but hilarious.
New campaign for Hardees’ about their new Biscuit Holes. Check out the spots below and the campaign site NameOurHoles.com to help the Southern/Eastern fast food chain come up with a better name for their Biscuit Holes.
A vs. B
Survey
Munching
I am not a violent person. However, I would like to physically harm who ever created the pop up people that talk on websites.
Dear Merchant Circle,
Please disable your the popup lady who tries to sell me on your package deals.
Thanks.
To experience the annoyingness for yourself – click here.
What ever happened to category exclusivity in TV spot breaks?
An explanation for any non-media readers out there – typically when you place a buy at both the local and national level, you will be granted category exclusivity for the spot breaks you purchase and any good media buyer will demand it. Meaning that within the a two minute and thirty second commercial break those other four :30 spots you’re running with will not be one of your competitors.
Your competitors could be in the next spot break, they could be in every one after yours, but they should not run in your break and certainly not after your spot in the same break. Sometimes it happens, rotators get stuffed in any avails and when inventory is tight mix ups are bound to happen. But these days it seems as though category exclusivity is totally done with.
MTV seems to do this the most – a two minute break just aired three direct skin care competitors, one after the other.
Local news ran a competitor car spot in the same break they announced a program feature was sponsored by another local dealership of the same make. (Car dealerships are a bit more flexible in that two makes can run in the same break as long as they don’t directly compete – BMW and Chevy can share a spot break because people shopping for a Chevy would not then turn around and buy a BMW).
I’m surprised with the amount of inventory that this is even happening, but media companies and reps are too focused on making money to stay afloat. Unfortunately, its hard for a media buyer to track what other spots are running in the spot break as invoices only contain the date, time and rate of your own spots. Unless you (or god forbid) the client happens to catch it, you’ll never know.
Do you think exclusivity is a thing of the past or will it come back when stations don’t have to whore themselves out to stay afloat?
The Dollar ReDe$ign Project is asking folks to redesign US currency in an effort to encourage the US government to redesign the US currency and stimulate the economy. The Project was put together by Richard Smith.
While I do not understand how pretty new money will boost the economy, I enjoy checking out the submissions sent in. All of the designs are available for viewing here, you can read more about the project here and here.
These are my favorite submissions
By Michael Ross
By Richard Smith
By Michael Tyznik
Outdoor is just not as creative as it should be. Very few brands take advantage the possibilities of outdoor which is why I appreciate the out of the box thinking on this campaign by Agency V out of Paris, France. But it falls short in execution.
Polo Match. An endless list of equipment.
What do you think? I don’t want to skew your opinion so I’ll let you know my thoughts after the jump…
Meet Zack, the star of the most disturbing online campaign EVER created.
The premise is that Zack went to bed one night with “guy parts” and woke up with “girl parts,” although he remains a guy in every other aspect. Throughout the videos Zack only expresses mild confusion, never close to FREAKING out like most guys would be.
On his site, Zack16.com, you can read his diary and watch the very professionally produced videos of this transformation. Check out his diary entry from Day 9 where a copywriter had the time of his life crafting these beautiful and touching words -
It happened so fast. C’mon, I just was just dealing with my newly acquired girl parts. And I had no choice. They just showed up. I didn’t even get a 30-day money back guarantee. Then BAM! I get hit by the menstrual express. I didn’t even have time to give my new girl parts a pet name like “Fifi” or “Alexandra.” No, we had to rush right into menstruation.
In the Day 9 video you’ll see the Tampax vending machine – voila after 9 freaking days of girl parts, vagina, PMS and menstruation talk we finally get a product placement that lets up know who to thank for this this “viral” series.
So thank you, I am now scarred for life. Is this as contagious as swine flu? Can I wake up one morning with “guy parts” or is this a guy to girl only type of thing? Why doesn’t Zack seem more concerned? Is this some sort of super strength STD that I need to be on the look out for? Or does this prove that you can “lose it” if you don’t “use it”? Why hell isn’t he freaking out?? If I think Zack is cute, am I a lesbian? Ugh, you may have made me feel better about “Menstruation Island” but now I’m questioning my sexuality. Gee thanks Tampax!
