Advertisements are a necessary evil. Consumers have a need and advertisements direct the consumer to the company that has a solution for their need. For years, we have tried in vain to escape advertisements, but aggressive advertisement companies have stepped up their creativity. These days, instead of relying on the simple goodness of lemonade and children’s laughter, ads have taken a decidedly more provocative turn. Gone are the nostalgic days of skipping through wheat fields. These days, ads venture on the irreverent. They cater to your physical senses and bend your mind to what is possible. Here are some of the most insanely good advertisements of recent memory, broken down into ambient, billboards, commercials and print.

Ambient

1. Skin Cancer Towel

2. WINZIP Compressed House

3. WPPED Cream Elevator Award

4. Neglected/ Invisible Children

5. McDonald’s Pole

6. Piano Stairs

7. Human Meat

8. Life Is Too Short for the Wrong Job

9. Kleenex Soap Dispenser

10. Elm Grove Police Department: Slower is Better

11. Unicef Land Mine

12. 2012. We Were Warned

13. Nikon D700: Papparazzi

14. Pantene Anti-Breakage Shampoo: Rapunzel

15. Swiss Skydive Elevator

Billboards

1. Panasonic nose trimmer: Fatty

2. Nestle Billboard

3. Sign from God

4. Formula Toothcare Bite

5. Imodium AD Toliet Tissue

6. Allstate Auto Insurance

7. Zimbabwean Money Billboard

8. iPod and iTunes

9. Powerhouse Gym

10. Get Organized with Peter Walsh

Print

1. Findus FraichíFrites: Granny Fries without the Granny

2. International Vegetarian Union: Vegetables Are All Your Body Needs

3. Bose Noise Reduction Headphones

4. Clorets: Fishy Breath

5. Gun Central Alliance, South Africa

6. The Joy of Pepsi

7. Utopolis: Reality Sucks

8. Fortis Bank: Plastic Surgery Loans

9. Target Dri Bots Nappies: No One Likes a Bed Wetter

10. McDonald’s Baby Ronald

      A britânica Cadbury, que tem em seu portfólio marcas como Trident, Bubbaloo, Halls, Freshen-Up, Clorets, entre outras, pode fazer uma fusão com a empresa italiana Ferrero, detentora das marcas Ferrero Rocher, Kinder Ovo, Nutella e Tic Tac.

O mercado especula que a possível fusão é uma estratégia de defesa da Cadbury contra a oferta hostil da Kraft, que na semana passada anunciou a intenção de compra da companhia pelo valor de 9,8 bilhões de libras esterlinas (US$ 16,28 bilhões).

Segundo a Bloomberg, o acordo com a Ferrero pode ampliar a presença da Cadbury na Alemanha, Itália e França.

Join the contest, you may just win your very own custom designed Perodua Myvi!

There are also other customised prizes like laptops, digital cameras and handphones all up for grabs!

So what are you waiting for?

All you need to do is rank all 9 designs according to your preference.

If your order matches everyone else’s favourites, you stand a chance to win other great one of a kind prizes!

How to win

1. Buy any 2 products from Halls, Dentyne, or Clorets.
2. Arrange the 9 car designs according to your favourite at the join the contest page. (1= most favourite, 9 = least favourite)
3. Fill up your personal details and submit.

1st Prize

• Custom designed Myvi

2nd Prize

• 1x Uniquely designed notebook

3rd Prize

• 3x stylishly designed digital camera + leather case

Weekly Prize x9

• Custom designed mobile phones

Contest end: 16th Aug 2009

Look for more details …

Ambient per Perrier, rinomata marca di acqua minerale francese.

Una pianta arbusto richiama nella silhouette la bottiglia d’acqua. Il claim è “Get Fresh”.

Questo ambient vi fa venire in mente qualcosa? No? Allora guardate qui:

Il Cairo, Egitto. Agenzia JWT.

Non convenzionale per il tè verde Green Tea Lipton.

*****

Pechino. Agenzia JWT, Beijing.

Clorets è un’azienda produttrice di chewing gum. Per promuovere la freschezza delle gomme sono state utilizzate le siepi di Pechino.

Claim: “Clorets. Endless freshness”.

I love looking at advertisements, be it from the TV or from paper prints. Some are funny, some are touching(like from Petronas), while some are plain boring and stupid. Well, here are a few creative ads that remain intact in my little heart.

It was supposed to be just another day at the tango class.

He was practicing the shopping cart lead with a new follower, her hands on his shoulders, her gaze on his hairy chest. He was wearing his unbuttoned to the belly regulation black tango shirt. As he pushed and pulled, he repeated what he had said to so many followers, follow, feel, move beautifully, knees together, don’t wanna look ugly, do you?

