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Category — Novelty

New Ambient Ads For Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut Cornflakes On London’s Pavement

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Up until this afternoon, I was totally unaware that the cereal eating habits of society change during the colder parts of the year. It makes perfect sense though; apparently, cold cereal sales drop off during the winter months as people switch to hot breakfasts like oatmeal and farina.

In an attempt to keep customers eating their daily bowl of cold corn flakes during the autumn months leading up to winter, ad agency JWT London has created this “ambient” campaign for Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut CornFlakes. They enlisted the pavement artist Jon Hicks to draw large Kellogg’s bowls around London sidewalks, and sweep the autumn leaves into them to emulate the cornflakes. Clever stuff. Check out some pictures of Jon Hicks working:
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December 27, 2008   1 Comment

One Ad Agency’s Way Of Getting Clients To Pay Their Bills: Pick Whom To Fire

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Brussels advertising agency So Nice sent out an email to its clients saying they need to shrink their staff, and asking the clients to choose which employee should go. The email had a link to youchoosewefire.be, where each of the prospective ex-employees lists their strengths and weaknesses.

The small 10 person agency has apparently been financially squeezed by it’s clients paying their bills later and later. Co-founder of the company, Laurent Duffaut, said the email was a “scandalous and provocative way to get a reaction from our clients”. But the email has generated a ton of interest outside of just its client base. In five days, the site has had 30,000 unique visitors casting 17,500 votes.
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December 23, 2008   Comments Off

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia Pet: The Holiday Gift From Your Weird Uncle

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San Francisco-based Joseph Enterprises, the company behind the Chia Pet, will be spending almost $9 million dollars on advertising this year alone. Yet from the months of January to September of this year, they’ve only spent $5,000 dollars. This is because almost all of the advertising happens during the holiday season, and likewise, 90% of Chia sales occur during the holidays. They’re like the Jesus of the kitschy seed planter pottery world – big in December, ignored the rest of the year.

They were first introduced in 1981 and have continued to cling to the public consciousness despite being branded as just a fad product. Joseph Enterprises does a good job of keeping the public interested with new forms each year. For example, this year they have characters from the films “Madagascar” and “Kung Fu Panda” on top of their regular line of kittens and hippos and elephants.

Check out the timeline of all the different types of Chia pet:
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December 23, 2008   1 Comment

Warhammer Online Offering Monuments To Top Players

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Mythic Entertainment has come up with an interesting way to make one of it’s games more appealing: monuments to the top players. Bragging rights are a major part of these online games. Players spend countless hours building up their characters, going on epic adventures, trying to defeat bizarre creatures, they deserve some rewards. That’s the whole reason most people play these games, they want to feel like real heroes. And with the market of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) getting so thick, each game is trying to out-do the other in terms of giving the player the best sense of accomplishment and heroism. So coming sometime this month, Mythic will release the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning’s patch version 1.1, which will be add a feature that creates statues of top-ranked players in the major cities.

Only the best of the best will be getting their names on these statues, the top ten players in each realm. And Mythic has hinted that they may be releasing even more rewards for its best players. They’re pulling out all the stops trying to woo World of Warcraft players over to the Warhammer world.
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December 10, 2008   1 Comment

California Teacher Sells Advertising Space On Tests

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Calculus teacher Tom Farber is using the free market to help make up for the school district’s budget cuts – by putting paid advertising on his exams. The school district reduced Farber’s budget to $316, far less than the $500 he says he needs to prepare his students for Advanced Placement exams.

Farber’s pricing: ads on a semester final cost $30; chapter tests and quizes are only $20 and $10 respectively. So far the ads have raised $350, although most of the advertising so far has come from parents who put in good luck and other inspirational messages to the kids. Only about 1/3rd of the space has been sold to local businesses. One particularly clever ad was a local dentist’s “Brace Yourself for a Great Semester!”

