Mike Tyson doing the monster mash

For your Halloween viewing pleasure...

Scary Halloweenie

A NY Times article on Friday spoke about how marketers are ready to put the horror back in America's spookiest holiday...

Over the last five years advertisers have laid off a bit due to people being more scared in daily life from threats of terrorist attacks and war. But this year advertisers are taking a different approach, trying to scare people "who are immune to being scared," as Candace Corlett, a principal at WSL Strategic Retail put it.

Some current spook factors going on right now:
Universal Orlando is featuring gruesome Halloween Horror Nights this year, and the ABC Family channel is promoting themed programming under the title "13 Nights of Halloween."

Fox is playing with the added interest in Halloween but keeping it fun. They are running a contest in which viewers are encouraged to produce a commercial to promote their annual Simpson's Halloween episode, "Treehouse of Horror."

Consumers can win prizes for visiting the site and making a spot for the show that is as mild or frightening as they wish.

Halloween is a great time of year for marketers to have fun with scary, and this year will surely bring it's spooky moments.

Ballin'!

This new video has been making its way around the computer screens of loyal Giants fans recently. It's a nice little compilation of the NY Giants defense doing variations of their new fan favorite celebration - Ballin'!

Every time the G-men's defense makes a big play, they go craaaazy and start dribbling invisible basketballs and pulling up for crazy J's.

This video is spreading like wildfire among Giant fans, and the words to the song or a link to video are on numerous away messages to be shared.

This is not only great word-of-mouth for the Giants organization, but also gives this song a little boost of stardom.

Next time you wanna celebrate, just remember:

We fly high, no lie, you know this...

BALLIN'!

Check Out This Guy...

Whoever said any word of mouth is good word of mouth has not read this article:

This guy sent a 7 minute long video out to several prominent New York investment banks promoting himself. I guess it's become somewhat of a viral video, being forwarded all around Wall Street, and laughed at often. One thing's for sure, he's not going to get a job out of it...

You'd think someone who went to Yale would have more sense than this!

One thing I'd like to give him props for: the amazing title "Impossible is Nothing" that he so stealthily stole from Adidas.

(Found the article at The Hidden Persuader)

Stairwell Scare

Know CPR and first aid, blah blah blah...we've heard it since 7th grade health class but does anyone really care? There will always be someone around who can do first aid if it's needed, or you can just call for help, right? But what would you do if you saw someone who needed help and you didn't have the skills to help them?



In this Red Cross Canada campaign, anyone walking down the stairs will think that it is time that they learned first aid after they see this decal and find out how they react to danger.



This is a great example of guerilla marketing, it really would take a person off guard and hammer a message at them. I know if I was walking down those stairs I would not know what to do. Maybe it's time to start taking some first aid training...


(Found this at Coloribus Blog)

Ad Land viral cartoon

Watch and see why...

FEEDRAIDER of the lost ark

Feedraider.com

Steve Rubel posted about this site today...

This all still kind of confuses me, but the website helps you make a nice and easy webpage to stay up to date on all your online favorites. It's kind of a do it yourself feed maker.

So I'm gonna try it. I'll let you know how it goes. You should try it too. It will be easier if we do this together.

It's 7:11, do you know where your sportsteams are?

The Chicago White Sox signed a 3-year deal with 7-Eleven stores to move the start times of all their home games to 7:11. Hmmm...attention getting. In the article, a spokeswoman for 7-Eleven said that the company is working to develop sponsorship deals with other sports teams and entertainment venues. Before we know it, the time of everything is going to correspond with a company. Other possible sponsorship deals in the work since this news broke:

Take Five candy bars is trying to sponsor the five commissioners of the FCC
7Up is in negotiations with the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
Sesame Street was brought to us by the letter D and the number 5?

Anyways, the White Sox games used to start at 7:07. Pretty soon Boeing will be paying the big bucks for them to start at 7:47, huh? 7-11 better keep it’s contract going or all the other numbers are gonna cash in big.

(thanks Mike Gluck!)

BLOOD AGAIN!

Why do people keep mixing blood into the ink of their posters? We aren’t wrongly in jail without writing utensils, trying to prick our fingers to write one last piece of evidence on the dirty cell wall for our partner to find after they’ve moved us to a new secret location… We have access to printers! And ink! And you can read the words on the poster just as well even if the ink is not mixed with blood…

But some people don’t see it that way. Promotions for Saw III include posters that features blood taken from actor Tobin Bell (who plays the sadistic villain “Jigsaw”). The taglines from the first two versions of this movie have focused on blood, Saw II’s line being “Oh yes, there will be blood.” It just seems a natural step to take, using blood on posters, no?

