Cherryflava

Rikki’s ‘police line up bathroom mirror’ ad

Posted on 18. Feb, 2009 by Jonathan Cherry.

Wouter sent in this fine example of some 'makes you think' marketing from the public facility at Wembley Square.

Reverse type normally, reads right way round in the mirror – review of how you'll look in your mugshot when bust for drinking and driving. Won't make sense when you're hammered, but fun to play with when sober

BTW – Rikki's is a Cape Town taxi service.

Facebook to the world: We own you suckers – now go get us a beer

Posted on 17. Feb, 2009 by Jonathan Cherry.

See this is what happens when you have Friday the 13th, Valentine's Day and an American public holiday all rolled into one weekend – the geeks get bored and start reading the 'Terms of Service' of a major content-sharing website that 170 million people worldwide belong to.

In a drunken, doped up haze they then stumble across a line in the legal code that states that since you posted that photograph of you and your skanky friends, totally wasted at the Met after winning 50 cents on your R100 by betting on Pocket Power – Facebook now owns the right to do whatever they want with the image.

No questions asked. No money passed onto you after they sell the image to J&B to be used in an international ad campaign. You're screwed – but hey, at leasted you got poked as a reward for a while.

Hello – it's a free service people. Ever heard the saying; 'There's no such thing as a free lunch'? Well there's no such thing as a free online service – you're going to pay [dearly] somehow. Just be sure to read the fine print if you want to know how bad it's going to hurt in the morning.

Here's the legal bit that's got everybody worried:

"You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive,
transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to
sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly
perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame,
translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute
(through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in
connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject
only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including
by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name,
likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or
advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook
Service or the promotion thereof."

and this was just added…

"You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you
choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will
automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may
retain archived copies of your User Content."

More:

Misguided intent + Lawyers = Social media disaster – Adrants
Facebook: Relax, we won't sell your photos [snigger] – CNET

Playmobil’s airport security set – rubber ‘full body cavity search’ gloves not included

Posted on 16. Feb, 2009 by Jonathan Cherry.

Apparently, in countries like the US [surprise surprise] there have been one or two complaints about Playmobil's latest 'Airport security checkpoint' set featuring an x-ray machine and a wand-bearing female officer.

Playmobil, who are a small German company based in a dark wooded forest right next to Santa Claus' toy factory, are dumbfounded.

According to their marketing spin-doctor: “The whole premise behind Playmobil toys is to familiarize the child
with the realities of life through play,” Ms. Winfrey said. “If you’re
taking a child for a first flight to Florida from New Jersey to visit
grandparents, you say, ‘This is what the terminal looks like, and when
we get here we have to take our shoes off and walk though security.”

What's the problem here – the ol' [Somalian] pirate boat and Indian village [complete with invading cowboys] seemed to be just fine, but throw in a little security for a plane trip and now the sky is falling on our heads?

More:

Playmobil's checkpoint Strikes some as too real – NYTimes
Playmobil security checkoint customer review – Amazon

More augmented reality – this time from ‘down under’…and you design your own

Posted on 13. Feb, 2009 by Jonathan Cherry.

Valentine's Day brings out the best in people. Instead of watching the start of the Super 14, men in New Zealand will be creating their own Valentine's newspaper print ads, which will magically animate when viewed via a webcam. Ahhhh…sweet hey?
If you missed this week's story about the Mini ad – this stuff is called 'Augmented reality marketing' [or ARM as we're calling it around here] and at the moment the head of hype surrounding it is bubbling and growing, but more practical marketing uses for the technology are already becoming clear to us.

Check out the video of how it works and all the details here.

So welcome to the age of interactive newspaper advertising. Pretty cool, pretty cool.

Secret – keep it hush hush – Fly Bar buzzes into Cape Town

Posted on 12. Feb, 2009 by Jonathan Cherry.

During our formative years there were three movies you were obliged to own on video cassette tapes – Debbie does Dallas [that goes without saying], Top Gun [yip - it was the late 80's...early 90's] and The Fly; starring Jeff Goldblum.
Here's a trailer to remind you of the horror – or introduce you to the best horror movie ever man.

Perhaps it's the name or the promise that by its very secret, undercover nature it will yield a complimentary shiver of suspense and intrigue just as the movie did in 1986 that's got us dancing the two-step this morning.

As part of this year's Design Indaba the Fly Bar, a pop-up design bar tailor-made for the event, will be accepting guests between 27 February – 3 March 2009 at a secret location in Cape Town.
GPS co-ordinates and a secret password will be issued to those that sign up for updates on the website and for good measure you also stand a chance of winning a case of legendary Jack Black Beer [Cape Town's own].

