D-9 Debriefing

My friend and I really didn't know what to think when we stepped out of the theater after seeing District 9 tonight. I don't know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn't what I experienced. The best way I can describe it is like watching a more cinematic two hour game of Halo.



A Halo game at which I'm not behind the controls because although I would love to be a gamer, I particularly suck at the ones in which you have to navigate and shoot with two different controls, especially when they are inverted. Why?! It's complicated enough as it is! Now I have to remember that when I aim the joystick down that I am actually looking up? My ex-boyfriend and his frat brothers took full advantage of this fact and delighted in repeatedly running me over, ambushing and sniping me. The best I could do was memorize where the turrets were, attempt to reach them and make it rain bullets! And I still rarely ended up with a positive kill score. (If we were playing Mario Kart or Super Smash Brothers, it would be a different story. Oh yes.)

Anyways, I don't really get into ARG (Alternative Reality Games) but I heard the one promoting District 9 was decent. They scattered stuff all over the web, which appeared to come from several different "sources." (I think they recently aggregated them at D-9.com since the movie is out now).




They even arrived in full force at Comic Con to warn/inform people.



I don't this ARG was as widespread or as popular as the one for The Dark Knight (which won the Grand Prix in the Cyber Lions category at Cannes this year), but hey, I went to see the movie so at least some part of it worked on me.



I still don't know exactly what to think of the movie. It left me with more questions than answers, which I suspect was it's intention. It was definitely unlike any other movie I've ever seen. Weird how movies are becoming more like video games, whether subtly like this one or blatantly like Gamer, which I will probably end up seeing thanks to all the action and explosions I've seen in the trailers.

Afterthought: I found this screen junkies review online which states that the original intention of this movie WAS actually supposed to an adaptation of Halo. Hmmm...

Mad Men Mania

Yay! I'm super excited for the next season of Mad Men to premiere on AMC on August 16! I discovered this nifty new avatar maker MadMenYourself.com. I love the retro feel, and the navigation is easy but I just wish they had spent a little more time on the illustration for the avatar parts themselves. Like for example, the noses all look really bad, so mine ended up noseless (a la Michael Jackson... Too Soon?) Of course I had to accessorize myself with a doughnut!





The clothes and the hairstyles are pretty sweet and I like the download options. Promotion for the network guys must be getting cheaper, and more creative thanks to the popularity of social networking.





Speaking of promotion, I also think it's cool that the show partnered with Banana Republic.




The stores feature little guides that help you dress like your favorite character, and on the back of those guides, there are ticket codes that promise a slight chance of winning a walk-on role on the show and a $1,000 BR giftcard. How swell! ;)

Curiouser and Curiouser...

Hey y'all! Time to indulge in my AIW obsession once again.





The Loyal Subjects of the Red Queen, the Loyal Subjects of the White Queen, and the Disloyal Subjects of the Mad Hatter are all building armies on Facebook. The fan page with the biggest army at 7PM EST on Thursday, July 23 will get to see an exclusive new trailer from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland before anyone else. Here is the link where you can pick your page and see some pretty character portraits.

Of course I cheated and became fans of all three, which led me to the main Alice in Wonderland Facebook page where I stole these lovely new promotional posters:







It's a ridiculously simple and smart way to engage crazy kids like me and get free promotion (I twittered the link and passed it on to some other fans I know on Facebook). Thanks again to my favorite enabler, MM. :)

Un-Say-What?

I apologize in advance for still sipping the fast food ad haterade (or is it just "H" now since the sports drink abbreviated itself to "G?"). But I saw this ridiculous new ad for KFC slamming Subway. WTF? I mean the only connection I can think of between the two is that maybe eating buckets upon buckets of fried chicken is how Jared gained all that weight in the first place?

The commercial has like three business guys eating lunch. The one guy eating the sub is being taunted by the other two for only getting a sub-par sandwich (chips and drink not included) for 5 dollars. Then the KFC advocate says something like "Yea look at what I get for 5 bucks: two pieces of chicken, mashed potatoes dripping with gravy, a biscuit dripping with butter and a large soda...and love handles and a spare tire and a future heart attack." Only FIVE DOLLARS for all that!? Ok so I might have paraphrased a bit. But come on! They actually managed to make the tagline worse than it already is: "Taste the unsub side." (This is like the antithesis of one of my favorite fast food tags "Think outside the bun.").




