This Super Bowl Sunday, our favorite Dove Campaign for Real Beauty ad has flown the coop. They’re smart birds to shift to the Academy Awards venue, because even though the genders are supposedly evenly divided for the game, it isn’t their ‘target market,’ and it IS a terrribly pricey media buy at $2.6 million a pop for a :30 second spot. Still, I love the way it jolted … [Read more...]
(2007) Advergaming is shifting from online to mobile, so younger kids and parents need a heads-up to spot the spin. Here’s an updated piece with fresh new links from my last article about kids under eight “gobbling up” interactive marketing. This time we're talking more about tweens, but it's amazing to see how early the K-5 set starts toting cell phones: Is your … [Read more...]
Pink Dreams. The name alone has head-spinning implications. Thoughts whiplash from bubblegum-n-Barbie to provocative porn, depending on your age, gender, and mindset. When I saw the ad, “Pink Dreams Sold Here” it stopped me cold. The white-thigh high knee-sock-pony-tail-platform-shoe wearing blonde was posed in a bare-bellied pink plaid school girl-stance, holding a pink … [Read more...]
Normally I’d toss this American Idol-KFC "Buffalo Snacker" blurb in the ‘who cares’ hype hamper to keep from giving KFC more PR buzz, but frankly, this whole ‘hidden message’ ad trend has me tweaked. Aside from the toxicity of targeting kids with MORE KFC transfat-laden junk food on the season premiere of the über-popular reality show … [Read more...]
What do you get when you cross a top-rated TV show like American Idol with online advergaming? “Pop Tarts American Idols Live Tour,” a media+mind+body equation that adds up to a challenging counter-marketing focus for Shaping Youth. Preteens love "behind the scenes" info and being "in the know" which is why we use the same methods to deprogram corporate cues and … [Read more...]
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