No, it's not a new game show on NBC featuring a celebrity host and a bunch of girls with giant noses that might contain money, it's a new advertising idea from the folks at the financial paper.
As Chris mentioned earlier, they're a new version of the old "scratch and sniff" ads called "rub and sniff," which actually sounds like some sex position, or maybe a play that will be run in the Super Bowl coming up in February. These ads will use a technology different from the typical peel and smell ads (like cologne ads) you see in mags like GQ and Esquire. It's a rub, not a scratch.
For now the ads will just be included in newspaper inserts, not as part of the newspaper itself.
Wilford Brimley is actually a fine actor, but unfortunately a generation will mostly remember him for his commercial work for Quaker Oats and Liberty Mutual. Unlike other celebrity spokespersons, Wilford always seemed very serious about the product he was pitching. After watching him pitch oatmeal or medical supplies I felt like a damn fool if I didn't go out and purchase those products, despite not being hungry or stricken by diabetes. I would watch his commercials in awe, waiting for him to finally go completely off the script:
Wilford:Okay, seriously, just eat some damn oatmeal. You're not foolin' anybody so just cut the crap and eat it. It's good for you, and you know it's good for you, so don't give me any damn lip. I've been around the block a few times, I know these things. When you're in your 80s you can tell other people what to eat for breakfast, you got it?
I think Wilford's commercials are fine the way they are, but someone found a way to jazz them up:
A new campaign from the Ad Council aimed at curbing teenage car wreck fatalities is highlighting the responsibility others in the car have. The campaign urges those who feel uncomfortable with someone's driving habits to "speak up" and overcome their fear of being ridiculed by the group. A series of spots shows situations where someone in the back of the car is encouraged by a narrator character to voice their concerns over the driver's irresponsible behavior.
Ads in comics are nothing new. Ever since kids everywhere were enticed to send a couple bucks to an address for a pair of x-ray specs there have been ads within the funny books. Today the ads are a little (but not a lot) different. Most of the ones I see are for licensed merchandise bearing super-hero images or video games. That's leading at least one person to say there's tremendous untapped potential for advertisers within comics. With characters from Marvel and DC becoming more ingrained into the pop culture through big-screen movies the books those characters are drawn from are becoming bigger and bigger business.
The audience that reads them, specifically, is often one that has a good amount of disposable income, is a young adult and is tech savvy. That's a demographic that is often in marketers' cross-hairs. While I share some of the wariness of JK at Newsarama about more ads intruding on my comic reading, from an advertising perspective this makes sense. Seems there's a lot of potential money being left on the table by not advertising more in comics.
It's not bad enough that direct-to-consumer advertisements have people diagnosing themselves and twisting the arms of their doctors until they give them specific brand name medication. Now we're starting to see ads for medical equipment.
This isn't run-of-the-mill walkers or diabetes testing equipment, though. A company who makes them has begun advertising their $30,000 heart defibrillator, a device that needs to be surgically implanted into a patient. The $100 million campaign is aimed both at informing doctors of the device as well as consumers. If this begins a new wave of medical advertising it has the potential to increase sales of those brands that can afford to market themselves in much the same way as when Big Pharma has seen since 1998, when ad rules on medication were lifted. It could also contribute to the ever increasing cost of health coverage in much the same way as when those medication ads were given more ad leeway.
All of the Super Bowl commercials that Budweiser will run have been posted to YouTube. You can see snippets of all 8 of them on this page, or you can check out the video below. It condenses all the ads into 3 minutes and 9 seconds. The ads this year feature crabs, Clydesdales, a space station, and a hitchhiker with an axe.
One of them, "Rock, Paper, Scissors," has already run on television (at least I think it has, or did I see it online?), so it's not new or special for this Super Bowl. As for the other ads, again I say...eh. I've never been a fan of the Budweiser commercials, and I can never understand why they seem to win ad critic and viewer polls for best ads every year.
I like the one with the dog though. Dogs are cool.
An Illinois consumer watchdog group has urged makers of alcoholic drinks they feel are being marketed to kids to stop doing so reports the Chicago Tribune. The Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association has called on makers of drinks like Mike's Hard Lemonade and others to curb practices that they say make the drinks appealing to kids. The group is using the term "alcopop" to describe such drinks. A 2003 FTC report said there was no evidence kids in particular were being targeted by ads for these products, but anecdotes in the story suggest that consumption is widespread among teens.