But there was something about this follower that just didn’t jive. He tried very hard to focus on his long expertise as a practice post for followers but he couldn’t figure out what was unusual about this particular one. Then just as they passed the Cosmetics and Personal Hygiene section he stopped in disbelief.

The motion around the follower’s mouth was the unmistakable sign of gum chewing. He had never seen a follower chew gum and walk at the same time! They were now staring at each other, their breath intertwined in an ethereal mist of Altoids and Clorets. His brain was at warp speed searching for speech. You are…, his mouth felt like the bottom of a bird cage, you are…, he was feeling real stupid now, you are a WOMAN, he finally blurted out. Yes, I am, she said. My name is Sue, how do you do?

For the next half hour Sue and Narciso conversed. By the end of the class he had buttoned up his shirt and he was thinking, what an experience! Thank you very much maestro, Sue said. Was it really true? Had she just called him maestro? Holy boleos! And before he could grasp for more air she asked, any words of wisdom before I leave, maestro? He gave her a gentle tango kiss on the cheek and whispered in her ear, stay away from the dulce de leche, it goes straight to your butt.

Back to school again; working in my maths book on equations, an old school friend comes and asks if I’ve done it. I think that I have done it. Not wanting to seem reluctant to share answers i tell her to pass me my blue workbook on the chest of drawers in my bedroom. When I look in the workbook, whilst still laying in bed, I realise that there is one question that I have not completed. When I flick through I see a piece of graph paper with the equations and answers. I think to myself the teacher must be stupid for not realising that we’ve done this exercise before. Later, dad comes in and starts berating me for having bad breath in front of my friend, asking if I did not realise that at a recent function they were calling me ’stinky filthy’. I think of how people must have been saying ’she’s a good looking girl with bad breath’. Oh the embarassment. I go in quest of some Clorets (multipack) but all around me are retail wholesalers and sandwich shops (I am further fooled by ones that have crisps in the display window). I can’t find Clorets anywhere but there’s morphing posters of Destiny’s Child documenting their humble beginnings in the world of entertainment. This whole thing may have been fueled by the Flavor Flav show (Flavor of Love). During one show whilst wearing his tradmark oversized clock round his neck he told one contestant about her stanky breath and advised her to go see a dentist. I was clearly deeply distrubed by this programme.

Clearly, where halitosis is concerned rap, R’n'B and Hip-hop heads are not prepared to mince their words.

Recordando muchos años atrás, podría saborear con la memoria, los días de la escuela, cuando esperaba cada fin de semana, para que mis papas visitaran a algún tio de la familia.
Eso indicaba que al final de la visita, los tios visitados, siempre nos daban ´algo´ disque para el recreo de la semana. Con 5 centavos, era suficiente.
Pero me gustaba mucho, ir donde Tia Julia en la Zona Colonial. Era un poco seca, pero atenta. Que raro no?! Lo mejor de todo, era que a escondidas de mis papas, siempre nos daba (a mi hermana y a mi), la friolera de 10 centavos o cheles!!! a cada uno!!!.
Ya podia imaginarme, todo lo que podria comprar en horas de recreo. Pero esa magia se ha perdido.

En la actualidad, basta con cruzar la Defilló esq Kennedy, frente a Teleantillas en Sto. Dgo., y desgutar el aroma de los recuerdos, cuando me paro en la paletera de mi tocayo Manuel. Solo sé que le paso una papeleta de $20, y él agarra un puñado de cosas y las coloca en mis manos.
No sé lo que llevo. Solo sé que cuando suba a mi oficina y vacíe mis bolsillos, encontraré ese tesoro perdido que vaga en mi memoria.
Pero la decepción es tan puntual, que al revisar el ´botín´, ya no encuentro esos dulces y esas confituras que me hacían soñar con visitar a mis tios. Sobre todo a Tia Julia, que viviendo frente al Rio Ozama, yo me desperdigaba en las orillas de la todavía naciente Av del Puerto, a mediado de los 80s.

Mientras tanto, paso balance en el escritorio, y esto es lo  que tengo:

* Mentas con sabor a Mango (mango real!!!).
* Clorets.
* Mentas de Fruta de las de Panca.
* Mentas de anis o del indio (porque la envoltura tiene un indio o un chele estampado). También de Panca.
* Mentas de Guardia. En este caso no son Marvel, las originales. Son Can Can.
* Chiclets Adams de Tutti Frutti.
* Super Menta (esta vaina sabe a yerbabuena de a verdad).
* Copitas de Chocolate de Cortes Hnos. La gente de la Cocoa Sobrino.
* Mentas Halls, cherry liptus.
* Mentas de mentol con sabor a fresa, competencia de las Halls, pero pa´ pobre. A 3×1. También de Panca.
* Mols. Esta vaina si es buena. Son cacaitos, pero no se te pegan en las muelas.
* UnaBrand. Es como una gelanita con sabor artificial. Mortal!!!

pb