Well… I guess so. Kind of reminds me of Adidas’ campaign for the All-Blacks Rugby team, only it seems more disgusting now. Maybe because I’ve seen Jigsaw in all his glory torturing innocent people.

The studio is also running a blood drive in 25 markets throughout the country, adding a good Samaritan aspect to the marketing for it’s horrific movie trilogy. Saw III comes out around Halloween; keep your eyes open if you love gore.

More on this at AdAge.com.

Things to do on reality television

If you want people all over America to talk about your ridiculous behavior. Part One.

Take a look at Vincent from Project Runway. Freaking out. Because he didn't want the producers to wash his laundry. But they did.

Now all the pop culture comedians are having hey days commentating on this poor man's response to his clothes being ruined. Who wouldn't yell for several hours if someone did a chore for you? Last time my roommate washed the dishes I challenged her to a fight (which I obviously won). We won't be living together next semester. But that's beside the point.

The point is: if you're on tv, don't act like a fool. Or else your 15 minutes of fame will turn into 15 minutes of people making fun of your massive amounts of inner rage.

More on this later.

It's nice, I like!

Oh ma goodness, I cannot WAIT for the Borat movie to come out...it is sure to be simply sensational. For those of you who aren't familiar with the insane comedy of Sacha Baron Cohen, the story goes something like this: He had an HBO show, Da Ali G Show, where he took on multiple personas including Ali G, a hip hop loving British man, and BORAT, a freaking hilarious foreign man from Kazakhstan. The Borat character is so well loved by all that a movie was made...a movie that is coming out in NOVEMBER! So close...

Anyway, there is a lot of word of mouth flying around about this gem of a film, mostly because the President of Kazakhstan has taken great offense to the obvious parody of his nation, and is appalled at the basis of the film. His outrage is so great that he is flying to America to meet with President Bush about the image of his country. He also was said to be planning "educational" TV and print spots to show the American public that his country really isn't the place Borat portrays it as.

People are EATING THIS UP. In response, a mock anti-Borat site has caught on, and various blogs are having their say on the matter. I have only 3 thoughts on the issue:

1. I can't freaking wait for the movie to come out
2. Why didn't Ireland show commericials when Braveheart came out? I thought everyone there painted their faces all the time until last week.
3. I love this line of the Stop Borat! website: We will not become a William Hung for the international community!

But no matter how the cookie crumbles with the real live Kazakhstan, one thing's for sure: I love the nation thanks to Borat. They should be THANKING HIM!

What does that inkblot represent?

Getty Images is doing a really cool contest/game sort of thing where you are "taken to a room" and shown a line of pictures and an inkblot. You must then QUICKLY say what picture the inkblot is representing. You can play for prizes like a trip to London, an African Safari with National Geographic, or a trip to New York's fashion week. When I got to the pages where I needed to pick what prize I wanted to play for, I didn't really know what to do. I wish it said "Check all that apply."

Anyways, the game is really hard and stressful once you start playing. You "lay down in a chair" and I think it's a very sterile and hospital-like smelling room before you begin to play. Once you press the 'start' button, a timer starts TICKING and you try very hard to get the right answer, but it's SO HARD and then you don't know what picture to pick and so you just pick one because the timer is going so quickly. And then you're wrong...

BUT WAIT!

It still says you have a chance to win. Thank goodness for Getty Images having a heart. I played 3 inkblots (because that's the limit of how many you are allowed to play each day), and won on the third try. Guess it really is a charm, because I don't think I had any real basis for picking the picture that I did that time.

Anyways, check it out. This post will probably make a lot more sense then. And you could win a Safari! If there's a deal where you get to pick someone to go with you, I'm calling that spot right now. No backs.

Read more at Adverblog.

Post It

Found this at Room 116. Consumer generated street art of post-it notes in SOHO. Check out more pictures of the up close details at Room 116's blog.

Interesting... Post-it notes are pretty cool if you think about it. All the colors they come in, and they way they stick to things? Post-it notes may be the next big thing. The next I pod? Maybe it will be cooler than the I pod. It's paper thin, and comes in way more colors. And if you drop it on the ground, instead of sending it in for repairs, you could just pull another one off the large stack of other post-its. Sometimes at parties if I find a stack of post it notes and a permanent marker, I'm entertained for hours. And by the end of it, a room in the house is covered in post it notes filled with nonsensical gibberish.

I'm bored.

Anyways, what would I write on this to do list?

Find something to do.