Advertising Is Good For You

Interactive landing page for Shark Week

Click here to see the interactive Shark Week landing page.

Two very similar online ads

 

Save money. Live (and die) better.

If you love flowers or simply enjoy looking at beautiful things, visit the blog of the new White House florist

 

Laura Dowling is the new White House florist. Her designs are breathtaking. Treat yourself and take a couple of minutes to look through Laura Dowling's blog. 

Email stalking -- oh, what a feeling

Here's the tale of Amber Duick.

She's a Los Angeles woman who for five days received emails from someone she didn't know, a man named Sebastian Bowler. Sebastian told Amber he knew where she lived and told her he'd be coming to her home to hide from the police.

Amber says she feared she was being stalked and had trouble eating, sleeping and her job performance suffered.

When she found out the emails were part of a guerrilla advertising campaign for Toyota, she decided to sue Toyota for $10 million.

Of course advertising shouldn't be masquerading as a guy who's wanted by the police and is on his way to hide out at your house.

But what about a series of tongue-in-cheek emails from a guy who says he's wanted by the police and is on his way to hide out at your house?

I don't have access to all the emails, but here are two snippets from the emails sent by the fictitious Sebastian:

Amber mate! Coming 2 Los Angeles. Gonna lay low at your place for a bit till it all blows over.

Amber, ran into a little problem at the hotel. After I'm done visiting you, I'm going to go back and sort out that front desk Muppet. (this email included a bill for damages from a hotel)

THIS is the kind of thing that "terrified" Amber Duick? Seems to me the copywriter did a great job of injecting just enough cornball into the copy to clue in the reader that this is some kind of joke.

Read more about Amber Duick and her suit against Toyota.

Ever since I first read this story, in my mind's eye the role of Sebastian Bowler has been played by Terry Thomas.

C'mon, people, use a little imagination

According to an article in Wired, the most common password among Hotmail, MSN and Live.com users is 123456.

85% of all clicks are generated by only 8% of Internet users

We know who we are.

Read all about it at Media Post.

Cats breed on Greenville Humane Society website

Visit SpaysNotStrays.org and watch an entertaining example of the problem of cat overpopulation.

Something to think about... In 9 years, 2 breeding cats and their offspring can produce 11,606,077 kittens.

Tragically inappropriate contextual ads

Business Insider has put together a collection of Google contextual ads that illustrate the drawback of the medium.

 CLICK HERE to see Business Insider's complete collection of unfortunate contextual ads.

CLICK HERE to see another troubling example I posted earlier this year.

Banner ads you'll want to see. Really.

To promote Rob Zombie's sequel-remake of Halloween 2, Heavenspot created banner ads that look like the banner ads you see and ignore every day -- until slasher Michael Myers enters the frame.

Watch. Unlike Michael Myers' victims, you won't be sorry.

CLICK HERE to watch the pseudo Hot Date banner ad.

... The Auto Insurance banner ad. 

... The Tax Increase banner ad.

... The Apple banner ad.  

New product: designer canteens

This banner ad caught my eye.

What a great idea, I thought.

And after clicking to uscanteen.com, I was even more excited.

I mean, look at how cool these things are.

  

Then I saw the price tag -- $30 for the canteen and $60 for the holder -- and I quickly remembered that I don't drink water.

Mad Men Yourself

 If you want to create a Mad Men avatar of yourself, suitable for Facebook or Twitter, go to MadMenYourself.com.

Free gun with purchase

 Max Motors in Kansas City, Missouri, is giving away a free AK-47 with the purchase of a new truck.

Apparently, the promotion has helped sell a lot of cars.

On Max Motors' website there's a banner featuring a large AK-47. Roll over it and it makes the sound of an assault rifle being fired. How adorable.