WTF? Friday

I am all for new ways to promote things but this spin on ‘banner advertising’ ‘bugs’ me (lol this makes more sense when you watch it)

The promotion was at a book fair in Germany and was for a publisher who’s logo is a giant bug.  The campaign involved attaching ultralight banners to real live house flies.  The banners were attached by  natural wax which eventually disintegrated allowing the banner fall off so the flies can continue on to eating garbage and sh*t.  I am glad I wasn’t at this event (not that I would be at a book fair in Germany) as if one of those things landed on me I would have either screamed and run away or smashed it with a book.

Observe…. (you may want to turn your sound off – the music is nauseating)

Glamour Shots 2.0

The 90’s wasn’t all Super Mario brothers and New Kids on the Block…it was also Glamour Shots! The best in shopping mall photography studios complete with mood lighting, bedazzled shirts and collar popping.  Every  girl wanted to see what she would look like behind a filtered lens with teased hair.

Anyhoo it seems that this concept has evolved a bit and Estee Lauder is inventing glamour shots 2.0 – Your Beauty, Your Style, Your Profile – a makeover and photo shoot for you to use on your social networking site.

And I quote Estee Lauder – ‘From a sultry look for your dating profile to a clean chic photo for your professional page’ (ha!  love it…and by sultry they mean slutty and chic they mean slutty)

I do actually think this is a great idea and is a very creative way for a brand to interact with the world of social networking .  It also speaks to their target female market whom obsesses over profile pictures and spends days untagging themselves from unflattering pictures (presumably the picture will be glaringly subtly branded so all the other girls know where to get one of their own).

I only wish they were doing it here in the UK as I never did get to get a real  jean shirt/blue eyeshadow/collar popping/feathered bangs glamour shot done.

Can you spot the fake flake?

Forgive me for sounding ignorant but is plagiarism really one of the big issues currently plaguing the breakfast cereal industry?  Apparently so as Kelloggs has invested time and presumably cash (during one of the worst recessions in ages)  to develop a way to laser tattoo each  of their crispy flakes with their logo.

Seriously? Most people don’t even have their eyes open enough in the morning during breakfast to see if they are eating out of a clean cereal bowl let alone to check the fine print to ensure they are getting authentic Kelloggs Corn Flakes.  I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting room.  If that idea was the one they went with, how sh*t were the other ideas?  Couldn’t they just put a serial cereal number on the box? (insert hysterical laughter here)

I love a good bargain..

and I am so glad my parents didn’t let me drop math (or maths as they call it here, not kidding, no idea where the ’s’ came from) in school otherwise I might have missed out on great deals like this one;

Buy one for 88p but two for £1.99….the pricing manager in charge of this deserves a raise.

WTF? Friday

So I have heard of subliminal advertising but subliminal insulting is a new one…I would argue that it would be less effective but this campaign (although inadvertent *wink, wink*) has generated quite a bit of press which is usually not a bad thing….

Happy Friday T**t

Do you see it??

Let me spell it out for you...

How’s the view?

So I am not sure if I am getting prude-ish in my old age but I really hate these posters that seem to be everywhere advertising a show called Chelsea Lately…frankly I am too lazy to wikipedia it to see what the show is all about I am more disturbed by the older man looking up this young ditzy girl’s dress.

What'cha lookin at?

Don’t worry, the ‘humour’ isn’t lost on me, yes I get that they allude to the fact he is looking up her skirt because it’s comedy with ‘balls’ but even if she does have her very own set of kahonas under there, is it appropriate for the dude to be glaring up at them?  Or more importantly, does this make me want to tune in and watch said programme?  Or MOST importantly…am I getting too old and crotchety and this is really funny and not mildly disturbing like I think it is?

Better go, need to watch the last few minutes of Antiques Roadshow before Murder She Wrote starts…that Jessica Fletcher, she’s too smart for her own good.

(please say you noted the sarcasm in that last sentence, I am not getting old…right?)

