Archive Category: Advertising
Camels for Digestion's Sake
This 1936 ad for Camel cigarettes encourages you to stop and smoke between each course of your Thanksgiving feast. Link to Flickr page (full size). -via Metafilter
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Amusing Ads For Star Wars Weekends
Photo: Lucasfilm/Disney
There’s a bunch of new print ads out for Disney’s Star Wars Weekends, and they’re pretty funny. See Darth Vader wait in line, Ewoks get denied, TIE fighters at airport gates and more at The Chive.
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Maneki Neko Candy
This clever candy is packaged to look like our favorite lucky cat, Maneki Neko! But open the cellophane and all you get are two white balls of candy. The cellophane is where the cat is at -in fact there are several wrappers with different cat expressions. Link -via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
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Heatin' Ana Beatin' Welding Service
Billy Mays may be gone, but the spirit of salesmanship lives on. For instance, just take a look at Glen "Amazin Blaze" David Thornton of Heatin’ ana Beatin’ Welding Service.
By the end of this short video clip, I was so ready to fork over my wallet to buy whatever it is he’s sellin’: Link [embedded MySpace video]
Previously on Neatorama: 5 Strangest Products Pitched by Billy Mays
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After Microsoft
“Bliss” by Charles O’Rear (L), “After Microsoft” by Goldin & Senneby (R)
The default desktop image for Windows XP was called “Bliss,” and became instantly recognizable. The image was taken by a photographer named Charles O’Rear, but now it’s being phased out. The image on the right is what that hill in Sonoma Valley looks like today.
Charles O’Rear used to pass that hill almost daily between his home in Napa and his wife, Daphne, who lived in Marin County. He always carried his medium format camera.
It was hard even to slow down on highway 12/121. But one day, it must have been in January, he pulled over. After about a month of rain the sun comes up, and there is beautiful green grass. The weather during the winter can change dramatically. A break in the storm. Intense blue sky with cumulus clouds. Maybe later that day it rained.
Looking to brand XP as green, Microsoft bought the photo right around the time the soil recovered enough to replant grapes for vineyards. Link -via grow-a-brain.
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| Neatorama Shop » Computer & Office » Road Mice | |
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Why settle for a boring computer mouse when you can surft in style with Road Mice, a cool wireless computer mouse that looks just like the car of your dreams? Road Mice is available in various Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge, and Ford models including the popular Black Mustang with White Stripes shown to the left. It's the perfect gift for the auto-enthusiast in your life! |
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7-Up for Baby!
This 11-month old baby isn’t even their youngest customer! The ad copy also says:
By the way, Mom, when it comes to toddlers- if they liked to be coaxed to drink their milk, try this: add 7-Up to the milk in equal parts, pouring the 7-Up gently into the milk. It’s a wholesome combination- and it works!
Click the picture at Kitchen Retro to see the full-size version of this and other vintage ads. Link -via J-Walk Blog
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Custom Barcodes
Image: d-barcode
The Japanese graphic arts firm d-barcode creates customized barcodes for clients who want to use them to grab customers’ attention. In Fast Company, Cliff Kuang writes:
They’ve even begun selling their wares to anyone who wants to license them, starting at $1,500 for the design, and $200 a year for licensing. A custom or exclusive use code will run upwards of $4,000–but given that companies spend millions on designing a single package, why don’t we see more detailed thinking like this? Middle managers spend weeks arguing about kerning–it’d be better if they spent more time rethinking every inch of such highly prized real estate.
Link via Fast Company
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Iconic Album Art on Stamps
The British Royal Mail service commissioned Studio Dempsey to create first class stamps with classic albums covers. The covers include albums from Blur, New Order, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Primal Scream, David Bowie, The Clash, Mike Oldfield, Pink Floyd, and Coldplay -but no Beatles.
The final selection of ten sleeves (which perhaps oddly doesn’t feature one of The Beatles’ album covers) will appear on a set of 10 stamps that will launch on January 7, 2010 – and the stamps will be uniquely shaped, as shown in these images, to accommodate a glimpse of a vinyl disc poking out of each record sleeve.