And what better way to promote their new image than with this "Grillz" app. I can't put my finger on it, but this has gotta be borderline racist somehow... buckets of chicken...bad grammar...sparkly dental accessories...lol. I think braces are a better investment, but that's just me.

There are two things I REFUSE to work on: KFC and Cigarettes. But speaking of fake health, I'm watching a Colbert Report rerun right now so I'm in actually in a good mood. :)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Commonsense Health Care Reform Infomercial
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Mark Sanford

Even Stephen mocks advertising! "A gabazillion dollars?!...Just 4 easy payments of we-have-no-idea-99!"

One / Three = Scandal

So Calvin Klein had this orgy-tastic new ad up in New York until recently. Well, they had to do something to get attention. I for one kind of forgot the brand even existed.



They haven't really been a big designer name since the early 90's when Cher (Alicia Silverstone) name dropped it in Clueless.



I don't see why it was such a big deal. They were just trying to appeal to a much-neglected polygamous niche market. Anyways, they replaced it yesterday with a less scandalous and more generic bikini-clad chick.

Breadtality

Gotta throw a random toast post in here every once in a while...



So tired. Will put actual effort into a post soon.

PES + Bacardi

LOVE LOVE LOVE these Bacardi ads by stop-motion master director PES. They are fantastically art directed, down to the last detail. Everything is made out of cocktail paraphernalia. I'm guessing the concept is Bacardi takes you to the party? (I couldn't embed, so you have to watch them on PES's website.) The ad agency behind it is David & Goliath based in Los Angeles.

Spring and Sports

To celebrate the first day of spring, Google themed it's home page by paying tribute to Eric Carle's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.



This was totally one of my favorite books when I was a kid!
According to this article,
The book, published in 1969, still sells one copy every 30 seconds in the world, 40 years after it was originally published.

Written and illustrated by Eric Carle (a graphic designer who later became art director of an advertising agency before moving into book illustration), it has sold more than 29 million copies, and is published in 47 languages.

Mr Carle, who turns 80 this year, said he got the idea from a hole puncher.

"One day I was punching holes with a hole puncher into a stack of paper, and I thought of a bookworm and so I created a story called "A Week with Willi the Worm". Then my editor suggested a caterpillar instead and I said "Butterfly!" That's how it began," he said.

I love the illustrative style. I hope to do other things than just advertising art direction too, like maybe also write a book, go surfing in Hawaii, go skydiving in Australia, possibly do a triathalon. The usual. LoL



And speaking of sports, Wake Forest plays their first game of the NCAA tourney against Cleveland State in about two minutes! They better win, even though my brackets are all messed up now because Clemson lost last night to Michigan....





...12:04 AM: And Wake is out. First round. 84-69. Hmm, deja vous, a la the ACC tourney. Oh well. I guess I'll root for the Tarheels now!

Photoshop Fail

This screencap has been sitting idle on my desktop for a while. I saw this ad on Pandora and probably didn't even need to save it because the images are so bad that they are forever burned into my subconscious.



It's pretty much one of the worst design jobs I have ever seen! The mohawk and glasses are masked really horribly and the type kind of makes me want to gag. It's a big random mess of vector and rasterized images that don't go together at all. And you gotta love the default photoshop brush action and fake-blur effects. The thing that irks me the most is that there are like 3 different logos battling it out.

I could keep going and going and going on about how bad this ad is, but obviously the image speaks for itself.

Apple Love

Usually I hate commercial mesages in my inbox, but this one was so pretty...

Yep, I am officially an Apple Whore. I have the whole collection now: Macbook, iPod and iPhone.
Steve Jobs, will you be my valentine?
LoL

Nuts for Change

Really? Ben and Jerry's came out with a new flavor called "Yes Pecan?"


