July 28, 2009

Going to work for Sterling Cooper

You can too. Check this out. Very very well done.

Posted by Tug McTighe on July 28, 2009 at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising

July 28, 2009

Follow me @tugonthis

I've been badmouthing it for months but too many people I respect have told me to shut up and start tweeting. So, today, I did. Hopefully, I won't disappoint you. (I'm sure I will.)

Posted by Tug McTighe on July 28, 2009 at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Social Media

July 28, 2009

I'm back and am submitting this for your approval:

Things marketing people love. Ouch. Hits pretty close to the bone don't it?

Thanks to Kinney.

Posted by Tug McTighe on July 28, 2009 at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising

July 14, 2009

Mos Def T-shirts: Way cooler than my CD bikini

In a musical genre that is often bereft of original ideas, one rap artist has come through with a great one: T-Shirts.

Wait. What?

Sounds dumb, I know. But this particular T-Shirt might change the music industry forever. On the surface, it looks like a plain ol' cotton job that features the album art on the front and track list on the back. Look a little closer, though, and you'll see a download code that lets you get the whole album for free online. That's right -- the album is right there on the shirt. But that's not even the best part of this whole scheme. Mos, somehow, got SoundScan to count each shirt sold as an album sold.

Awesome, right? I thought so, too. But is it the future of music? Is this how artists and record companies add enough value to the traditional album to get you to buy a hard copy instead of paying half the price to download from iTunes? And most importantly, will I be able to get the new KISS album on a pair of platform boots?

Posted by Nick Kinney on July 14, 2009 at 02:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Brave New Marketing

July 09, 2009

11 observations about Kim Jong-il's delusions of Auggie Busch.

Look, everyone else has already covered what some have reported as the "first television ad ever to run in North Korea." But, as you know, beer is one of our favorite topics.

1. The copy of the ad reportedly promises that beer relieves stress, improves health and lengthen life. We thank The Great Leader for allowing truth in advertising.
2. We have a case of good American beer for anyone who works that Wii-on-crack soundtrack into a real project.
3. Seriously.
4. This spot proves the old adage, "When in doubt, use reverb."
5. By the by, Don Pardo has some real competition in Korea.
6. AKA Mr. Black and MK12 can suck eggs. The motion graphics here rule. Some of those Korean characters look like they're made out of real chrome! That's the kind of stuff we thought only Nebraska Furniture Mart could pull off.
7. That North Korean waitress is not wearing 37 pieces of flair.
8. The Sam Adams guys can learn something from this spot. Beer-making employees look most concerned with quality when wearing white lab coats.
9. Why do we feel like that beer mug is made out of lead glass?
10. Just can't help but wonder if this is the kind of craftsmanship that went into North Korea's nuclear missiles?
11. If there's TV to be done in North Korea can a giant holding company office be far behind? McCann Pyongyang anyone?

Posted by John on July 09, 2009 at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising , Current Affairs , Entertainment , News of the Ad World , Television , The real world

July 07, 2009

Drink the #moonfruit juice

If you're on Twitter, there's a good chance you've seen a few folks post about #moonfruit. How do I know? Because this strange little hashtag has been the biggest trend on Twitter for a week now. And while the term may evoke images of some strange delicacy from a far-off land or (more likely if you run in advertising circles) the perfect mixer for a fancy cocktail, it's actually something quite different.

The story behind #moonfruit is actually quite simple. MoonFruit, you see, is a company who's objective is to help regular folks build and host their own "beautiful websites, simply." Apparently, they've been doing this for 10 years. To celebrate this anniversary, these cunning little web geeks decided to create a contest for their faithful followers. And since there is no better place to find such followers than Twitter, they decided to hold their contest there.

The rules of the contest (which is over early due to it being too successful) were simple. Just include the term "#moonfruit" in your tweets. Then, at the end of each day, the guys at MoonFruit will pick one tweet at random and award them a shiny new MacBook Pro.

Sounds awesome, right? The rest of the Twitterverse thought so, too.

In fact, they thought it was so awesome that:

• MoonFruit's Twitter account, @moontweet, gained over 40,000 fans in six days.

• #moonfruit was the top trending topic on Twitter for nearly a week.

• Twitter actually removed #moonfruit from trending topics because it was pushing news about Palin, Wimbledon and even the legendary Iran Elections off of the top 10 list. 

• at three different points in time, over 2% of all tweets contained the word #moonfruit.

• because of the massive response they were getting, Twitter actually threatened to ban MoonFruit altogether, forcing them to end the contest three days early.

• good folks from all over the web posted funny and creative tweets like the ones below (and yes, that's Jeremy Fuksa in the last one. Follow him @3rdmartini).

Don't believe me? Then check out this handy graph from Twist.

But all famcy visual aides aside, those facts make the #moonfruit promotion a pretty powerful one.

"But of course it went huge!" you say. "Who doesn't want a MacBook Pro for free?!"

"Well," I say, "that isn't the question. The question is why did a fairly unknown bunch of website builders figure out how to create a whole big promotion using only Twitter before we -- the ad flacks -- did? How did they beat us at our own game? How did they connect with people better than us ad geeks have been able to thus far on this, the hottest spot on the web?"

I don't know the answers to any of these questions. Do you? If so, please PLEASE share them with us.

Posted by Nick Kinney on July 07, 2009 at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Categories:

July 06, 2009

Chalk up a few more cool points for Nike

This is Chalkbot. He's a homemade machine that writes customized, hopeful messages about cancer survival on the roads of the Tour De France in sidewalk chalk. I'll be right back -- I need to change my pants real quick.

*Cue hold music*

OK, now then -- Thanks Nike, LIVESTRONG and DeepLocal. Your unbelievably cool work made me feel like an untalented, uncreative hack YET AGAIN. Please don't ever, ever stop.

P.S. -- Over/under on days until this thing is hacked and starts repeatedly writing "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US": 3.5

Posted by Nick Kinney on July 06, 2009 at 03:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Categories:

July 03, 2009

Happy Fourth of July!

American Independence Day is tomorrow. It's a day for drinking beer (according to Sloshspot, Americans drink more beer on July 4 than on any other day of the year), grilling out and hanging with family and loved ones. So to all AC's American friends we say -- go do some of the above tomorrow. And to all our outside of America friends we say -- why not go do some of the above tomorrow, too?

Posted by Tug McTighe on July 03, 2009 at 09:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: AC News

July 02, 2009

Microsoft and Dean Cain -- Your grade is F

I saw this news come across my feed the other morning but just got around to checking it out. Jesus, do I wish I hadn't. A new low. First of all, the subtext of the spot is that the husband is looking at disgusting porn at the breakfast table. Er, ok. And second, the wife vomits. Repeatedly. Then, if that ain't enough, he slips in the vomit. And how does this disaster end? Dean fucking Cain shows up. This is a huge bowlful of ass. Looks like they've (mercifully) taken it down. Woof guys.

Posted by Tug McTighe on July 02, 2009 at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Current Affairs

July 02, 2009

No budget? No problem.

From BuzzFeed.

Posted by Tug McTighe on July 02, 2009 at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising