Notorious Beam Team

From AdRants:

"Smirnoff Ice's Save the Mistletoe is an amusingly long-way-around attempt to say Smirnoff brings people together (just like mistletoe - so stop ravaging innocent bushes).

While we remain unmoved by the plight of the sprig, the execution wins us over. By some curious witch magic the campaign features celebrity supporters that we thought were long dead or had found joy in covert day jobs. Natalie from The Facts of Life, Lisa Turtle from Saved by the Bell, Tiffany who crooned "I Think We're Alone Now" and even the Soup Nazi band together to protect the kissing plant from further appropriation by brute force." You can see their protest video below.



All this was supported by the website at the top of the post which you can access here which houses a very entertaining video, as well as a protest in Times Square, reported in the New York Times:

"On the day after Thanksgiving, Diageo’s Smirnoff Ice brand held a tongue-in-cheek rally featuring about 30 paid actors as “core protestors.” The theme was “save the mistletoe,” a slogan for a holiday campaign for Smirnoff Ice. Smirnoff estimates that 60,000 people passed by its four-hour rally.

“When you go into an arena that is so iconic like Times Square, people are looking to be entertained,” said Christian McMahan, brand director for Smirnoff Ice. “And they’re looking to be part of it.”

This is a great example of a brand doing something to encourage consumers to talk about their brand and is in this instance very reminiscent of Ikea's Everyday Fabulous campaign we referenced on the blog back in August.



It's also got the same architecture as the Stella Trapped idea that we blogged about last month. In this instance a street installation protecting a pint of Stella gained interest at street level, around the internet via photos and on top of this it linked to a really cool online game.



These ideas aren't very expensive, but they do get huge cut through and cause people o talk about them. The rise of sites such as Flickr means that your idea, if it's any good, will be spread round the world, often by accident.

Talkability.

Birthday smackdown



Wedding crashers



It's interesting to read some of the comments for these virals such as:

"Who didn´t see THAT coming? Lame"

"This must be why Google bought YouTube, to run ads!"

"Youtube will go DOWN the tube if this kinda fake home movie keeps showing up."

"noooooooo!!! this was awful now theyv found an even better way to promote beer"

"SUCKED LIKE THE LAST ONE"

"ffs!! i just watched another one!! birthday smackdown? It was the same thing.. and i still feel for it!??"

"I would really like a sting ray to stab this video in the heart. Say goodbye to You Tube, people. The ad losers got to it."

"I would like a stingray to stab Cubanosandwich in the heart. He probably won't like Borat, either. This video was hilarious!"

"Hysterical video. Loved it! Please put this on TV."

They really generate very polarised reactions. It showcases a range of issues that are associated with advertising using YouTube. If your ads aren't spot on they will either die or be slated. Nail them and you're laughing. Despite some of the negative reactions these videos have had hundreds of thousands of views already.

With over 28,000 views this video is reasonably popular. What interests me is the comments such as (excuse the language in them)...

"jim beam is the shit, sooo much better then jack,."

In many ways, although this is clearly a random video and not made by an agency or endorsed by the brand, it does give the brand a massively masculine vibe. Just a bit of fun really.

From the ever brilliant PSFK:

"When we were in London a couple of weeks ago, Jeremy Ettinghausen of Penguin books was kind enough to give us a new edition of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Magic Tales from the Brothers Grimm. The interesting part: the covers are blank and the owner is invited to draw his or her own cover. They're part of the MyPenguin series and the back of the book announces, "Books By The Greats, Covers By You".

Penguin are also asking people to send scans of their covers to an online gallery here. As you can see from the above, we've still got to get to the book - we were thinking, wouldn't it be nice if after we finished the book we'd leave an image that was inspired by the book, then we'd pass the book on for someone else to read and leave their own mark and so on and so on..."

Here are some examples which you can see here.





You can imagine something like this working for any number of our brands which are often bought as gifts.

Similar to Dodgeball which we have blogged about previously Loopt offers the chance to organise your entire life through your phone. See where friends are hanging out, tag good places to visit and stay in touch with everyone at the same time.

This looks like a great site and a brilliant way of integrating a campaign.

Via Russell Davies blog.

This blog full of user generated tools is brilliant. Of particular interest is this Absolut example. You get a chance to fill in the top and bottom lines as per the example below.



I wonder whether anyone is capturing the lines that are written and whether there is a gallery of user generated bottles somewhere?

Other great examples include this tattoo generator.



Have a look at the rest of the Generator site for some great ways of dressing up presentations.

Thanks to Russell Davies' blog for this.

Threshers the UK off licence is bracing itself for a huge loss as uptake on its 40% off voucher far exceeded expectations.

The Observer has an article detailing the current pre-Christmas craze for vouchers as retailers try to lure people away from the internet and into their shops.

Personally, I think Super High Street has the answer.

From PSFK:

"Earlier this week we checked out a pop-up bar that the Heavenly Social team have set up for four weeks in the old Pop bar at the top of London's Soho (remember Pop anyone??). The idea behind 'Everything Must Go' is to take a deserted bar and run special events including live music."

The beauty of pop up bars is that they offer the chance to test ideas and give a brand energy.

For previous entries on pop up bars click here.

A typical question board above... and a few of the gift options below.



Imagini gift finder is a very clever site where you can create a profile of the person you need to find a gift for by completing a set of visual indexing tasks. Really great idea and brilliantly executed. Would be a really interesting way of launching a global gifting catalogue for VAPs.