Foster’s Gets a New Image

(AdAge.com) “– Foster’s, which has long been “Australian for Beer,” is junking that tagline as part of of a brand makeover and using Corona and Heineken brand positioning as its marketing template. It will now be the “Crack Open a Friendly” beer with an ad campaign that abandons TV and focuses on the Internet. …”

The “Australian for Beer” campaign simply was not working for Foster’s.   They are taking a great leap of faith in molding their image into a Corona/ Heineken style of marketing.  What puzzles/interests me is the grouping of Corona and Heineken.  Their images are completely different with Corona being a beach laid-back beer and Heineken being a more upper class social occasion beer.  The only thing Corona and Heineken have in common is high quality.  It will be interesting to see how Foster’s markets themselves, but it is clear that they want to be a higher class beer.

Press Release for Websiteology

While working at The Next Wave in the summer of 2006 I was given the task of writing press releases for David Esrati’s blogging seminar, Websiteology.

Here is an example of one of my press releases:

Becks hits Ground Zero

For the sum of $40 million, Ground Zero will be handling the creative duties of the Beck’s beer brand.

Ad Week’s Andrew McMains wrote wrote about it an article found here.

‘Ugly Betty’ leaps into Thursday nights on ABC

Thursday nights are the prime real-estate of television and ‘Ugly Betty‘ will be taking up an hour of it on ABC. The show was brought over from Telenovela and was almost released this summer.

The first thing I noticed was the fact that it was an hour long. Comedies normally are thirty minutes long for writing and audience attention reasons. The second thing I noticed was ABC’s belief in ‘Ugly Betty’ being a successful show with all the advertising and giving it a Thursday night spot. They caught my interest and I am willing to give it a look.

For more on ‘Ugly Betty’ click here to see an Advertising Age article about the show.

Advertising Age’s Monster.com Founder Creates Social Network for 50-plus Crowd Article

Harrah’s and Hyatt Support Eons Web Community

By Gavin O’Malley

Published: August 08, 2006

NEW YORK (Adage.com) — Here comes social networking for mom and dad — and even grandma and grandpa. Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor last week debuted a community and resource website named Eons for the 50-and-over crowd. The site is organized into sections on money, health and wellness, love and fun, and offers services from news to obituaries.With Eons, Mr. Taylor joins a growing wave of entrepreneurs testing social networking, consumer-generated media and other newfangled approaches to consumer engagement on increasingly older demographics. “There’s a huge untapped market out there, and our research is showing their openness to new technology and new ways of communicating,” said 45-year-old Mr. Taylor.

Burger King’s Big Buckin’ Chicken Commercial

I personally find the Burger King big buckin’ chicken commercials entertaining.  They where so random when they first came out that I wanted to see more of them.

My only question about the ad is whether or not big buckin’ chicken is supposed to sound like big f!#kin’ chicken because it does.  Whether it is a coincident, which I do not believe it is, or not it helps the campaign.

Definition of advertise – Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Definition of advertise – Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
Main Entry: ad·ver·tise
Pronunciation: ‘ad-v&r-“tIz
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): -tised; -tis·ing
Etymology: Middle English, to pay heed to, observe, notify, from Anglo-French advertiss-, stem of advertir
transitive verb
1 : to make something known to : NOTIFY
2 a : to make publicly and generally known <advertising their readiness to make concessions> b : to announce publicly especially by a printed notice or a broadcast c : to call public attention to especially by emphasizing desirable qualities so as to arouse a desire to buy or patronize : PROMOTE
intransitive verb : to issue or sponsor advertising <advertise for a secretary>
– ad·ver·tis·er noun

The Next Wave’s It’s not Just the Ads that Make Them Great… Article

Here is a whole list of websites Crispin Porter +Bogusky have made for clients I found on The Next Wave’s blog.  They are great advertising tools because they have games, videos, or some form of entertainment which will keep an individual on the site for minutes at a time.

BK Subservient Chicken
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/subservientchicken.html

MINI Robots
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/r50r.html

BK Ugoff Website
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/ugoff.html

BK Angus Interventions
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/angusintervention.html

Borders Giftmixer 3000
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/giftmixer.html

BK Chicken Fight
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/chickenfight.html

Method Come Clean
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/comeclean.html

IKEA Musical Chairs Banner
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/musicalchairs.html

IKEA Back2School Banner Campaign
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/b2s.html

Virgin Massage Banner
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/massage.html

Virgin Haircut Banner
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/haircut.html

Virgin Dreams Banner
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/dreams.html

Virgin Feather Banner
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/feather.html

Virgin Bounce Banner
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/bounce.html

Virgin Golf Banner
http://www.cpbgroup.com/awards/golf.html

Chryler/ Dodge’s Dr. Z ad campaign flops

The Dr. Z ad campaign is being pulled. Personally, I say, “Good.” I don’t understand, especially for Dodge, why Chrysler/Dodge would think that Americans would like seeing an American product as a foreign. A lot of Americans want to see business stay in America. And to give an American car, especially the charger or one of the trucks, a foreign feel is very unattractive.

The commercials have not improved sales for Chrysler/Dodge and are annoying to a lot of people. I personally think they look like a knock off of the “V-Dub in the house” guy for Volkswagen. But here’s the link to the ask Dr. Z website. The commercials and a few other things are on there and can be semi-entertaining to poke around in.

This St. Louis Billboard is Nuts

Missouri is known at the “Show Me” state, but I don’t think that this is what was in mined when the nick name was made up. The downtown St. Louis billboard reads, “The show-me your nuts state.” A little creative sexual innuendo makes this billboard funny.