Hey I've Seen That Before! Scribble Drawing Ads

Hey I've Seen That Before! Let my hands show you...

Another commercial with just hands showing the product features of a new phone or technology product? Almost. But this first ad is a little different than the others as it's for something that requires no battery or charger — a Moleskine journal.

Moleskine - Let my hands show you how I write in my wine journal


Here's the other advertisers in love with hand models (besides jewelers of course):

iPhone - Let my hands show you how to work an iphone


HP - Let my hands show you the cool stuff I keep on my personal computer


AT&T Hands - By far the most artistic use of hands

Check out the making of the AT&T ads here.

Hey I've Seen That Before! Fill in the _____ ads.

As time goes on it always becomes a bit more difficult to have that really great innovative idea. But, sometimes there are certain themes and concepts that are used repeatedly because they are "trendy" or "buzzwords" this series attempts to document some of those I've noticed and have a resource for similar creative concepts that have been published.

Fill in the blank. 
We've all seen them and usually those blanks are filled in with a handwriting font. Here are some of the most recent users and abusers.

North Dakota Tourism - "I am _____" ad campaign

Found online Jan 15, 2010

Wells Fargo - "With you when _____" ad campaign.
Found in New Yorker Mar. 15, 2010

National Peanut Board - "Energy to _____" ad campaign
Found in NYC subway Mar. 9, 2010

Merrill Lynch - "help2 retire _____" ad campaign
Found in NYC near Grand Central, Mar. 19, 2010

Maryland Tourism - "Maryland of _____" ad campaign
Found online on Jun 16, 2010

Too Many Caroling Commercials

Why do all advertisers find it necessary to make caroling commercials for the holiday season? The only one that may have been funny and I didn't see was a Dunkin' Donuts one with those clever and relevant anecdotes about life they create. Here's just a sample of the lame commercials featuring carolers.

Best Buy Twelp Force Carolers - I find myself especially annoyed by these carolers and I'm not sure why. This guy agrees with me. Watch for yourself...if you must.


TJ Maxx & Marshall's Carolers - I don't hate them as much, but the whole caroling-exploited-for-advertising is definitely getting old.


Any other companies out there annoying the masses with their faux Christmas songs?

Funny Malibu Rum commercials

I always loved the "Do you want to be a fisherman?" Malibu Rum commercial from their "Seriously easy going" campaign.



The newer campaign - Mali 'Boom Boom' radio - is pretty good too. Definitely makes you want a Malibu rum drink or at to least dance:

Unique uses of QR codes

A QR code is basically a bar code that contains encoded content that can be scanned by most cell phones. The cell phone needs to have a camera and internet capability. It has actually been around since 1994 and is highly popular in Japan, but is just gaining traction and greater awareness in the US. To use it:

• Just download a QR reader to your cell phone, like NeoReader or Kaywa
• Take a picture of the QR code - the embedded content is decoded at a high speed and sent to your phone. Things that can be embedded include website links, short text messages and phone numbers.

Here are some samples of it being used throughout the globe:

Get the nutrition facts on your mobile with a QR code.

Advertising call to actions.

Get destination info sent to your phone before leaving the airport.

A living book of QR codes

Best Pandora advertising wraps

 

MINI convertible ad with ability to change the time of day:

 

Great outdoor advertising

 

 

Promoting coffee with art or promoting art with coffee?

Grinders coffee just participated in a great outdoor stunt experimenting with coffee as art. They used 3,604 cups of coffee to recreate the Mona Lisa in Sydney, Australia. The process took cues from the pointillism style of painting, which uses small dots to create the illusion different shades and colors. The artists treated every cup as a dot of their "painting" and filled each with different amounts of milk to create the variety of shades. Who knew milk could also be white paint?

Thanks Clive for sending the pics!

Commercials that make you go hmmmmm...

All too often commercials are disguised as ads that are "educating" consumers, but the messages and claims are just too outrageous to allow any viewer to perceive the ad as genuine. Two recent examples of these types of ads come from the Corn Refiners Association and America's Natural Gas Alliance.

The Corn Refiners' "Sweet Surprise" campaign attempts to highlight high fructose corn syrup as an equivalent to natural sugar by stating that just like sugar, it is "fine in moderation."



The campaign also plays off the fact that many people may not be able to verbalize why high fructose corn syrup is known as detrimental to your health. Well, this spoof video response clears that all up, with documented proof as to why HFCS is an unhealthy chemical. Too bad for the corn refiners, but you can't pull the wool over my eyes.


America's Natural Gas Alliance developed a campaign of Eureka Moments showing "real" people against a blue backdrop describing when they first realized that natural gas was the answer to all our energy problems (Eureka!). My major issue with this campaign are the ridiculous lines within the scripts including, "Sure solar and wind energy are part of the future, but it's not always breezy and the sun sets".

Another commercial from the campaign shows a mother holding her young child and enthusiastically proclaiming that there is a whopping 100 years of natural gas supply available in the US. Yet I wonder, is 100 years really that long in the grand scheme of sustainability and the energy crisis?

Dunkin' Runs on Neon

Dunkin' Donuts has done a great job with rolling out their latest campaign 'America Runs on Dunkin'. I thoroughly enjoy their commercials. But, what has struck me most recently, was that they have somehow accomplished gaining a sort of brand ownership of their instantly reconizable neon pink & orange colors. I first noticed this when I was sent an invitation from a magazine that had used the same colors in their layout. My first thought was "Why did they use Dunkin' Donuts' colors?" Maybe soon we'll call these hues, 'Dunkin' Pink' and 'Donut Orange', just like we all lovingly refer to 'Tiffany Blue'.