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ThunderCats Were Loose On Palace of Westminster
When most DVDs are released, production studios put up some posters and run a few television spots. However, when ThunderCats Season 2 hits store shelves...lets just say Lion-O isn't settling for an afternoon at Kinko's. Instead, he boldly emblazons the ThunderCats signal onto London's Houses of Parliament. While some surely see the stunt as a subversion to a great tradition of government, others will realize that during the global fight against terror, nothing instills fear into our enemies like occasional real world manifestations of 1980s cartoon superheroes. [shinyshiny]
apple
Bad Vista "Reviews" from Apple's Latest Vista Sucks Ad Not Actually Reviews
You'll probably be seeing Apple's newest "Vista Sucks, OS X Rules Your Face" ad, starring hilarious John Hodgman and perpetually besmirked Justin Long all over the web soon. Basically, the banner keeps pulling up bad Vista quotes as Hodgman hammers the emergency banner refresh, but neither of them are from actual reviews of Vista—even though that's what Hodgman calls them. More »
adwatch
Michael Bay, Transformers and Giant Explosions Shill for Verizon FiOS
Verizon's new FiOS ad is a splashy, big-budget popcorn flick compared to Time Warner's cheaper, low-fi satire spot. It even stars the king of big boom summer movies, Michael Bay, blowing a bunch of shit up and hanging out with Transformers, saying the word "awesome" a whole lot. Come to think of it, it's pretty much exactly like his movies, which you can pirate even faster with FiOS. Awesome! [Verizon]
adwatch
European PlayStation 3 Ad Actually Makes Sense
Ditching the whole crazy people in a motel motif that dominated Sony Europe's first year of PS3 marketing, SCEE's gone and made a commercial that shows off what the PS3 can do and entertains at the same time. It wasn't easy, but we think firing off the employees that were shooting up during work hours was a good start. Save that crap for your own time. [Crunchgear] More »
gaming
Most of my friends play World of Warcraft. I don't. I suspect that these hilarious new spots featuring cult icons Mr. T and William Shatner are aimed at me—if you're not a geek or know nothing about the game, they have little appeal, like an earlier spot. But they're going to be national TV ads, leading me to two conclusions: WoW's popularity is peaking/has peaked. So they're wrangling the offbeat pop cultural status its South Park episode cemented to try to lure in people of my ilk. Or maybe I'm just reading it wrong. Either way, catch at least the Mr. T ad after the jump. It rules.
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Mr. T and William Shatner World of Warcraft Ads Make Us Want to Be Level 70 Mohawks
Most of my friends play World of Warcraft. I don't. I suspect that these hilarious new spots featuring cult icons Mr. T and William Shatner are aimed at me—if you're not a geek or know nothing about the game, they have little appeal, like an earlier spot. But they're going to be national TV ads, leading me to two conclusions: WoW's popularity is peaking/has peaked. So they're wrangling the offbeat pop cultural status its South Park episode cemented to try to lure in people of my ilk. Or maybe I'm just reading it wrong. Either way, catch at least the Mr. T ad after the jump. It rules.
More »
apple
Apple to Run iPod Touch Ad...Made By a Teen Fanboy
Arn over at Macrumors points out this cool story of an iPod Touch ad being run by Apple. The thing is, it was made by Nick Haley, an 18-year old student, inspired by "Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex" by CSS. Nick was flown in to the LA offices of TBWA/Chiat/Day to do a HD version of the spot. UPDATE: Apparently this was in a Zune ad first. [NYT via Macrumors]
adwatch
Smellivision Ads, Coming to Billboards
The prospect of smellivision has intrigued Man since he was enjoying the earthy scent of dinosaur cooking over an open flame, wishing He could exploit its musk to sell more dinoburgers. At long last, NTT Communications is incorporating smells into their digital signs. Using one billboard (OK, LCD display) as an experiment this month, visitors of the Tokyo JR train line will get to see beer and smell delicious oranges. More »
sony bravia
Sony Bravia Ad Covers Pyramid in String
This Sony Bravia ad that aired in Egypt may or may not "take inspiration" from an uncredited artist (we haven't checked), but it is quite neat. Not to spoil the ending for you (it gets covered in string!) but, well, a pyramid gets covered in string. If actual Sony Bravia refresh rates were this bad, we'd go pick up a book or something. Nah, who are we kidding. [Adsoftheworld]
adwatch
Sony Bastards Ripped Off the Bunny Tsunami Ad
What the Hell. When I saw this morning's post on the awesome Sony Bravia Bunny Ad, featuring multi-hued rabbits climbing through a cityscape transforming into a tidalwave, I assumed it was the work of my favorite artists, the LA-based kozyndan. By my front door, I have a framed print of one of their limited edition NYC bunny panoramics, which I've put below. Aside from this, they're probably best known for reworking of Hokusai's "Great Wave off Kana gawa" with bunnies inserted in the place of the white wash, which was featured on a Giant Robot magazine cover. I was only half right about kozyndan's involvement with this Sony project, unfortunately. They were robbed: For pretty damning proof, watch the video, and read on.
