If you haven’t seen the new Showcase re-branding effort yet, you have to see this.
Canwest has decided to overhaul the specialty channel’s brand, focusing on popular shows like Showtime’s Weeds.
This week in the streets of Toronto, Canada, Canwest’s in house creative and strategic team decided to pull of a stunt to promote season 5 of Weeds airing Sunday September 13th. The unconventional OOH marketing effort had an installment of what looks like Marijuana plants in a high traffic location, with signs that look like what your Gardner would install after spraying pesticide on your lawn. The signs read: “Please Don’t Smoke The Grass”. I’m sure this created quite the buzz on the busy downtown streets and hopefully it will get people to tune in on Sunday night.
I’ve actually already started watching the new season illegally online, which I don’t advise anyone to do for legal reasons of course… But I have to say, this is one of the best seasons so far, the writing keeps getting better and better and the story lines and character development are some of the best on television.
Anyway, as much as I liked the old branding and positioning of the old showcase, sometimes change is necessary and I have a feeling this will be a good one!
Feel free to let me know what you think of the stunt they pulled to promote the new season or comment and tell me what you think of the season premier, I promise this season will not disappoint…
This week, MySpace.com launched a branded microsite to promote Coca-Cola’s “Open Happiness” campaign. The key theme of the microsite reveals The Formula for Happiness. The microsite includes interactive features with a focus on Music, Fashion, Video Games and Movies, as well as daily prize giveaways and one grand prize of an all expense paid trip to MySpace’s upcoming “The Release” show. Each section required relevant content that reflected the brands message of “Happiness”. WatchMojo.com had the privilege of providing original and exclusive video content to power the microsite’s Fashion Section. WatchMojo was challenged to find entertaining and informative fashion videos that closely matched the overall feel of Coca-Cola’s brand and message and would help increase user engagment. WatchMojo scanned its complete library of content to single out the best fashion videos we had to offer. The result, WatchMojo’s content integrated flawlessly into the microsite, adding precious value to Coca-Cola’s “Open Happiness” campaign.
You can see the microsite that went live Thursday August 20th, 2009, here: The Formula for Happiness
So I was watching last weeks episode of Entourage and noticed how facebook was written into the storyline. Normally I wouldn’t ask or even care, but for some reason I felt that the facebook integration wasn’t at all subtle to say the least. This raised a few questions… I asked myself, is facebook so popular that HBO’s Entourage would write them into the show just because it’s the cool thing to do? Does facebook need to pay for this kind of publicity? Or is there something else going on here? The real question is: did any money change hands? Did facebook pay HBO? I don’t know the answer, nor do I think doing any hard research on my part would produce any significant results.
So I pose the question to our readers:
Do you think facebook payed for placement?
Or
Do you think HBO wrote them in ’cause everyone else is doing it?
Please feel free to leave your comments below, perhaps they will spark another blog post on the matter.
The Ten Commandments are recognized as the moral foundation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They also serve as the basis for many judicial systems around the world. Today however, I will be focusing on a specific commandment, namely number VIII on the infamous stone tablets Moses schlepped down Mount Sinai: Thou Shalt Not Steal.
A few weeks ago I stumbled onto a blog developed by two former ad execs, Jon Noel & Adam Kubik. Now, this isn’t your typical Perezite Hilton, celebrity gossip site… StealOurIdeas.com is creativity with a sense of humor, media relevance and political flare.
I had a chance to ask Jon & Adam a question, here’s what they had to say:
WM.com:
“So guys, what if someone wanted to steal one of your ideas and use it in a campaign?”
Jon & Adam:
“…we’d of course hope they’d either give us credit or compensate us, but it’s up to them. There are a lot of reasons we’re doing the site and money & fame aren’t too high on the list. It’s similar to why does a graffiti artist leaves his mark on a wall if no one knows who he is. We needed a creative outlet that we weren’t getting from the ad world so we started this site in response to some of the problems with the industry. We’re having fun with it, and people seem to enjoy it as well; so we’re going to keep it up as long as we can.”
Not only do they freely allow advertisers and agencies to steal the ideas posted on their blog, but they even allow people to submit creative briefs, which they will develop into a custom idea just for you. Briefs can be emailed to Stealourideas@gmail.com.
So if one day you find yourself with a mental block lasting longer than Moses and his posse’s trek through the desert, send Jon & Adam a quick note and you should expect to receive the creative equivalent of manna…
PLAY
