AdFreak

HoneyShed trying hard to find some friends

I freely admit I'm obsessed with HoneyShed. The Publicis-backed Internet shopping channel from Droga5 and Smuggler is such a different idea, often bizarre and always interesting, and one I've tried to put in perspective recently. One part of the site's relaunch last week I didn't get to cover in detail: its embrace of social media. HoneyShed started following me on Twitter, after already adding me as a friend on Facebook. For me, HoneyShed's success or failure is pretty straightforward: It has to build a sizable audience before advertisers will buy into the concept. The company says it will get to 550,000 users in month's time. Early signs are it has a tough row to hoe. Quantcast still can't find signs of an audience, HoneyShed has a pedestrian 122 followers on Twitter, and the HoneyShed blogs have tumbleweeds blowing by them, drawing few comments to posts. What's more, the only blogs that are talking up HoneyShed are those devoted to marketing and advertising. Is this a bad sign, or is it simply too soon to tell?

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Jason Sadler would love to wear your shirt

Is your ad budget a little crunched for 2009? Just call Jason Sadler. On Feb. 24, for only $55, he'll wear a shirt with your logo on it and do whatever you want him to do—and blog about it. Not feeling it? On April 20, for $110, he'll wear a shirt with your logo on it and do whatever you want him to do—and blog about it. If you have some real cashola to spend, you might consider sending him your shirt to wear on July 4 ($185), Halloween ($304) or Christmas ($359). Advertising is simple at IWearYourShirt.com. Sadler wears your shirt and does what you want, for a price determined by the numerical day of the year—$1 on Jan. 1, $2 on Jan. 2 and so on, until Dec. 31, which costs $365. (According to our rudimentary math, if he sells out the whole year, he'll make $66,796. Not bad.) Want him to climb a tree? He'll do that. Want him to show up at your office with video cameras to chronicle the event? No problem. Want him to go shirtless for a day? No probl ... er, I'll have to look into that.

—Posted by Jeremy Greenfield

EVB puts up its own 'Elf Yourself' Google ad

Back to the "Elf Yourself" thing for a moment. EVB and Toy New York actually have a good relationship, I'm told. While both agencies want credit for their part in bringing OfficeMax's "Elf Yourself" to life, they get along just fine. EVB CEO Daniel Stein told me that Toy recently referred a potential client to EVB. They should be able to commiserate now that both got the boot from the Elf campaign this year after JibJab offered to do it for free. Still, EVB is getting into the Google ad game, after a Toy ad claimed sole credit for the endeavor. On Wednesday, a search on "elf yourself" yielded an EVB listing on top of Toy's ad. I went to check if BBDO and Big Spaceship are dueling for HBO "Voyeur" credit through Google ads. It turns out Big Spaceship's case study on "Voyeur" is the top natural search result. BBDO doesn't show up. The ads? Well, they're, um, not about advertising.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

TD Bank knows how you love the free crap

Banks give away free stuff like lollipops, pens and tote bags all the time. But TD Bank (newly merged from TD Banknorth and Commerce Bank), primed to please in a tanking economy, takes premiums to a whole new level by handing out free coffee, pizzas and umbrellas and running a sweepstakes with the services of chefs, chauffeurs and house cleaners as prizes. It's all part of a Tierney Communications campaign that uses Commerce's old line to bill TD, which mainly does business in the East, as "America's most convenient bank." Well, some bank has to be—and it's clearly not the behemoth Bank of America, with its "customer-service" voicemail system too complex for NASA to navigate. Oh, Regis and Kelly are also holdovers from the Commerce campaign—which is convenient for them in terms of getting another paycheck, but annoying for the rest of us who have to watch their tired antics.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Animals voice approval of Mercedes safety

Creatures of the forest don't get to narrate too many automotive ads, but they do in this Mercedes-Benz campaign from German agency Jung von Matt. See the four ads here. The idea is that the vehicles' special handling and brake controls have saved these beasts from getting splattered all over the street—a happy development that they discuss in the copy with varying levels of awareness. Of the four creatures, only the pig really gets philosophical about what's happened. The others are mostly oblivious, embarrassed and, in the case of the squirrel, still thoroughly panicked.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

What has Donny Deutsch been up to lately?