It seems that B&J's is some sort of new advertising medium for charitable causes (I posted about their ONE Cheesecake Brownie flavor a few months back). I guess its a noble endeavor and Lord knows our education system can always use the help. Their main promotion channel is through Facebook.
Hmmm... I wonder who old Ben and Jerry voted for last November...

At least it supports my opinion that the pronunciation is "pee-can" rather than "peh-kahn."

ad battle

first, here are the pc ads from cp+b in case you haven't seen them yet...




tbwa turned out this obvious response to the new pc ads ridiculously fast (approximately a month after the release of the windows ads)...




the funny thing is, no matter how much advertising macs get, they will never achieve the same market share that pcs have. i love my mac, but its definitely a niche market.

sidenotes:
i figured sooner or later an article like this would come out.
holy crap! there's a huge wikipedia entry chronicling the 'get a mac' ad series.

amsterdam's best agency

our guest speaker at school today was johan kramer, co-founder of amsterdam-based agency kesselskramer. i decided to check out the website because a lot of the kids were saying they have amazing work, www.kesselskramer.com and was thoroughly confused. everytime you click on the link, a different, crappy-looking webpage appears with random bits and pieces of their work scattered throughout them. and it really annoys me that you can't click on most of the 'buttons.'
and their work is just as strange as their website, i think. but, i guess that's what you would expect at an agency in amsterdam, lol.
i guess their style distinguishes them from pretty much every other ad agency out there, but its not really my personal taste.





i have to admit, i kind of like this 'unique design' print series.

michael phelps is my hero!

it's a little difficult for me to follow the olympics in beijing right now, but i do know that michael phelps won his 8th gold medal yesterday! this breaks mark spitz's former world record of winning 7 gold medals in a single olympics in 1972.
well, mr. phelps never has to worry about money again. his brand worth just skyrocketed and he is going to get so many more endorsements it's not even funny. i mean, before he even debuted at the olympics in athens 4 years ago, he already had seven advertising deals totaling over $1 million with huge companies like visa, omega watches and AT&T wirelss. it's interesting to read this article from usa today talking about phelps 4 years ago. wikipedia estimates that he's already made over $5 million from endorsements.
and, speedo is now due to pay him an extra $1 million bonus for winning those 8 golds. dare i say he might even replace tiger woods as the sports phenom endorsement king.
here are some ads that already feature phelps for your viewing pleasure. (my favorite is the powerbar one)



sportscenter ads from this summer


nbc olympics promo spot circa summer 2008


visa ad from this summer w/ morgan freeman narrating


powerbar "power to push" tvc circa summer 2008


phelps talking about the powerbar campaign


of course you gotta have a speedo commercial in there

and here is my favorite from the last summer olympic games in athens:

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

...and a really hot picture

here's a wild idea

i found this on another advertising blog, but it is definitely worth re-posting. simple yet creative multi-media campaign by BBDO West in san fran to get people more interested in the san francisco zoo. step one: get your picture taken in front of the ad (in bus shelters and at the zoo). step 2: upload it to the oursfzoo.org. the best pics get uploaded to the gallery. i wonder why they chose to use a butterfly, giraffe, kudu and peacock. i think an octopus would have been sweet! or a lemur. or a lion with a huge mane! yea!


cool design - looks like the leopard os.

i wanna get into these pants

i love this viral video! i always have dreams that i am floating like that (except my dreams don't include product placements). oh that's a great idea! we need to invent a device that places products in peoples' dreams...
ok anyways, it's a cool piece by Cutwater of San Francisco and Tate USA. it really works because there is no overt levi's endorsement (i.e. logo or something) because it would lose it's cool, homemade appeal. i wonder how many teenage guys are going to try to do this now.

carolina on my mind

ok i had to blog about this because it's promoting my home state! apparently this is big tourism campaign (by the bounce agency) from this past february encouraging frozen 'chicagoans' to visit south carolina (more specifically the coast where all the beaches and golf courses are). my favorite is the parking garage ambient golf tees. i do wish the whole campaign was somehow more visually consistent. the website is ok: www.timetothaw.com. it would probably be more interesting to someone who didn't grow up there for 18 years.