sundance

Design your own pad

No, not an iPad — a menstrual pad. We were reading that article the other day about the big biz of vaginal products about how marketing and advertising industries aren’t shying away from female genitalia anymore, now that their target market has a million and one shameless blogs about the comings and goings of their vulvas. We mean, power to the punani and all! But that still doesn’t mean any vaginas out there need douching, no matter how hip the packaging or presentation…

CONTAGION billboard grown from bacteria

You’ve heard of viral campaigns, but you probably haven’t encountered bacterial marketing – or, more specifically, a billboard crawling with live bacteria cultures. But that’s exactly what marketers from Warner Bros. Canada put together last week: not one, but two enormous, mounted petri dishes inoculated with cultures of penicillin, mold and pigmented bacteria. Over the course of the week, the cultures eventually grew to spell out CONTAGION, the title of the star-studded flick (Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Jude Law) that hit theatres last week.

Organic bottled water… really

Bottled water companies have had to get imaginative to distinguish their products from one another, because, as many watchdog groups have pointed out, all of it is pretty much just water (often filtered tap water) in a plastic bottle, and it’s often not as “pure” as tap water. That hasn’t stopped vendors from using everything from school spirit to New Age-y interpretations of quantum physics to position their products as unique.

The latest marketing trend for bottled water? Organic. Yep, that’s right. A number of companies now market “organic water.”

You are subscribed to the future

The title of this post is the message that pops up when you register your email at Miranda July’s website for her upcoming film THE FUTURE, which premiered at Sundance this year. The film, like all of her work, polarized audiences. There are the fervent July fans who find her work – in all mediums, I should add – quietly insightful, understated, poetic and razor sharp. Her critics, on the other hand find her overly poetic, even precious. One film critic at The Hollywood Reporter called THE FUTURE “a film as fragile and miniaturist as its title is grandiose…just too terribly twee to readily embrace.” I’ll reserve my own commentary for when the film is released “July 29th-ish,” according to July, but I’m going to have to disagree with twee right now.

Origins of I Heart New York

I sat down with Milton Glaser last week. Not only am I working with Milton at my day job, I also recorded our conversation for Dwell too. Meeting legends typically don’t phase me. I’ve met them all from design icons to rock gods. But Milton is the quintessential New Yorker. It was quite a joyous event for me. The below statement about “I Love New York/I Heart New York” was particularly fascinating for me as he not only explained it’s design inspiration, something I’d never heard, but also explained how ubiquitous the statement had become. It’s a fun read:

I am sure you have answered this about a million times, but I have to ask about “I Love New York” or “I Heart New York.” I don’t even know what to call it! Love or heart?
What you may not realize that is that the heart, a symbol used as a verb, has now entered into the Oxford English Dictionary. This happened a couple of weeks ago. So heart is now a verb. It entered with an acknowledgement that “I Love New York” was the manifestation that did it, the first symbol ever to enter the Oxford Dictionary. You can call it either one as both are correct.

Logos without the logo

UK creative agency Dorthy created a series titled “You Took My Name” of paintings “that strip famous logos back to their basic graphic forms.” Their instant familiarity speaks to the marketing muscle of these companies in propagating and distributing their brand, as well as the importance of strong design.

Organic coffee… for metalheads?

When I first saw that Rob Zombie was selling certified organic and Fair Trade coffee through his online store, I thought “That’s unique…” Turns out I was wrong… Zombie’s joining metal artists ranging from Steelheart to Dave Mustaine of Megadeth to Charlie Benante of Anthrax in lending his name and image to coffee. In all of these cases, the brands in question tout their dedication to the environment and social/economic justice.

OK, your average metal musician probably appreciates a good cup of java after a night of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, but organic and Fair Trade? Is that necessary for this demographic? Or is this just some kind of marketing ploy aimed at attracting a wider audience?