Britain’s Got People (standing on a plinth)

Britain has always been pretty keen on the reality TV shows but this sort of brings it to a new level. A British comedian, Charlie Brooker, twittered about and called “Britain’s Got People” (instead of Britain’s Got Talent, get it, see, I told you he was a comedian).

Essentially, it is an art installation occupying a plinth in Trafalgar Square and every hour for 100 days, a real live person will get hoisted on top of it to do whatever they want. From what I understand, the places are allocated randomly with no audition process, so anything goes. Best part is that it is streamed live 24 hours a day so you don’t have to even get off the couch to see it  (that being said I think if I am in the area I might have to take a peek as you can’t be too sure if what you see on the intraweb is true).
I discovered it last night when I couldn’t sleep and think that if nothing else, it does give insomniacs something to watch. Although, at that time of the morning, I got stuck watching a dude play the accordion so I could only take it for a few minutes then traipsed back to bed (which is probably a good thing).

It is an intriguing concept and am sure I will find myself widdling away the hours watching.  I do think the whole thing could be improved by making it more interactive and allowing viewers to vote the people off the plinth or better still, rig up a giant slingshot full of water balloons or chocolate pudding which we can aim then shoot at the people via the website…now THAT would be fun to watch, I mean artistic, as intended.

One & Other

Naughty passengers will be crushed

The hubby and I were on the tube the other day and I was reading over the hubby’s shoulder (which I KNOW he loved) and saw a picture of this fake tube safety sticker.  Being a huge fan of sarcasm I instantly loved them.  You have to give credit to someone for poking fun at something so mundane.  The tube is littered with stickers warning you to mind the gap, not get stuck in the doors, give up your seat to the elderly or pregnant that it’s about time someone poked fun at them.

I pointed out the article to the hubby and mentioned that we are so desensitised to the real stickers that I am sure neither of us would even notice if we came across a fake tube sticker…at which point I looked up and saw this.

Brilliant, I am now scouring every tube carriage that I am sitting in for the fake stickers…better still, I am looking for the tourists who try and sit on someones lap during rush hour.

D’oh you made a wrong turn

________________________________________________________________________

Seriously, this is my favourite news story of the day…Homer Simpson narrating my GPS?  Amazing.  I hope he ad libs a bit throwing in some gems like these…

When you turn on the GPS - Alright Brain, you don’t like me, and I don’t like you. But lets just do this, and I can get back to killing you with beer.
After taking a wrong turn – If at first you don’t succeed, give up.
Following an accident - Operator! Give me the number for 911!
When heading home from the pub -  Well, it’s 1 a.m. Better go home and spend some quality time with the kids
When the batteries die - Homer no function beer well without.

Love it!

Baby gadgets

So since it seems like a fairly fertile year for many of my friends, I thought a baby related gadget blog might be in order.  I saw most of these on TV the other morning and drooled over the ingenuity of every single one!

Sock Ons -http://www.sockons.co.uk/

Wee little elasticy thingy that goes over a baby’s socks to keep them on…wonder if they can make a boot version of these as we were following a kid in a buggy the other day that lost his welly and we had to chase after then to give it back…if he had a boot on, that wouldn’t have happened.

Baby Dam - http://www.babydam.co.uk/

Check it out…its a dam….for the bath!  Now you don’t have to waste all that water filling up the huge bath for a wee little baby (or a  blonde blogger named Adrienne who finds her tub at home too big and would benefit from this as well)

Stay put cutlery -http://www.funkymoose.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=790

How much do I love this…the bowl is suction cupped to the tray and the cutlery is on springy coils so they don’t fall to the ground.  I am sooo getting this for the hubby, he has dropped his fork on the floor twice this week and the food remnants nicely landed on our white couch – um yeah I realise this wouldn’t be as much of an issue if we ate at the kitchen table versus the coffee table but you can’t see the TV as well from the kitchen.