http://slyoyster.com

I’m pretty much blind to advertising, but I can certainly appreciate when companies try a different tactic to get my attention and buy their product.  [via]

Thanks Roller Girl, I guess? I’m not quite sure how this add, which also features of the voice talents of Peter Coyote (seriously he’s getting up into the rarified Morgan Freeman territory when it comes to voice overs), will sway any politicians regarding the amorphous public option.

What it takes is politicians taking a stand and doing something to change the system of health care, but that’s pretty difficult when that system is footing the bills for fancy dinners and whatnot.

Not that I would trade my mom in for another one, but Get Mommed is a fairly amusing website from Kleenex.  You can pick a mother and she’ll help remind you to take care of yourself during flu season, which of course means buying boxes of Kleenex.

New York is about to launch an advertising campaign, that’s, well, a bit controversial and has the soda lobbying industry none too happy. 

I’m never drinking soda again.  Not that I did before.  Except Mountain Dew.  That’s like liquid sunshine.

How do you advertise and market a classy television drama about advertising and marketing? 

Carefully and with great consideration. 

Linda Schupack, head of marketing for AMC, heeds the advice of Mad Men’s own Don Draper. 

“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness,” Draper would implore his Sterling-Cooper charges. 

It’s also about enticement. 

The theme of season three is change. “We wanted our key art to be more high-concept,” Schupack explained, unveiling the new poster, which hits this week: Draper is sitting in his office, looking nonchalant, as water rises up to his knees. The image was devised by the Refinery, a Burbank ad agency that beat out three other firms. Schupack flipped through a binder of rejected ideas: Draper at an office party (“too kitschy”), Draper trapped on an ice floe (“too obvious”), Draper getting sucked into a vortex (“too end-of-the-world”). Once the final concept had been chosen, a replica of Draper’s office was built on the Paramount lot and filled with water, and Hamm posed in it for two hours. Earlier in the week, Schupack had taken a copy of the poster out to the sidewalk, to see how it would look in bright sunlight, and a security guard had weighed in: “He goes, ‘That’s how I feel sometimes! I’m just sitting in my office, totally unaffected, and the waters are rising around me.’ ” Season three also has a catchphrase: “The World’s Gone Mad.”

Mad Men returns to AMC on Sun., Aug. 16, at 10PM | 9C

So last night was as crazy/action-packed episode of Lost as they come.  Farraday getting shot by his own mother?  If he’s dead does that mean that the cycle he’s trying to prevent just repeats itself over and over and over again until we keep coming back to that point?

Anyway, this isn’t about Lost this is about those strange advertisements that were run during lost.  The “what did you see?” ads.

Turns out they’re for a show that doesn’t even exist yet; the clips are actually the start of the network’s campaign for Flash Forward. Though the show doesn’t exist, it’s safe to say that if ABC is running ads now, then the show has gotten the green light.

I doubt very much they would be running ads to see if there is enough initial interest to pick up the show. Then again, with the way networks decide on shows and tv lineups, nothing would surprise me regarding their terrible business decision.

But back to Flash Forward. It’s based upon Robert J. Sawyer’s novel about what happens when the entire human race loses consciousness for about two minutes (in the ABC version it’s two minutes and 17 seconds) and sees events that will happen 21 years in their future (in the ABC version they’ve reduced it to six months). According to Pop Critic, “Flash Forward chronicles the chaos that ensues after a scientific experiment begins goes badly.”

ABC hopes to have the show ready to replace Lost when it ends it’s remarkable run in 2010.  Only a pilot has been shot starring Joseph Fiennes, John Cho, Jack Davenport, Christine Woods and Sonya Walger.  Production was overseen by David Goyer and Brannon Braga.

I like Goyer, mostly, and the cast with Joseph Fiennes and John Cho is respectable enough. The show was orignally developed for HBO and they were excited for the show, but felt it would work better on a network. 

Hard to make any judgements since there hasn’t been any footage to see, except for those annoying commercials.  Which you can see all five here.  MORE »

Can’t wait to see what Audi does for a comeback.  [via @alicam]

“We took to the hills of wales armed to the teeth with sheep, LEDs and a camera, to create a huge amazing LED display. of sorts.”

My first thought was this has to be fake, but even if it is, a sort of giddy euphoria washes over your soul after a little bit and it’s pretty hard to resist The Baaa-Studs.  It is an advertisement for Samsung’s LED televisions, but if you’re going to make an advertisement, this is how you make one to ensure people are talking about it.

More: here and here and here

[via Happy Famous Artists]

This pretty terrific ad for True Blood was spotted in Auckland, New Zealand.  I now have three reasons to thank True Blood for existing: 1. This ad. 2. Naked Anna Paquin 3. It’s a decent enough show in a world of mostly unoriginal television.

I understand for lawsuit purposes the stakes have to be screwed down, but the stakes are designed to snap off in case of vampiric emergency.  The screws seem rather counter intuitive.

[via Neatorama]

Yes, it’s an advertisement for Coca-Cola.  McCann Erickson of Madrid produced this commercial; just pretend it’s not one.  [via YBNBY]

This massive, one-and-a-half-acre (good-god!) BMW billboard located in the center of Moscow features actual life-size vehicles with working head and taillights.

Driving past it during the day:

Several more photos here.  [via Superpunch]

And regret sets in at Skittles headquarters in 3… 2…

We said they have no way of moderating this experiment.  I’m surprised it took so long for this to happen?  Really, internet.  An entire day for this to happen. 

[via YBNBY]

Skittles has relaunched their website so that it is essentially a Twitter search for the word “Skittles”.

That’s a pretty clever approach to marketing their brand, or at least appealing to the Twitter-ati tastemakers.  Of course it could backfire as people try to abuse it since they have no way of moderating what shows up.  So there’s that,  ahem. 

I also wouldn’t care about this as much, if I didn’t love Skittles.  The rainbow is oh so tasty my friend. 

The floating menu on their page also links to YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia and Facebook.

[via laughing squid]