewers and paying advertisers and he has a disruptive model for the giants to be concerned about (or mimic).

Post found on Fallon Planning blog

Miller Lame...I mean light

Ok I get it...the dog leaves the A&B clydes for the better taste, less carbs of Miller Lite.

Lame.

The Future of Facebook...PensionBook

This is one persons take on how Facebook will have to evolve to keep us using the site as we age.

I love the "You have been poked by a walking stick".

Thank you to Brittany for the image.

Pepsi Dare - The Un-cola ads

What a refreshing new ad campaign from Pepsi (Pun intended).

It looks nothing like a Pepsi ad let alone a Pop (or soda for teh yankees) ad.

Great work BBDO Germany.

....but then again see the quote below.

Ad Quote of the Week

"We want consumers to say, 'That's a hell of a product' instead of, 'That's a hell of an ad."

- Leo Burnett, quoted in 100 LEO's, Chicago, IL: Leo Burnett Company, p. 14.

The consumer has earmuffs

The constantly evolving state of consumers, brands, products and industries is what makes our jobs exciting, interesting and worth every late night.

The line above sums up the best part of working in this industry. Dealing with change.

Adidas Boost

A great tactic from Adidas during an Auckland marathon. In order to give runners more motivation during the race, Adidas had a custom made fan build to actually provide the 11,000 participants with a second wind.

The fan was custom built and provided approximatley 50 knots of wind speed. It had a dedicated lane late in the race at the 17km mark and a small video was captured (below) showcasing the runners reactions as they went through it. As you'll see, they were extremely positive.

This tactic fits perfectly into their "Impossible is Nothing" campaign and was a hit among runners. Not sure what the costs would have been to construct, but I'm sure they're a lot cheaper than running a 30 second spot.



Found on AdRants

Rambo Death Chart

Stumbled Upon this amazing Rambo Death chart comparing the three films. People always talk about how violent film and entertainment has become (I know, I just spent 6 hours playing Halo) but charts like these really drive the point home.

Can you believe that 236 people were killed in the last Rambo? 236? That is over 2.56 kills per minute.

I haven't seen the "film" yet but based on these stats it sounds like Rambo just has a gun and is shooting people at a rate of just under 3 per minute. Pretty exciting.

Still, it says something about our culture when we need to massacre an entire town of bad guys just to sit through a 110 minute movie. I can't wait till the 500 kills of Rambo 5 (if Stallone lives that long).

The Blue Chair Campaign

Our friends over at the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) have recently launched a campaign that they call Blue Chair. OUSA, to back up for a moment, is an undergraduate student-run lobby group that focuses on student issues in the Ontario provincial government.

Over the last number of years, they have run a number of issues based campaigns - from raising awareness around tuition deregulation to helping the province understand what it's like for students to live with thousands of dollars in debt.

While OUSA's intentions are excellent, their previous campaigns have lacked the ability to break through the clutter in a crowded student environment.

With the launch of the Blue Chair Campaign however, OUSA has been able to truly own an issue Provincially - helping first generation students find their way into the Post Secondary system.

What we like about Blue Chair is that it is a simple image that entices the viewer to find out a bit more about what it represents. Unlike a number of student run awareness campaigns, Blue Chair started as a tease on campus and slowly built towards a campus event.

The seven universities involved (Queens, Waterloo, Windsor, Laurier, Wester, Brock and McMaster) all held campus events on January 24th at their respective campus bars with the hopes of raising money.

OUSA has been updating the progress of the campaign on their Facebook page and we hope that each campus had an excellent few weeks executing the campaign (and that ample funds will be raised for First Generation Student programs!)

AdJoke's New Look

After month's of broken promises, we've finally found a new template that we like (after a few hours of reading HTML). Not only does it keep a lot more of our content above the fold, it also makes things much cleaner and easier for the user - as opposed to the infinite scroll that we had before.

We've also added a Poll function and will be implementing some other elements (featured videos and pictures) in the next couple of weeks.

For now, let us know what you think of the new look - we hope you like it.

UNICEF Best Photo of 2007

Every year, UNICEF awards one photographer the distinction of "Photo of the Year."

The objective of the award is to shed light on human suffering and issues that can no longer be ignored.

This year, American Stephanie Sinclair won for this photo of a 40 year-old Afgan man marrying an 11 year-old child.

Quite the image.

Found on Three Minds.

New - The Poll

We've decided to add (for a short period) a poll to AdJoke. Each week (or so), we will post a new question that we would love to get your input on - it will help us get new ideas for what to post and what people like - and dislike.

Take a peek when you have a moment and please let us know if you have any questions that you'd like our audience to help answer.

The Power of Viagra

I don't really have anything to say about this...it speaks for itself.

People Like Us

Think.Mtv has launched a new campaign about the Holocaust. The campaign attempts to create relevance for the viewer by showing them that the event occured to "people just like us."

The two spots, posted below, are jarring and I like how they treat the final frame as an old photograph - they've added a current backstory to a historic image in order to create impact. The music and tone is a bit much, however the the message is a unique one.

As a viewer, I only really remember the Holocost through black and white photograph's, Shindler's List and other films and family stories. These spots help to strengthen the awareness message an dit will be interesting to see if they generate any controversy / WOM during the campaign.

