Advertising Is Good For You

And this little piggy forgot to floss

Great advertising installation for Glide, a brand of dental floss.

Via Cool Hunting

Giant fish in Rio

This fish installation, made of discarded plastic bottles, was constructed in Rio de Janeiro to raise awareness of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

It's worth clicking the images to enlarge them.

Via This is Colossal

Your morning dose of happy

Click here to watch a flash mob in the Copenhagen subway play Peer Gynt.

You're welcome.

Sprite makes Brazilian beaches even better

To promote its lemon-lime soft drink in Rio de Janeiro, Sprite Brazil created giant soda fountains and scattered them along the beach. The soda fountains dispensed water, allowing beachgoers to take a refreshing shower.

Click here to read a funny tweet about Sprite.

Via Gizmoto

Japanese moviemakers want to scare the crap out of you again

The Ghost of Samara (Japanese movie on which The Ring is based) is coming out in 3-D. Which will make the scariest movie I've ever seen even scarier.

Even the promotion for the movie gives me the creeps.

Click here for links to great online ads promoting Rob Zombie's sequel-remake of Halloween 2.

Via Buzzfeed/Copyranter

Guerrilla marketing FAIL

There's so much wrong here, starting with the fact that that's supposed to be an ice cream cone suit the guy is wearing.

Click here to see an even creepier guerrilla marketing campaign (not for the squeamish).

Via Kind of Creepy

Seems a bit of an overpromise

Seen in Chicago on Saturday:

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.

At least they didn't hire Burt Reynolds

Bliss Spa in New York is hiring people in gorilla suits to walk the streets and hand out coupons proclaiming, "We're wild about hair removal."

I don't really like the idea of having my body compared to that of a gorilla.

On the other hand, I can't resist a gorilla suit.

By the way, the shaving and hair removal business made approximately $1.8 billion in the U.S. last year.

Image: Buy Costumes                         Source: Jezebel 

Offensive -- or marketing genius?

Non-traditional media company GoGorilla has come up with an idea to capitalize on the potential swine flu pandemic.

Here's GoGorilla's pitch:

Source: Gawker

Wanted: Weinermobile driver

Oscar Mayer is accepting resumes from aspiring Hotdoggers, the processed meat company's term for Weinermobile drivers.

CLICK HERE for more information including how to apply.

Guerrilla advertising all wrapped up in a bow

Last year around this time, an Italian fitness club covered a car with post-it invitations for a free trial of club. The car was tied up with ribbon (but not as obnoxiously as those damn Lexuses) and parked under the town Christmas tree. 5,000 free-trial invitations were distributed this way.

Advertising agency: Gogo Dynamic Media

Source: Ads of the World

How much is that crazy in the window?

Those Lush beauty products people are at it again.

To raise awareness of the cruel practice of slicing off shark fins to make shark fin soup and shark cartilage supplements (gory details here), Lush and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society hired performance artist Alice Newstead to hang from her piercings in the window of the Lush store on Regent Street in London.

Ms. Newstead hanged for 15 minutes from de-barbed shark hooks. Despite the bleeding, she said it didn't hurt.

Still, I prefer the naked Germans.