Link – via babycreativeblog
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Anthropomorphic Foods
Which is better, a fresh apricot or a dried apricot? The way they argue, nothing will be settled. This is just one example of a series of talking food ads to promote the Supercooks program from the British Food Standards Agency. See sausages, potatoes, nuts, and more discuss their virtues at Eat Me Daily. Link -via Everlasting Blort
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Paranormal Goat
How do you improve the runaway sleeper hit Paranormal Activity, which was made on a budget of $15,000 and has grossed nearly $90 million so far?
Add goats.
Yahoo’s Buzz Log has the clever mash-up of the movie’s ads with a few ungulates, which is a spoof trailer for The Men Who Stare At Goats: Link [embedded YouTube clip]
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TRAX STI Snow Car
Just in time for snow season! DC co-founder Ken Block teamed up with Subaru to design and produce the world’s fastest cat-track snow car. Primarily for reaching alpine backwoods to engage in some fresh boarding, the vehicle is also built for fun as a standalone toy.
Prepared by Vermont SportsCar, performance modifications include 400-hp and features Group N competition rally dampers made by EXE-TC and a KAPS 5-speed close-ratio dog-engagement gearbox. Under the hood sits a 2.5 liter, 4-cylinder, turbocharged and intercooled STI engine tuned with a MOTEC M800 ECU.
Not seen is a trailer that will haul up to four boarders and equipment. More info here.
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What Your Taste in Beer Says About You
The market research firm Mindset Media studied the cultural and economic behaviors of beer drinkers and discerned certain trends among buyers of particular beers. Among the brands studied are Budweiser, Bud Light, Corona, Heineken, and Blue Moon. Beth Snyder Bulik wrote about the study in Ad Age. Here’s what she wrote about Budweiser drinkers:
True to form, Bud drinkers are sensible, grounded and practical. They are the polar opposite of daydreamers and don’t easily get carried away. These beer drinkers also don’t like authority—can anyone say union?—and are emotionally steady people who live in the here and now. However, what may be a bit surprising is that people who prefer Bud can also be very spontaneous and tend not to do much advance planning.
Budweiser drinkers are 42% more likely to drive a truck than the average person, 68% more likely to choose a credit card with flexible payment terms and 42% more likely to use breath-freshening strips every day.
Link via The Presurfer | Photo: U.S. General Services Administration
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Bottle Bank Arcade
From The Fun Theory, a project by Volkswagen and the ones who brought us the piano staircase, comes bottle bank arcade. Again the question is posed, “If we make it fun, will people start doing it?” Yes, they will.
Thanks, Luna!
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Jell-O and the Kewpies
This post at The Future of the Cookbook tells how Jell-O became “America’s Most Famous Dessert,” before it was even familiar! Jell-O’s early promotional advertising included recipes, recommendations from doctors, and adorable kewpies. Link -via Everlasting Blort
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Canal+: Wardrobe (The Closet)
This story has got everything: baddies with machine guns, log riding off a waterfall, heavy machinery, pretty lady in bed … totally plausible, too.
Here’s a short clip for Canal+ titled "Wardrobe (The Closet)" by BETC EURO RSCG advertising agency, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen.
You won’t guess the ending: Link [embedded YouTube]
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Que Sera Sera
This ad for the Thai Insurance Company features children from the Srisangwan School for the disabled, a project of the Princess Mother’s Volunteer Foundation. Link -via b3ta
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Vintage Ads: Translation, Sex Appeal, and Innuendo
You ought to wonder what a wind-blown skirt and cleavage have to do with shoeshine, but you know what was on the minds of the men who came up with this advertisement! See more hilarious and suggestive magazine ads from the 40’s-60’s at Divine Caroline.
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Human Tetris on Skateboards
This ad for Freebord skateboards has skateboarders flying down the streets of San Francisco in the dark to connect glowing Tetris shapes. I have to wonder where the awesome outtakes are!-via Digg
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30 Stupidest Inventions Ever
Life Magazine has a hilarious post up featuring what they consider to be the 30 dumbest inventions of all time. When you look through the list, filled with things like the shower hat to the right, you actually start to get an appreciation for things like the Snuggie.
Almost all of the inventions are from the sixties or before, so it’s not too shocking that many of them involve cigarettes, including a method for a couple to share a smoke and one for a person to smoke a whole pack at once -oh joy!
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7 Most Amazing One-Take Video Clips
What is it about one-take video clips that capture our imaginations? Perhaps it's because we've become so cynical about video editings that the pure, raw form of a single, uninterrupted shot truly stands out.