"Subway"


"Family Room"

The HP Movie MashUp

Found this ad on the web today.

It's a mash up promoting the new movie "Jumper". Hayden Christensen stars in the movie and it seems to be about someone who is able to leap through time to different places. Some interesting effects to say the least (and that girl from the OC is in it so it HAS to be good).

This 90 second spot was created by the folks from Jumper and it highlights the premise of the movie by having Hayden literally "Jump" through the Serena Williams HP spot. We've written about some cool mash-ups before but never when they have been done by a large studio and a huge brand.

Although it isn't the most entertaining spot in the world, it is pretty unique and it seems like corporate mash-ups are inevitable from here on out.

Become Legendary. It's not about the shoes...

As promised here is the first spot for the campaign... it reminds me of a line from the Lebron James commercial but reverse...."It's not about you, it's about the shoes"...was it intentional?

Remind You of Anything?

We've blogged a lot about the horrible Absolut global campaign...we'll they've come out with a new gem featuring their citron vodka.

Quite the image.

Great post about it on copyranter.

ESPN Inks New Deal

Fear not, hardcore gamers. ESPN has just signed a multi-year contract with Major Leage Gaming (MLG) to cover their pro circut.

Many pro gamers do circuts across the US for specific titles and consoles - from XBox to the Wii. They play a multitidue of top games (Halo, Tony Hawk and Madden to name a few) and some competitors even have hardcore rivalries and sponsors.

Jason Lee Miller, from Web Pro News, even believes that by 2011, MLG will host Pay-per view events (think Boxing on HBO or UFC) for key gaming match ups.

Now, it's not like my life would be made substantially better by watching to gamers play Halo 3 in Madison Square Garden, however I think it would make for great comedy and actually have a decent following.

Many people don't realize that gaming is a much larger industry than Hollywood (based on Box office totals - not DVD residuals) in terms of total revnue (about $10 Billion US per year vs. $9 billion).

Gilly Hicks - naked women sell women underwear

Abercrombie has launched a site to promote their line of underwear "Gilly Hicks" in Australia.

It is a short video full of images on naked men with topless women, swimming, running on beaches, holding hands and most importantly being naked together.

This all obviously sells underwear, especially the one ass shot. Watch and learn young marketers.

The Worst Ad of 2007?

Check out what might be the worst TV spot of the year. My favorite part is the free gift at the end.

Next time, think before you buy the video camera.

Thanks to Jason P for the link!

2008 Industry Statistics

In the latest issue of Advertising Age, the magazine compiles a variety of stats around the industry - from which agencies made the biggest moves to what companies are spending the most.

It also provides a good overview of some trends - how Agency jobs have declined over the last seven years, the decline of other mediums (radio) and the steady state of TV advertising.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Top US Advertiser - Proctor & Gamble with $4.9 Billion (also top in Canada), AT&T is #2 at $3.34B
  
• Top Priced TV Show - "Grey's Anatomy" | $419,000 for a 30 second placement
• #1 Medium in the US? Direct mail at $61B, Broadcast TV is #2 ($48B), Internet increasing the most (16.5 % growth from 2006) at #8 ($12.7B)
• Top 3 US Categories (by spend) - Automotive ($19.8B), Retail ($19.1B) and Telecommunications ($10.9B)
• Sunday Night Football 30 Second Spot - $358,000
• Top 3 Internet Ad Spend by Category - Telecom ($1.49B), Finance ($1.4B), Retail ($1.25B)
• Top 3 US Agency Brands (by Revenue) - JWT ($445M), BBDO Worldwide ($444.2M), McCan Erickson Worldwide ($443.4M)
• Top 5 US Digital Agencies (by Revenue) - Avenue A/Razorfish ($235.4M), Sapient ($228M), Digitas ($163.2M), Wunderman (113.4M) and Rapp Collins (107.1M)
• 17,000 - Decrease in the number of agency jobs since 2000 (-8.3%)
• 19,700 - Decrease in direct mail jobs since 2000 (-22.2%)

You can find the entire article here.

AJ 23. Become Legendary.

The AJXX3 release will be similar to the release of any greatly anticipated product a shit-load of exclusivity, mixed with a big ad spend. Only 23 Nike sanctioned stores, each with only 23 pairs will have the kicks on Jan 25. $230 will be the ticket. This initiative will be supported by a campaign appropriately titled “Become Legendary.” Jordan, Melo, Chris Paul and Ray Allen will appear in the spots which are expected to come out mid January. I will try to post them/it as soon as the campaign is released.

I wonder what other support tactics will be unveiled over the next 3 weeks? Microsites? Promotional events? World-wide roll-out, etc?

Horrible Media Placement Part 5067

It keeps happening and it keeps getting worse. How can the industry address these problems and quickly?

Found on Digg.

Radiohead - Scotch Mist

Radiohead continues their onslaught of unique online marketing tactics for their new album "In Rainbows". Scoth Mist is a 52 minute film that includes every song from In Rainbows and was posted to YouTube by Radiohead on Jan. 1st. Just under 1 Million views in 11 days, 4800 comments and another first for the music business.

I like to just press play and listen while I work.

The slowest car they've ever built

I don't know how this spot eluded me for 11 months???

Not amazing but I like the spot for the Audi R8 almost as much as I like the car.