A Canadian book blog: Publishing, marketing, books and technology from a Canadian perspective
It’s down to the final 3 contestants in the “Show Us Your Balls” campaign.
And now we dance! Script by Ren
No Good Deed. Script by Jordan Behan
Beer Balls. Script by Ryan Kurr
Vote for the script that you think should win.
And watch the Balls Music Video. Oh it’s on baby.
In San Francisco, I was in the Polo store and had a whiff of “Love,” Ralph Lauren’s perfume that launched in the fall to huge fanfare. The huge part was really the price tag, £2,000 a bottle.
Marketing Week UK did a profile on the launch expenses and the various aspects of the marketing campaign. In brief, it was a ballsy move to launch a premium perfume into an economic crisis, especially one aimed at 25-year-old women with high discretionary spending. Although what do 25 year olds know about economic crises anyway? Good market.
I left the Polo store with a sample of the Eau de Parfum. It’s lovely at first. Sparkly, then amber, with a slight floral smell. Initially I thought it was a chypre, there was something lovely and green, but it quickly announced itself as a floriental. Like most perfumes on me this one becomes quite powdery (1-2 hours later) then disappears (6 hours later). Love at first sight but it doesn’t stay the night.
The luxury limited edition has a 47-carat amethyst in the 24-karat gold painted cap, and it comes with a lucite stand. This is what you’re paying £2,000 for, not the juice, which they now sell in smaller quantities, in plain bottles for anywhere from $50-600 depending on bottle choice and quantity.
For the perfumers in the crowd:
Top: Chinese magnolia, mimosa
Heart: Bulgarian rose, ylang ylang, mai rose
Base: amber, iris root, patchouli, vetiver, musk, vanilla
There’s also chatter about the Goji berry, reminiscent of aged red wine, and vintage champagne sparkles with a cool green water accord. I guess the initial whiff of a chypre wasn’t a total miss on my part.
Love, Ralph Lauren is lovely but not a perfect scent for me.
Posted by Monique at 09:31 PM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews • Perfume •
The AdHack "Show Us Your Balls" Contest closes Monday, Feb 16, 11:59 pm PST.
* Watch the Video.
* Pick a Product/Service
* Finish the Story.
Looking for Inspiration?
Beverage Companies Are Favorite Advertisers Among Super Bowl Viewers:
According to comScore's pre-Super Bowl survey, respondents cited strong preference for beverage brands. In that light, here's AdHack's "Not What Happened" ending.
Watch the AdHack "Show Us Your Balls" Alternative Ending
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSWuqu1tEDs
Posted by Monique at 09:22 AM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews • Party Tricks •
Link to video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXza8XDafjQ
Embed code:
Posted by Monique at 01:22 PM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews • Party Tricks •
Giant Ant Media and AdHack.com teamed up a couple of months ago to film their alternative to the Super Bowl commercial.
I can’t say the Super Bowl commercials were great this year, but I definitely had a good laugh at the AdHack “Show Us Your Balls” ad.
I loved it so much that I agreed to help promote it. Here’s my hefty press release talking about the secrets to making a great ad. and, for your viewing pleasure ...
Now that you know what the crazy avatars are all about, go check out AdHack’s Contest page where you can write the follow-up script for a chance to have your version filmed.
And those are my “balls balls” at the end of the commercial.
Posted by Monique at 12:08 AM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews • Blogging • Marketing • News • Party Tricks •
Here’s Your Open Ball Invitation. A chance to frame your balls. A moment to reflect on what it truly means to have squeaky shoes.
AdHack.com is working on something really funny. They have me by the balls so I can’t tell you what it is. But you’ll be rolling around laughing when I do.
In the meantime, show us your balls. In the most polite sense, of course. Footballs, soccer balls, tennis balls.
STEP 1: Create an Avatar so you can prove you were cool before you even knew why this was cool.
Posted by Monique at 10:00 PM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews •
Farmstead Wines announced a photo contest recently and there are still prizes left.
Post a photo to Twitter, TwitPic, Flickr wearing your Farmstead button or drinking a bottle of Farmstead wine. Really, even if there are no prizes left, wear your button, drink the wine. It will change your life (or at least your opinion of good wine).
Vinaroon: Wine is grown, not made
Posted by Monique at 04:07 PM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews • Party Tricks •
High Tea at T Bakery
4445 West 10th Ave.
Vancouver
Susie and I went for high tea at T Bakery today. Cream Earl Grey. Totally delicious bites.
Posted by Monique at 07:26 PM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews • Personal •
Bit of a lazy Friday round up of things on that caught my attention this week.
Print Liberation has a new book out: Print Liberation, the Screen Printing Primer. It has future publicists for the company shaking in their boots (kidding).
Penguin UK has launched a dating site, “where book lovers meet”.
Alan at the Penguin blog makes jokes about penguins dating. Definitely worth a read.
