There is a bit of a brew-ha-ha brewing over a new Burger King campaign which features a taste-test among "Whopper Virgins"--those who have not yet experienced the thrill of a Whopper.
BK is teasing a new campaign with a short mocumentary featuring people in remote areas of the world taste-testing Whoppers and Big Macs.
The question is, is this campaign offensive to virgins? to people of remote hill villages in Thailand or Romania or the tundras of Greenland?
Or is it all just good clean promotional-fun with a heavy layering of marketing hype?
The folks over at TechCrunch spied and interesting ad placement on the MarketWatch website. Jack Daniel's is running a "Countdown to Close" banner ad which tracks the minutes and seconds to the market close each day, indirectly suggesting that it is nearing time to grab a drink. And, with today's Dow down nearly 680 points, the ad should have special meaning.
The Energizer Bunny is about to enter its 20th year.
The pink bunny, donning sunglasses and pounding a drum has been embedded in the American lexicon for two decades. The flip-flop-wearing bunny was created by a special effects expert named Eric Allard and placed in ads by agency DDB Needham starting in October 1989.
Wallet-Pop reports that In a recent advertising-related study, 95 percent of respondents were
aware of the bunny. AdAge.com has named it one of the top 10
advertising icons. And in 2006, the Oxford English Dictionary defined
the Energizer Bunny as "a persistent or indefatigable person or
phenomenon." The Energizer website has a full biography, including his title: "CBO-Chief Bunny Officer."
"It became an advertising icon," Neal Burns, an advertising professor at the University of Texas, said Friday. "They found a meaningful and differentiating position within the category that is important to the consumer, and what's important for a battery is that it's long-lasting, it just keeps going."
Interestingly, The Energizer Bunny does not appear in Europe and Australia where the rival Duracell Bunny is seen instead.
SanDisk is launching a "Cyber Weekend" three-day sale at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. To promote the sale, the company and its PR agency, Cohn & Wolf, deployed a social network strategy using ads and video on sites such as Facebook, YouTube and MetaCafe.
"This campaign is really a seeding campaign," said Tony Obregon, VP of digital media at Cohn & Wolfe. "It's about being able to leverage a lot of the social channels that are out there, about reaching folks that are passionate about movies, music, and photography."
Components of the campaign include videos on sites including YouTube, Vimeo, Veo, Blip, MetaCafe, and others. SanDisk established around 12 branded channels on those sites, each called "Take More Video." Videos talking up the sale in those branded sections were shot by tech personality Gadget Grrl. The firm also created a Twitter feed, is promoting the sale in its brand pages on social sites like Facebook, and is sending news out to bloggers.
Ad legend Jerry Della Femina reviews a new history of women in advertising, "Ad Women: How They Impact What We Need, Want, and Buy," by Juliann Sivulka for Forbes Magazine. Della Famina founded his first agency in 1967 and is still actively involved in the industry.
"Sivulka has written a sweeping, insightful, encyclopedic treatment that not only enables us to understand women's role in advertising but also makes a social commentary on the role of advertising in our culture." says Della Frmina.
I am a huge fan of the advertising from Gap. Particularly the broadcast campaigns.
This year's campaign features, not surprising, celebrities in brightly colored and highly layered Gap brand outfits, singing and dancing to holiday tunes.
The campaign includes an interactive section of the Gap Web site, which allows consumers to edit or "mix" their own ad from various celeb's. Pick Sandra Bernhard to sing the chours and maybe John Heder or Rainn Wilson could sing the verse. or maybe the Dixie Chicks. It is your choice.
Gap says: "Tis the season to mix. Mix family and friends, Mix argyle with stripes. Mix up your favorite carols, This holiday, mix it up."
“As everything progressed, we decided something lighter in tone would be fitting for the times,” said Trey Laird, president and creative director at Laird & Partners in New York, the Gap agency.
“Definitely, it’s going to be promotional out there,” Mr. Laird said, using the retail term for a climate in which price-cutting predominates, “but you’ve got to engage people, too, because there’s so many promotions out there.”
The celebrities in the Gap campaign include Jon Hamm of “Mad Men,” actress Jennifer Westfeldt; cast members of “Saturday Night Live”; the Dixie Chicks; actors like Jason Bateman, Jason Biggs, Freddy Rodriguez and Rainn Wilson; and actresses like Jennifer Hudson, Milla Jovovich and Mary-Louise Parker.