Mitchum deodorant has created a fun and sexy site that tests to see whether you're manly enough to be a true Mitchum Man. Nina, the hostess on the site, quizzes you on things like you're perfect date, your ideal car and other such topics. If you answer in a manly enough fashion than she undresses slightly. Finally you get your man score as Nina ditches the sexy professional look and adopts the sexy school girl outfit. Go take the Man-o-Meter test yourself. You can also check out outtakes from Nina's video shoot after the jump.
I'm not sure what to think of this ad. It was created for an environmental organization and shows two trees standing side by side, their trunks smoking and spewing flames like the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. The text on the ad reads: "For nature, everyday is 9/11."
Setting aside the argument of whether or not the ad is insensitive, or if it's too soon to evoke such images, I wonder if the ad actually makes a clear point. I understand it wants to demonstrate how the environment is "under attack," but there are no specifics. The idea of comparing it to 9/11 may be jarring and controversial, which is obviously the point, but I want more detail. I want to know exactly how the events of that day and our treatment of the environment are similar. I have no problem with an ad trying to shock people, but such an ad would have a much larger impact if it was more obvious why such a connection is being made.
Okay, I'll admit it: despite being 30, I'm still pretty much a kid. I'd rather be left in a room with a few containers of Play-Doh than a glass of beer. It's not a matter of arrested development, though, it's more about needing a creative outlet so I don't go completely insane. If terrorists ever wanted to get information from me, all they'd have to do is deny me any form of artistic expression. After only a few hours I'd tell them where the uranium was hidden.
I only mention this as a way to explain why I thought this print ad and poster for Child TEMA, an environmental action group in Turkey, was so amazing. It would be cool to think someone actually created the entire landscape out of Play-Doh, but I think it was probably some kind of digital imaging thing. Of course, I have no idea how it was done, which should be clear when I use phrases like "digital imaging thing." Either way, it's a great piece of work.
If you rub some of the ads the Wall Street Journal is planning to run then you'll be able to smell them. The paper promises that the scented ads will be much classier than the fragrance inserts in glossy magazines.
It's hard to figure out what the actual advertising angle is to this story about the tabloids coverage of Jennifer Aniston's rumored nose and boob job. Seriously - can anyone tell me how this is news?
If you like to shop in New Jersey (and who doesn't) you're probably looking forward to the 2008 opening of the Xanadu Meadowlands retail complex (read: mall). To finance the construction it's offering $2.5 billion in naming rights to different areas within the mall.
I was attracted to these Mentos ads because I loved the artwork on them. I'm a total sucker for anything artistic, especially in advertising. I think you have to go back a few decades to find ads that can truly stand as works of art in their own right.
Anyway, I was so enamored by the images it didn't even register that not only are the geniuses depicted in these ads eating a mint that didn't even exist yet, but that the ads are also suggesting that somehow the chalky mints give people ideas. Actually, it was LittleJohn at Advertising for Peanuts who pointed it out. Regardless, I still think they're great, and I'd love to see more ads with that kind of artistic detail. It really is a throwback to the print ads of the '50s and '60s.
Chocolate maker Hershey's feels that they're not advertising enough. That's why the solution they've adopted to turn around disappointing fourth quarter 2006 sales is that of doubling ad spending. Specifically, the brands will that carry the Hershey's name as well as Reese's products. As part of the overall ad rejuvenation, the company has decided to continue advertising on Wal-Mart TV, the retailer's in-store network. Use of Wal-Mart TV in the past has, according to CEO Richard Lenny, produced greater ROI than traditional TV buys and come complete with other in-store promotions as well.
The Oxygen cable network has begun the upfront season a bit early by announcing a bevy of shows it will be trying to sell to advertisers. The one of most interest to AdJab readers might be "AdFight" which will pit ten teams made up of professionals, students and amateurs who compete to create a new campaign for a big company that won't be revealed until the final show. That and a variety of other female-targeted shows will be offered up as Oxygen takes advantage of new viewer data that shows it skewing younger in terms of audience as well as growing its overall audience.
Just for the record, I proposed a sort of advertising-based reality show here at AJ quite a while ago. I'm just saying.