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norton
Symantec Advertises Norton 360 Antivirus in Japan With Ultraman-esque Character
We're not passing any judgment on Symantec's Japanese advertising campaign where they take an Ultraman-like character and have it beat up several black "virus" characters on the street to hype their Norton 360 product. Why? Because it's actually pretty awesome. Way more awesome than the crappy anti-virus ads we get here in the US, which lack distinct a "men on the street screwing with people" vibe. Even if it's slightly and subtly touching on Japanese racism to have a yellow-colored man beating up a bunch of black-colored men. We still approve (minus the racism part). [Norton Fighter via Japan Probe]
clips
Michel Gondry's RAZR2 Ad
We last saw Gondry working his craft for HP's money, but now he's taken his weirdly fluid visuals and made a 60-second spot for the Moto RAZR 2 as well. If you're a Gondry fan, you'll be sure to enjoy the fact that he takes a boring spec sheet and turns it into a subtle, but interesting montage of cellphone features. I'd like to see the director work his magic selling Windows Vista Service Pack 1 in a similar manner. [Super Punch via Neatorama]
Microsoft's Rap History Continues Past Windows 386 to MS-DOS 5
I'm glad I never have to watch that Windows 386 video again, but this MS-DOS 5 promo video is just as bad. If not worse. Okay, it's probably worse. [YouTube]
I'm glad I never have to watch that Windows 386 video again, but this MS-DOS 5 promo video is just as bad. If not worse. Okay, it's probably worse. [YouTube]
adwatch
More US Open/gadget combo posts. Here's a new HP ad by Serena Williams. Fact: I recently discovered that these commercials were made on HP workstations at the Goodby Silverstein agency in SF, not Macs as I'd assumed all ad agencies do. This comes by way of an HP exec, but only the people at Goodby know for sure. Great ad, either way, especially when Serena tosses the competition away like a little gnat.
Serena Williams and HP Ads
More US Open/gadget combo posts. Here's a new HP ad by Serena Williams. Fact: I recently discovered that these commercials were made on HP workstations at the Goodby Silverstein agency in SF, not Macs as I'd assumed all ad agencies do. This comes by way of an HP exec, but only the people at Goodby know for sure. Great ad, either way, especially when Serena tosses the competition away like a little gnat.
ads
Heineken Beer Robot Oozes Sexuality, Beer
Beer companies have been using regular women to sell their product for a while, but when they get into robotic women, that's when we start to pay attention. Thanks Ray!
cellphones
Sprint Offers The BlackBerry 8830 World Edition, the First $10.5 Million Cellphone
This $10.5 million cellphone from Sprint comes with many nice features we've covered before, but has a delicious bonus that you can't find anywhere else. We're in for five. You win again, advertising. [Sprint]
3:40 PM on Fri Aug 24 2007
By Jason Chen
15,991 views,
20 comments
oh, the horror
While this clip isn't the ad at issue, it's from the same series of "This Is Living" spots you might remember Sony put out months ago. The banned banner features Kovac (the guy in the tub) simply holding a knife and gun below the lines, "You on my side? Listen up, I've killed for less. The music plays Puccini in my head." More »
Old PS3 Online Banner Ad Now Banned in the UK for Glamorizing Violence
While this clip isn't the ad at issue, it's from the same series of "This Is Living" spots you might remember Sony put out months ago. The banned banner features Kovac (the guy in the tub) simply holding a knife and gun below the lines, "You on my side? Listen up, I've killed for less. The music plays Puccini in my head." More »
adwatch
Paul "Boner Jams" Rudd is a Huge SNES Fan
Anyone else remember this ad for the Super Nintendo from the early '90s? It features Paul Rudd, better known as the "Boner Jams" guy from 40 Year Old Virgin, or the dude they jammed in on the last season of Friends, or the guy from Knocked Up, or the guy you've seen in a bunch of parts all over the place. He jams the cartridge in much harder than the manual indicates is proper, but plays the hell out of a bunch of games as his buddies all watch behind a chain-link fence. Oh, how we envied Paul Rudd. [Game Videos via Joystiq]