It doesn't include any swimsuit pics, but an article about Donny Deutsch in the new issue of Success magazine is revealing in its own way. Among the tidbits: In his current role at Deutsch Inc., he "considers himself more of a 'spiritual leader' " than a "buttoned-up company chairman"; while doling out tough advice to would-be entrepreneurs who watch his CNBC show, The Big Idea, he "believes in being honest, not mean"; his "very specific rituals" include a daily breakfast of six egg whites with American cheese; and he's an "avid runner" who covers "four to five miles several days a week before meeting a standing 7:30 dinner reservation with friends at one of a dozen top Manhattan bistros." If you wish to emulate Deutsch, don't stay up too late reading about him: "He is usually in bed by 11:30 p.m."

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

Will designers rev their engines for Intel?

Everyone wants to get in on the social thing nowadays, and tech companies are often ahead of the pack, for obvious reasons. Here's Intel's new effort: To promote the company's Core i7 Extreme Edition microprocessor, Web shop Razorfish is looking for digital designers to build short videos in an hour, using the same materials, around one of the brand themes of speed, power or innovation. The so-called Digital Drag Race has the necessary microsite, blog, live event in San Francisco and YouTube channel. Razorfish told me the campaign would make microprocessors sexy. Maybe. What I wonder is: Who participates in this kind of thing? I imagine lots of students. Two finalists get a trip to Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show to face off, along with an Intel-powered computer with Adobe Creative Suite software. In its first couple days, Intel's gotten only a trickle of entries.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Milk shines like a beacon in Canadian gloom

Things are pretty bleak up in Canada these days, judging by this dark and moody spot from BBDO Montreal for the Quebec Federation of Milk Producers. In it, we see Canadians silently savoring any hint of light in their dreary landscape—a ballerina's dress, a grandpa's birthday cake; a ghostly white horse reverse commuting. In the end, we see a girl settling in with a big glass of milk, which is positioned as "a natural source of comfort." The spot was directed by Yves-Christian Fournier, who knows the material pretty well, having just made an indie film about teen suicide. Of course, if milk doesn't cheer these people up, they have a wide array of other beverage options.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

German robots can sell me almost anything

This fast-paced spot by German agency Scholz & Friends for an electronics retailer tells an ultra-high-tech tale of robotic "evolution," and rockets by like an awesome H.R. Giger-fueled nightmare. The diving dino-bird is the coolest, and I like the idea that the bots feast on each other instead of turning on their fleshy masters—though that shot of a metal foot pulverizing a bee and a flower pretty much sums up the mind-set of these mechanical mega-saurs. The end result of all this evolution turns out to be a sexy dancing fembot who looks like she could wipe out the human race all by herself. (This is an ad, after all, so I guess there had to be a sexy dancing something in the mix.) I'll buy whatever those machines are selling if they promise to obey the Laws of Robotics and leave me the hell alone! Via Ads of the World.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Walking lips sing the praises of Xbox game

This T.A.G. spot for the Xbox 360 music game Lips lasts for only 60 seconds, but that's an awfully long time to watch a pair of animated lips stroll around singing A-Ha's '80s non-classic "Take On Me." Still, it's tough to turn away. The spot's almost hypnotic, if only because the fusion of image and audio are so unexpected and confounding. While watching, I shouted "WTF!" repeatedly. That's me—intense. I've also been known to shout "Take On Me" loudly during work hours. (Hey, drone in the next cube, people who complain to HR don't get invited to my holiday karaoke party!) At least the lips in this ad don't sing "Saved by Zero."

—Posted by David Gianatasio