Here's some news that will help you anticipate better what you're likely to see in the ad programming that shows in theaters before the trailers start.
National CineMedia has announced it will begin including previews from the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet and Travel Channel in its pre-show entertainment. The previews will be intergrated into National Cinemedia's "First Look" feature that also includes long-form movie previews and more.
Another major in-theater network, Screenvision, has said it is buying the assets of Cinema Screen Media. That purchase will expand Screenvision's reach to almost 15,000 screens for its ad network.
Heath Row, though, points out on his Advercise blog how most of the local-targeted ads that run in these ad pods aren't contextually relevant to the movie going experience. Instead they often advertise dry cleaners and orthodontists, services that might be fine but which are in sharp contrast to everything else the audience members are experiencing. Row hypothesizes that the expanded reach of these networks will open up the door to national advertisers or others. Even so, his point that advertising for carpet cleaning services is a far cry from the types of ads people are seeing now, especially online. There people are becoming accustomed to ads that roughly match the information they've just searched for or are reading. The sort of advertising dissonance in theaters can be jarring.
No, it's not a new game show on NBC featuring a celebrity host and a bunch of girls with giant noses that might contain money, it's a new advertising idea from the folks at the financial paper.
A new campaign from the Ad Council aimed at curbing teenage car wreck fatalities is highlighting the responsibility others in the car have. The campaign urges those who feel uncomfortable with someone's driving habits to "speak up" and overcome their fear of being ridiculed by the group. A series of spots shows situations where someone in the back of the car is encouraged by a narrator character to voice their concerns over the driver's irresponsible behavior.
Ads in comics are nothing new. Ever since kids everywhere were enticed to send a couple bucks to an address for a pair of x-ray specs there have been ads within the funny books. Today the ads are a little (but not a lot) different. Most of the ones I see are for licensed merchandise bearing super-hero images or video games. That's leading at least one person to say there's tremendous untapped potential for advertisers within comics. With characters from Marvel and DC becoming more ingrained into the pop culture through big-screen movies the books those characters are drawn from are becoming bigger and bigger business. 
It's not bad enough that direct-to-consumer advertisements have people diagnosing themselves and twisting the arms of their doctors until they give them specific brand name medication. Now we're starting to see ads for medical equipment.
An Illinois consumer watchdog group has urged makers of alcoholic drinks they feel are being marketed to kids to stop doing so reports the Chicago Tribune. The Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association has called on makers of drinks like Mike's Hard Lemonade and others to curb practices that they say make the drinks appealing to kids. The group is using the term "alcopop" to describe such drinks. A 2003 FTC report said there was no evidence kids in particular were being targeted by ads for these products, but anecdotes in the story suggest that consumption is widespread among teens.
Mitchum deodorant has created a fun and sexy site that tests to see whether you're manly enough to be a true Mitchum Man. Nina, the hostess on the site, quizzes you on things like you're perfect date, your ideal car and other such topics. If you answer in a manly enough fashion than she undresses slightly. Finally you get your man score as Nina ditches the sexy professional look and adopts the sexy school girl outfit. Go take the 
I'm not sure what to think of 
Okay, I'll admit it: despite being 30, I'm still pretty much a kid. I'd rather be left in a room with a few containers of Play-Doh than a glass of beer. It's not a matter of arrested development, though, it's more about needing a creative outlet so I don't go completely insane. If terrorists ever wanted to get information from me, all they'd have to do is deny me any form of artistic expression. After only a few hours I'd tell them where the uranium was hidden. 
If you rub some of the ads the Wall Street Journal is planning to run then you'll be able to 
I was attracted to 
Chocolate maker Hershey's feels that they're not advertising enough. That's why the solution they've adopted to turn around disappointing fourth quarter 2006 sales is that of doubling ad spending. Specifically, the brands will that carry the Hershey's name as well as Reese's products. As part of the overall ad rejuvenation, the company has decided to continue advertising on Wal-Mart TV, the retailer's in-store network. Use of Wal-Mart TV in the past has, according to CEO Richard Lenny, produced greater ROI than traditional TV buys and come complete with other in-store promotions as well.
The Oxygen cable network 
Here's some news that will help you anticipate better what you're likely to see in the ad programming that shows in theaters before the trailers start. 