But interesting question here is, why is Tom Farber forced to do this to get the money he needs? Public schools are, on average, twice as expensive as private schools, and yet, public schools are having funding shortages, what’s going on?
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December 5, 2008   Comments Off

Thief gets his own billboard after robbing advertising agency

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It’s a very common crime in my part of the city: a thief puts on a orange reflective vest and maybe a hard hat and steals some a)electrical equipment, b)large bits of metal, c)whatever. Thief then sells his booty for scrap, collecting a tiny fraction of what the goods are actually worth to their original owner. Here in Philadelphia, thieves have been known to actually steal manhole covers and sell them as scrap metal. Indeed.

A similar thief in New Zealand may get what’s coming to him though. He stole 15 transformers worth almost $5000 dollars, most likely because he wanted to sell the copper in them, which is worth about $150 dollars. But the equipment he stole belonged to an advertising company, and they’re doing what advertising companies do best… advertising it. They captured an image of him on a security camera, and put up a billboard with his face on it.
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December 2, 2008   1 Comment

Some Chicagoans Will Keep Warm and Fed Thanks To Kraft Foods This Holiday Season

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Kraft Foods Stove Top brand will be pumping warm air and delicious stuffing into some the chilly bus stations around Chicago this month. Out of the 50 bus shelters getting Stove Top print ads, ten lucky shelters will get specialized Stove Top ads with temporary heating units in the ceilings. The company also plans to hand out samples of it’s new Stove Top Quick Cups instant stuffing in the streets of the windy city.

The new ads read, “Cold, provided by winter. Warmth, provided by Stove Top.” Apparently, this is the first time heated bus shelters have been used for advertising in the US. Why don’t they pump delicious stuffing smell in with the heat? Well, we all remember what happened with the GOT MILK? cookie smell campaign. They pumped in the delicious smell of cookies into various bus shelters around San Fransisco hoping that the smell would get people craving a glass of milk, but instead of making commuters get all hungry for cookies and milk, the snooty SanFransiscans complained. Only in San Fransisco could people complain about the scent of freshly baked cookies.

Anyway, check out a list of all the heated locations and the locations of the free samples:
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December 2, 2008   Comments Off

More WTF Products: Introducing, The Tiddy Bear

I think this just might be my favorite thing ever, this week. The Tiddy Bear (IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE IT SOUNDS LIKE TITTY!) is a little bear-shaped pad that keeps the seatbelt from digging into your… shoulder. It’s basically a Beanie Baby that fits on your seatbelt. Man, Beanie Babies… what ever happened to those? 85% of all grandmothers out there have a large portion of their life savings investing in those ridiculous things. Fifty dollars for an elephant with a fireman’s hat? Come on!this

Really though, Tiddy Bear thing is genius. They already sell high-quality seatbelt pads at Target for under 10 dollars. The makers of the Tiddy Bear took that idea, and made it shaped like a bear so they could use their ultra-hilarious double entendre name, and charged an extra 5 bucks. Well played, makers of the Tiddy Bear Comfort Strap, well played.

(via Tiddy Bear)

November 14, 2008   10 Comments

Fake Freak Out Rage Ads Are All The Rage

Freak out videos are big. People love to laugh at the misfortune of others, plus we can all relate with the one guy who just has too much one day and finally snaps. It could be one of us, if we were mentally unbalanced. Fortunately for society, most of us are at least partially balanced, so we keep that terrible rage bottled up deep inside, buried in our special place, where it can do no harm except for the gradual eating away of our soul and joy of living.

Yes, well, the videos: This unfortunate nutcase in the hotel lobby is a fictional character as you may have guessed from the website displayed at the end. That website, www.donthaveameltdown.com, is actually a front for Cisco’s Unified Communications Create Adaptive Workspaces service. You sold me, Cisco, hook it up in my living room. Wait, it costs how much?

Moving on, check out these past freak out viral video ads:
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November 14, 2008   Comments Off

Global Warming In Amsterdam: We’re In It Deep

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This is advertiser Ogilvy Action’s public awareness campaign for MTV Switch.

Switch is MTV’s environmentalist arm. It tries to increase pubic awareness about environmental issues. I think Ogilvy Action’s low-cost/high-impact signs get the job done nicely. Strangely realistic-looking hands stick out of the water, holding up a sign with a simple question and the website address; and the whole assembly is attached to a remote controlled mini-submarine.

The theme of the campaign: we’re in deep.
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November 11, 2008   Comments Off