Well, whatever the reason, one-take video clips sure take the Interweb by storm. Here is Neatorama's list of the 7 Most Amazing One-Take Video Clips:
1. I Gotta Feeling Lip Dub
Let's start with one that's making the rounds on the Internet: a lip dub by the students of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). In this video clip, co-directed by Luc-Olivier Cloutier and Marie-Eve Hebert, 172 communications students lib-synched the song I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas. The whole thing was shot in a little more than 2 hours.
In an interview with Canada AM, Cloutier gave a little background:
Cloutier says it was difficult to coordinate 172 students in one take. "The problem was we didn't know before how many people should be there for the dub so we cannot plan," he said.
Cloutier said the video was eventually shot in two takes. Despite some minor glitches, the pair is proud of the final product. "We decided to keep this take because (of) the vibe," said Cloutier.
2. Flagpole Sitta Lip Dub
If you like that, here's a clip done after work one day by the people of Connected Ventures (they're the bunch of geniuses behind College Humor, Busted Tees and Vimeo). Looks like a fun place to work! Oh, the song is Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger.
3. Nyle's Let The Beat Build
A lot of these one-take videos are music videos - and for good reason: one-take videos are hard to shoot, so those synchronized with music has got to be made by people with mad skillz.
This music video Let The Beat Build by rapper Nyle, directed by Chadd Harbold and produced by Last Pictures and 194 Recordings, even did one better: they recorded the audio simultaneously with the film. Mind = blown.
4. Daft Hands - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Austin Hall of Frecklestudios probably has the most watched hands ever. Since its debut two years ago, his YouTube clip Daft Hands has been watched over 33 million times!
In that video, Hall played Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger entirely with his two hands. Maybe it's easier for you to watch the clip above than for me to explain in words how he did t. (Previously on Neatorama here)
Since then, the song has spawned countless imitations, including Daft Bodies and the Daft Parodies (Erhm, the last one is kind of rude. You've been warned).
5. Forrest Gump in One Minute, in One Take
Let's take a break from music video clips. Last February, Joe Burgess, Rocco Sulkin and Will Tribble from the University Of York Filmmaking Society got friends to act out Forrest Gump in one minute, filming the whole thing in one take. (Previously on Neatorama here.)
From an interview with NewTeeVee Station:
The one-take angle would make you assume that there was a lot of rehearsal and coordination involved, but that wasn’t the case — according to Tribble, most of it was ab-libbed. “I didn’t know until the last minute that I was going to be in [Gump],” Tribble said, “but then they said, ‘OK, you’re Lieutenant Dan’ and there I was.”
Since then, the trio have sweded other films including Kill Bill, Star Wars, and their latest, 28 Days Later.
6. Here It Goes Again by OK Go
What's even better than a one-take music video? How about a one-take music video with treadmills! Here's the astounding clip Here It Goes Again from Ok Go, directed by Trish Sie of BigBadTrish.
7. Cog
Last on the list is the grand-daddy of all one-take videos. Titled Cog, the two-minute long Rube Goldbergian commercial for Honda Accord was produced by the London office of Wieden+Kennedy advertising agency and directed by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet of Partizan back in 2003. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that this may just be the best commercial of all time.
To the horrors of Honda engineers, Bardou-Jacquet took apart the seventh-generation Honda Accord, of which there were only 5 hand-assembled models in the world (at that time), and made an astonishing commercial out of its parts.
It took 606 takes to shoot Cog and when it was completed, the video clip was shown to the bigwigs at Honda who remarked that it was a very nice computer generated imagery. When they were told everything was real, they were floored - and if you see it, you would be, too.
More about Cog at Wikipedia
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Now That's a Well-Trained Dog!
Some dogs are well-trained, some dogs are really well-trained. In this Very Funny Ads video clip, Thailand’s Chaiphak Training Center shows just how well they can train dogs (unfortunately, making their masters look bad in comparison …)
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A Man Better Than Chocolate?
Picture this: a man and woman came back to his apartment after a date. The house is nice and clean, then he mixes a margarita … and when her neck is a little stiff, Mr. Man offers a little shiatsu massage to make her feel better.
Can this be it? Has she finally found a man better than chocolate?