The best period commercial, period

We saw this fantastic ad for a new line of period products called U from Kotex while we were watching American Idol the other day. (We can admit this viewing habit without shame because in the same week we watched the 13-and-a-half-hour, black-and-white German film “White Ribbon,” which pretty much balances things out.) Anyway, the commercial makes fun of all the stupid things most period product ads employ — beach scenes, slo mo, white spandex, blue liquid. So we did some more investigative work, and found two other awesome spots (heh heh) from U: in one, respondents taking a Rorschach Test do everything in their power to avoid saying “vulva” or “vagina”; in the other, a clueless boyfriend tries to get help in the feminine protection aisle (the lady who says “It’s a man’s world” is our new hero!). We’re not convinced the hip packaging will make menstrual products seem cool, but we’re sold on U’s marketing mission: helping girls (and society) get over their embarrassment and squeamishness about something so normal and natural — and that’s not just periods, but anatomy too.

The Man Your Man Could Smell Like

We usually breeze through the commercials on Tivo, but somehow caught this new Old Spice ad during a recent “Lost” recording. So glad we did, because it’s genius. This one — count ‘em, one — shot took three days to nail. If you look carefully, there really isn’t much computer manipulation (save for the bottle erupting out of the overflowing diamonds). And that’s actor’s real voice! Don’t believe us? Check out this Twit interview with the creators of the ad for the play-by-play of how they did it.

Finally, a positive side to airport security.

We know of at least one good thing to come out of the whole underwear bomber shenanigans: lingerie ads inspired by those “naked” full body scanners. Okay, we’d much rather have a shorter stay at airport security (and retain at least a little bit of our privacy)…but at least we’ve got this clever ad for [...]

Bianco Footwear gives your feet that naughty feeling.

We’ve heard of penile orgasms, clitoral orgasms, g-spot orgasms, p-spot orgasms, and even nipple orgasms…but orgasms for your feet? Maybe that’s what the foot fetishists are all on about… (That, or we’re totally missing the point of this commercial.) Feet Orgasm [illegaladvertising.com]

A tale of two book covers.

Above, the covers for two erotica anthologies. When MILF Fantasies was released as an ebook by Ravenous Romance earlier this year, it barely sold. Young Studs was made available shortly after, and shot into Ravenous Romance’s top ten. This would be nothing more than a curiosity of sales data, were it not for one essential [...]

Amazing Tokyo time-lapse

In this gorgeous ad for the watch company Citizen, buildings implode and explode, lights dance in complex arrays, and shadows engulf entire parks. The ad was created by the Japanese agency WOW for a watch- and jewelry-industry trade show called Baselworld.

The English language as a first-person shooter game

Check out this amazing ad for Inlingua, an international language-training company. It’s a spot for the company’s Business English service, and it presents the English language as a literal battlefield. This is some of the best motion typography I’ve ever seen:

Product-placement pioneers: the hair-metal band Autograph

Jon Fine of BusinessWeek has a great post about one of the earliest-known examples of product placement in a music video: the pen company Paper Mate’s sponsorship of Autograph’s 1984 video for “Turn Up the Radio”: Yes, this actually happened: In 1984 Paper Mate found an unknown poodle-rock band called Autograph, gave ‘em some bucks, [...]

100 single ladies

Full disclosure: You’re about to watch a “viral” video to promote a free Beyonce concert sponsored by Trident. That said, who doesn’t want to watch 100 girls in London’s Piccadilly Circus mimic Beyonce’s music video for her hit song “Single Ladies,” which has been hilariously parodied. This is a template for how to create a [...]

Cops versus clowns

A short film by Adam Berg and Stink Digital to promote Philips’ new cinema proportion television with a 21:9 ratio. This, wait for it, 2 minute 19 second (get it?) sequence is “filmed in one continuous tracking shot and offers an exploration into the world of movies being made for the cinema screen through the [...]

Eye-catching: The Monocle Shop in LA

Following the success of its London location, Tyler Brûlé brings his marketing savvy to Santa Monica where the second Monocle Shop opens today. The 115 sq ft store will serve as both a retail space and branding mechanism for the revered magazine, all 22 issues of which are sold alongside international designer collaborations from the [...]

Girls on Vespas.

Is this art? Is this advertising? Or is it a fetish? And what is this funny feeling I have while viewing them? However you slice it, there’s something appealing about this Flickr collection of glamorous calendar photos of ladies posing with Vespas from the 1950s through the ’70s. Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/59287402@N00/sets/1787954/ Via: http://www.metafilter.com/79922/Momma-Mia-Ragazze-in-Vespa-Girls-on-Vespas