Didn’t viral used to mean it was low budget and at least attempted to look like it was consumer produced? I wonder what the bill was for this because I see a part two where Zack wakes up with robot parts! Or his Fifi meets another Fifi and we learn about transsexuals. Or we follow around a girl who wakes up with “guy parts” and dribbles out apologizes to for every stereotypical guy cliche and then shaves her new balls, sponsored by Gillette.
You can read more about it on AdAge or if you’re like me, you can curl up into a ball and cry over the state of advertising.
I was a Journalism major in college and while I was not of the uber-Journalism persuasion, I’ve always had a healthy respect for Jouranlists. Growing up I was always a news junkie; the world has always fascinated me, from politics and religion to trends and tragedy. While I didn’t pursue a career in Journalism, it still holds a special place in my heart.
It pains me to see the state of broadcast Journalism today.
Today as Iran erupts in protests over the disputed legitimacy of their recent Presidential election, Twitter streams are full of news with pictures and videos most of which fails to get covered both nationally (CNN’s coverage has been lacking) and locally.
Very rarely do I watch local news, but I figure its 10pm and I could very easily tune in to the local news to catch up on Iran. So while a very important Middle Eastern nation is going through a democratic uprising what do all three local news channels lead with for the 10pm news? A local middle school’s trip to China. Second story? High school prank gone bad. I want the f’ing news, not my community weekly newspaper.
/rant
For news done right check out the #iranelection twitter stream, Time and the BBC.
UPDATE: I attempted to watch the local morning news – one station spent 30 seconds mentioning that the happenings in the rest of the world, using the a graphic of an Iranian woman putting her ballot in the box and no mention of the protests. The story followed an update about the Turkey stampede at the Del Mar Fair and was followed by a story about Kung Fu Panada being played at Viejas outdoor theatre tonight.
I give up. Back to the interwebs I go for my news.
Just the other day I was thinking about the lack of humor in high fiber food commercials.
Silly, but still gets to their copy points.
Did you get your vanity Facebook URL? The Friday night geekfest resulted in 200,000 vanity URLS within the first 3 minutes according to Mashable (the start time was 12:01 EST Saturday morning).
I logged on at about 9:05 PST last night and acquired Facebook.com/ErinNorton. There are a 125 other Erin Nortons on Facebook, so I considered myself pretty lucky.
While I went with my full name to continue my personal branding efforts, others disregarded the future of their online identity and picked completely random user names and the daring few “facesquated” on friends, foes and brands.
Here are my top 5 random Facebook user names:
The buzz in the Twittersphere is all about Hubspot’s latest State of the Twittersphere, available here. It examines levels of activity of Twitter users by the following statistics:
- 79.79% failed to provide a homepage URL
- 75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile
- 68.68% have not specified a location
- 55.50% are not following anyone
- 54.88% have never tweeted
- 52.71% have no followers
With an astounding 55.50% never tweeting, many started to say that most people were not using twitter and the huge growth that Twitter experienced were just accounts being created, not users being created. The main argument here goes back to the idea of monetization – if most Twitter accounts are inactive (as determined by the lack of tweets and followers) then Twitter’s value is severely decreased.
However, I don’t see the above statistics (especially the lack of tweets) as a sign that Twitter users are inactive. All of us social media consultants always say that the first step to social media is listening. Its important to know what people are saying and how to use a social network, before just jumping right in. Secondly, after the initial Twitter objection, “I don’t want to read about what people are eating,” comes “I don’t have anything interesting to say.” Of the few (real life) friends I have on Twitter about half don’t tweet. They subscribe to their favorite celebs, a couple news outlets and their own real life friends. To them its just another RSS feed.
The real value of Twitter isn’t the number of active users, its the number of active listeners.
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