Then she turns on some music …
You’ll never guess the ending of this video clip – see for yourself at our partner Very Funny Ads: Link
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Coffee Lamp Post
This lamp post is an ad for McDonalds in Vancouver. You have to wonder 1. how much light does it really emit, and b. is the coffee still free? -via Gizmodo
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Unfortunate Advertisement Placement
Here is a list 15 ordinary advertisements that likely wouldn’t be neat if it weren’t for the poor placement. Personally, I ignore ads for the most part so I don’t think i would be the one to notice the Folgers ad placed on a webpage next to an article linking coffee to heart attacks.
I enjoy the McDonald’s bill board next to the child obesity one. I like to think that placement was intentional!
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National Flags Made Out of Food
These flags made out of food were created to promote the Sydney International Food Festival. Each national flag is illustrated with food associated with that country: Greece has black olives, India features curry, South Korea has kimbap, etc. Guess which country is represented by the flag pictured. Link -via b3ta
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McDonald's Prison Visit
A woman arrived in prison to visit her husband – cue the ominous music – then was led by a leering guard down a dreary hall to the visitor’s room. As soon as she sat down, her jailed husband ratcheted up the pressure: did she bring it? Would she do it right then and there for him? Curious inmates began to stare …
You’ve won’t see an advertisement quite like this on US television (and for McDonald’s no less!), but thankfully our partner Very Funny Ads got it: Link
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Blackcurrant Tango Ad
We posted about The Man Who Walked Around The World (link to clip here at the Zeray Gazette), a fantastic ad for Johnny Walker whiskey starring Robert Carlyle, directed by Jamie Rafn and produced by ad agency BBH London. It was all shot in one continuous take and was simple yet with a very engaging narrative (thus showing us that you don’t need no CGI to be good).
Well, if you thought that was good, this one out for Blackcurrant Tango, with a little added humor to the one continuous take idea: Link [YouTube Link]
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The Man Who Walked Around The World
You don’t need a lot of special effect magic to make a brilliant ad. As this short commercial for Johnny Walker whiskey from ad agency BBH London shows, sometimes all you need is a good narrative. That, and Robert Carlyle:
AdFreak suggests that this commercial might be the best of the year so far. It’s for Johnnie Walker brand whiskey, and traces the history of that brand in one long, continuous take for six minutes. Unless there clever and hidden special effects, actor Robert Carlyle had to have, and did, flawless timing.
Check out the clip: Link | Interview with director Jamie Rafn
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School for Nervous and Backward Children
The Reed School for Nervous and Backward Children (1906)
The University of Washington Libraries has a very interesting collection of over 450 print advertisements in local magazines, city directories, and theater pamphlets of the Pacific Northwest from 1867 – 1918.
I’m particularly intrigued with this one: The Reed School of Nervous and Backward Children (1906). The ad noted:
The "family physician" notes that this school is not for the exploitation of any "fad" in child training, but is open to the acceptance of the latest developments in its line of work which have received scientific approval.
The parent notes the truly "homelike" atmosphere which is present, as indicated by the entire absence of anything "institutional."
The school was in Detroit, Michigan, and was conducted by Mrs. Frank A. Reed. According to The Handbook of Private Schools (1920) by Porter Sargent:
"Instruction is given in manual and physical training, vocal and instrumental music, drawing, painting, and the usual school subjects. The School for Stuttering and Stammering at the same address is entirely separate"
Link – via Information Junk
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Very Funny Ads: "Clap" by Good Knight
I’m happy to announce that we’ve started a new collaboration with Very Funny Ads, a website by Turner Broadcasting System that aims to bring you the world’s funniest commercials (motto: "ads that were too hot for tv").
We’ll do a regular weekly round of the best of the best funny ads (though you can easily lose hours watching every single clip over at VFA) – and you can see the Neatorama-branded Out There Ads on VFA.
This one is by "Clap" by Good Knight, which shows that even one mosquito can be deadly … Link
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| Neatorama Shop » Toy & Games » Science Toys | |
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BuckyBalls Magnetic Toys are 216 rare earth magnet balls that can be shaped and molded into virtually any shape. Tear 'em apart and snap 'em back together in unlimited ways for hours of fun! Watch the video for a quick demo of what BuckyBalls can do. Remember to get two for twice the fun! Link |
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