More:

Fly Bar website
2009 Design Indaba – Pop Up bar designed by Fly-Pitcher – Fly-Pitcher
The Fly (1986) Trailer – YouTube

Create your own bus stop ad

Posted on 11. Feb, 2009 by Jonathan Cherry.

It's not that many people need encouragement to add a personal message to a bus shelter, but Sharpie [which we guess is a brand of permanent marker] allow wannabe graffiti punks to write something witty on a picture of an arm cast masquerading as an interactive bus stop billboard.

It seems that there is such an overwhelming desire for self expression on public property it's a total no-brainer not to take advantage of it.

Choose your colour from the palette, write something obscene, be legendary.

[via thecoolhunter]

Kelloggs not interested in people with the munchies and axe Phelps to prove it

Posted on 10. Feb, 2009 by Jonathan Cherry.

Everything is always bigger and better in America. Instead of just being satisfied to quietly toke on a small cigarette shaped joint like most high profile sports stars, Michael Phelps [the Olympic swimming whizz] manages to haul out and puff on a giant water pipe contraption that frankly could have been spotted by a cameraman using a Polaroid while floating in space.

Needless to say, Mr Phelps' sponsors [especially Kelloggs] are not too happy with him appearing on the front pages of newspapers with a huge bong firmly attached to the mouth that ventilates an Olympic machine – and are swimming for shore.

That however really is a silly decision by Kelloggs. This new should be seen as an amazing marketing opportunity for them. Besides, what better way is there to satify a nagging hunger after blowing cannabis bubbles through a glass pipe?

More: Kelloggs dump Olympian Phelps – AdAge

Mini makes a print ad come alive

Posted on 09. Feb, 2009 by Jonathan Cherry.

The marketing world really doesn't need any more hype. Silver-bullets in this craft just don't exist and anybody that tells you otherwise is lying.

That's said – innovation regarding tools which are availble to do the job is constantly on the go. One such concept bleeping brightly on our red radar is 'augmented reality'. Mini did an interesting experiment with this idea last year by creating the world's first augmented reality print ad.

The idea was that you held the ad up to your computer's webcam and magically a 3D rendering of the new Mini convertable magically appears on the screen. Freaky – but pretty cool.

[via here and here]

More: What is augmented reality? – Wikipedia definition

Previously: Lego creates a box that lets you see what's in the box – Cherryflava

Hey…Christian Bale – WHY SO SERIOUS?

Posted on 06. Feb, 2009 by Jonathan Cherry.

You've all heard the rant – and some DJ has already remixed the thing into a cracking tune that you'll soon be hearing at Tiger Tiger and emanating from selected tow trucks in the Germiston / Bellville areas.

But our feeling is that the now infamous clip of Mr Bale going mental at a DOP on the set of the upcoming Terminator movie – could well be a very cleverly crafted marketing exercise. Yip – we're putting it out there and making the big prediction.
First time we heard it – it just sounded too well recorded and produced just to be a fluke of chance. Why was it released with such great timing as we build up to the film? Why did nobody try calm the situation down and shut Mr Bale the hell up?

Much like the Dark Knight – an elaborate multi-million dollar ARG is on the way [predicted to start in March] for the Terminator Salvation movie. The rant is probably not part of that, but a genius buzz tool which is creating massive hype ahead of all these releases.

Marketing just became a whole lot more evil and harder to spot.

More:

The full Christian Bale rants [ad]
The remixed disco version of the rant [ad] [we have this soothing number piped into our office elevator as we speak]
Skynet Research is coming – Sign up for the ARG

Johnny &%$£*@! Rotten is the starlet in a butter ad

Posted on 05. Feb, 2009 by Jonathan Cherry.

In this week's edition of 'hardcore rockers now pimpin' their black souls to make a quick buck by selling lame-ass suburban products' – former Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten [aka John Lydon?] stars in an awfully crappy TV ad for butter.

Yes – the man that at one stage wiped his bottom with a picture of the queen – has pulled the safety pins out of his nose and started using regular two-ply to sell butter to his now middle-aged, baby-on-hip former fans.

The ad is from last year, but is still a notable addition to our growing collection of shame.

From ass-kickin' to ass-lickin' in one easy move. For goodness sake, Gordon Ramsay is more of a prat, and he's a cook.

[video link]

Previously: Advertising – where aging rockers go to die – Cherryflava

More:

[It seems to be working though] – Sex Pistol sends butter sales soaring – Times Online

Here's Johnny a little more true to form promoting Guitar Hero III – in which he goes nuts – like he's paid to do – YouTube