Plus:
* Needled: A community that loves tattoos has a cool navigation style that really works with what the site is about.
* I got nice presents from Campaign Monitor.
* Social Actions has a cool widget for promoting social action.
POD: Peace One Day
September 21
Posted by Monique at 07:38 AM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews • Personal •
First: Julie Wilson is awesome. Check out her blog Seen Reading. There’s a little SoMisguided banner there this month. And that’s not the only reason why she rocks. In addition to the Seen Reading posts (these are short stories of people Julie sees on her commute and an excerpt from the books they are reading), there are now audio clips.
Second: (Number 1 in my heart) is James Sherrett and AdHack Are you coming to the party on Friday?
AdHack Beta Launch Party!
Anza Club, kicking off at 7 pm with some true DIY spirit.
Details:
* 3 W. 8th Ave (at Ontario) Vancouver
Entry is free, just tell us if you’re coming.
Drink beer, gossip, talk about advertising and the better stuff you could make. It will be joyous. I will be drinking. Sometimes these things are related.
I’m sure there are many reasons but this is the one presenting itself to me today.
I have been sent an xml file created in Word. A file that really wants to open in Word despite my best efforts. The good news is that Microsoft Office recognizes that I’m on a Mac and there’s a converter that I can download and then I’ll be able to open the document. Do I want to do that?
Yes, I do.
I click the link to download the converter. But I come to a page where I find out I have to download the upgrade, install, then download the converter. Ok.
So I’m downloading the upgrade. This is all taking too much time. I’m having to read a lot of text to make sure I’m doing this correctly. The text suggest that I might want to print the page for future reference. That’s not promising.
Happily once clicking the download link, I get another page of instructions.
“In the File Download dialog box, do one of the following:”
Mmmm, that looks like important instructions? Ones that should be legible at all costs. Perhaps the most important text on the page. Here’s what I see.
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like Microsoft should be better at this.
Posted by Monique at 09:34 PM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews •
I discovered the DailyMile widget on Caleb Keiter’s blog yesterday and think it is a very cool social tool for training, which seems to be a rather lonely exercise for most of my friends.
You can get training answers, can train with your friends, meet people in your area and find races. I loved watching James’ triathlons. (Note the “watching” part.) And I think the summer boys should get onto this tool and train together. Where’s the race this year? What happened to the boys’ weekends? The fishing? The racing? The sunburns?
Looks fun. So fun I might consider running ... maybe across the street to get some nachos. Can this thing track calories?
I love it. I AdHack it.
Posted by Monique at 09:33 PM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews • Party Tricks •
There’s something about dance video commercials that totally capture my interest. If saw Drench in a story, I’d think of this guy. It would make me happy. I would have good associations. Check it out.
Source: Thanks Dan!
Posted by Monique at 09:00 AM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews • Marketing •
Well, well, well.
Valentine’s Day is full of advertisements for chocolate. I’m not sure why the two seem to go hand in hand. I suppose there’s a huge amount of sexiness to chocolate.
In a very apt promotional moment, a couple of us at AdHack decided to do our own chocolate Valentine’s Day advertising.
This ad from Giant Ant Media had enough of my office mates squirming that James and I decided to do a press release for AdHack.
Here is the ad that James and I created.
And although this ad wasn’t for AdHack assignment #4 (the Valentine’s Day edition), I think this ad is equally sexy and deserves mention. It was part of a previous AdHack assignment on your favourite kitchen tools.
I think it’s appropriate for Valentine’s, it’s even called “Potted Love”.
The creators Turner-Riggs, describe the concept as follows:
All-Clad’s ads are very serious: they emphasize professional-grade products for hard-core chefs. We are observing that tradition but obviously subverting it, too. It’s shocking (and I am dying laughing as I type this) but the production quality is still high, in typical All-Clad fashion.
So far the press release has been picked up by Adland in Denmark.
Are you an AdHacker? Today is the day to talk about it. Get some chocolate love on for AdHack.
Never heard of AdHack? It’s a do-it-yourself advertising community for people who think that most advertising sucks and that they could do a better job. Here’s the public site. And if you’re interested in making ads, you can be invited behind the curtain to the private site (shhhhh).
UPDATE:
And another article on Valentine’s advertising and AdHack—on Trendhunter.com
Posted by Monique at 11:15 AM. Filed under: AdHack: product and service reviews • Blogging • Marketing • Party Tricks •
Plain Words, Uncommon Sense
A blog on books, writing, tap dancing, technology, and the other amusements of Monique Trottier.
Monique lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada and is a litblogger, among other things. Find out more ...
"So misguided." A comment often uttered in my eclectic salon.
Send me book galleys, ARCs or review copies. Contact me at
monique at somisguided dot com
Contact me at Boxcar Marketing
What I read, what I recommend: Amazon Listmania