The Bag to go with The Shoes

Okay, so now that I'm working and being steezy and so forth, I had to pick up some new gear- a few pairs of jeans, a polo or two, all that good shit. Anyway, a gray area purchase that I made was a pair of sneakers from Undefeated in Silver Lake. The store was great-- an all around fun experience and with a generously stocked sale rack I was able to find something even I could afford. Anyway, while I may aspire to be like Russel Simmons and fresh to death it every day with crisp, shoes shelved for a lifetime after only one wear, that isn't a possibility for me, or probably for him anymore, now that Kimora has walked off with half of his loot, and possibly all of the left foot shoes. Look at me, namedropping people I saw on MTV Cribs, what a pro.

Anyway, so the point is, Undefeated sells products that are a tough combination of long product life cycle, low necessity, and high(ish) price. Plus, the store I went to was in Silverlake, which meant that parking was an impossible bitch. Basically, they need a way to stay top of mind, when there are a thousand other cheaper places to buy shoes, many of whom have more money to spend on advertising.

They came up with a pretty simple solution. After the dude rang me up, the slipped the box into a sturdy looking bag, and sent me on my way. I was pleased to discover that the shopping bag was of the sort environmentally conscious folks use to carry their whole-foods groceries-- namely, made of durable, reusable synthetics. The first thing this did was to validate my purchase price. Nothing is worse than a shitty bag, particularly when you've just exchanged several shekels for what amounts to a luxury item. Beyond that though, I'll keep this bag, and put shit in it when I go grocery shopping or whatever. It's sweet looking, and it doesn't have a smug message about the environment on it.

Well played, Undefeated, well played.

Fuck Kobe

Look, I'll be the first to admit I know nothing about basketball, and I could generally kind of give a shit about it. That said, I've been following the playoffs and have decided that, having learned to love football through sheer force of will, I can easily do the same for basketball. It's been working so far and I've been stoked to watch the Lakers kick ass, particularly after last year's disappointing loss to the Celtics. I wasn't disappointed at the time but apparently I shoulda been.

Like anything in life, mankind loves a narrative and commentators try and give that to sports, which is sort of boring otherwise. The problem with Kobe, however, is that despite being crazy talented, he's an ice cold motherfucker-- and not in the good way either. The dude is called the Black Mamba, which would imply that he's sick as shit, which he is-- but he doesn't seem to care. His play is utterly joyless.

I've been digging the epic Kobe/LeBron Most Valuable Puppet commercials. As usual, Nike is kicking the shit out of all other shoe companies in terms of ads, as exhibited below:



Here, Kobe is--unless I'm mistaken-- voiced by the crazy animated David Alan Grier who gives his puppet a lot more life than the real dude has. As a matter of fact, I pretty much prefer the puppet to the actual Kobe in every way. I'l lleave it up to you, but I think the choice is clear:

What I been doing

I've been busy failing at life and neglecting you, the dear IS blog, so here's some shit I've been doing:

1. Reading Comic Books
2. Boning
3. Drinking
4. BBQing
5. Being steezy
6. Listening to the Adam Carolla Podcast
7. Working On My Portfolio
8. Writing a Little
9. Raging
10. Avoiding Phonecalls
    
11. Thinking Unbreakable was awesome
    
12. Not studying
13. Not working
14. Not getting jobs
15. Not getting calls or e-mails returned
16. Feeling Insulted
17. Getting tired of advertising
18. Wallowing
19. Appreciating all the help I can get
20. Being terrified of graduating
    

Ad Stuff: Holy Shit, this is amazing

I have long felt that SFW porn is the greatest shit in history, and now Diesel, known for their generally cheeky attitude, has outdone themselves by embracing the internet trend in a recent ad.

Peep this shit, and prepare to be amazed aroused




this is really the first time I've seen an ad so good I didn't even have the heart to be jealous I didn't do it. Holy. Fucking. Shit.

If you're not familiar with SFW, you should read this article from ED, or else just read this explanation here, from me:

Basically, you take a pornographic image, and use MS paint to cover up the dirty parts, making it look like something innocuous.

Diesel's Viral Agency, creatively called the Viral Factory made the spot of vintage porn for Diesel's XXX Dirty Thirty, 30th Anniversary party... I'm sorry, this would be a longer post, but I need to go watch that clip again. Fucking amazing.

Ad Stuff: Facebook is a fucking dead zone.

Being that I’m an ad man, and that I’m currently sitting in a boring as balls marketing class, thinking that they should probably just have me teach this shit, I’ve decided to drop some fucking knol on you.

While this should be blindingly obvious to anyone who uses the service, I have a brilliant marketing tidbit:

facebook apps are dead as fucking dead.

I wouldn’t have thought this needed to be clarified, given the tremendous backlash against crappy zombie v. ninja games, but every time I talk to Internet marketers, they invariably suggest making a facebook app.

“I don’t know,” they say, “facebook is getting big—let’s try that.”

Sometimes this comes in a professional setting, sometimes in class, but whenever I hear it I cringe.

The much maligned, “New Facebook,” released last summer, shoved a bunch of the silly shit to the back page, which nobody fucking ever looks at. Even Burger King’s brilliant campaign came a little too late to be worthwhile. Oh fucking well., except for a few rare cases, it makes the brand look shitty and awkward.

If you wanna advertise on facebook, have them give away a ‘gift’ in the name of your product or brand. Gifts are these crappy like half-inch .gif squares that you can send to people. It’s sort of like the original facebook application, and one of the few that remains on the front page and, more importantly, everybody has access to it. Originally, facebook charged you $1 for these, later they decided it would be smarter to charge you 100 points, with each point equaling one penny. This allows them to charge 300 points, or 3 fucking dollars for something even more worthless than a greeting card. Sound like bullshit? It is, but that doesn’t matter. It’s infinitely more worthwhile.


looks like profit to me:

Thanks google!

For helping me find what I was really looking for:








For dispelling a common myth:









For putting everything I need in one place:










For answering the tough questions:

























And for always knowing what I'm thinking, before I even say it:

Ad Stuff: Sea Kittens: Bawww

Okay, with this, and the earlier Shark Post, I am officially creating a 'Fishies' Tag. Epic.

Alright, so the always lulzworthy PETA has launched another brilliant trolling campaign. I'll let some adweek blog explain it for me:

"In one of the most ambitious rebranding efforts ever, PETA has embarked on a plan to refer to fish as "sea kittens." Why? Because who would want to snare, gut and chow down on a sea kitten?"

Epic, right? The adweek dude thinks this is stupid, but I think it's pro as fuck. I tend to subscribe to the Maddox school of vegetarianism, but I still think this is some epic trolling. My pops is a vegetarian, yet still eats fish, and it has long been agreed that most people are simply interested in looking out for the 'cute animals.' I forget who pointed out the horrible irony of dolphin-safe tuna, but it stands true. Anyway, I don't care about that shit. What I care about is advertising and trolling, and this has both.

The website, which is a stitch and a half, has stories about sea kittens:








And you can even make your own:









Great, now I don't want to eat fish, I just want have sex with them.

I like this shit, and think it's funny, but not suprisingly, some assholes from Canada don't feel the same way. What does suprise me is that the good folks at Encylopedia Dramatica don't really like it, and have responded accordingly:












This response suprises me, since I see this as prime trolling. Peta has been annoying people about stupid shit, and arguing in favor of ridiculous shit for so long, and pissing off millions in the process. Epic. Also, from an advertising standpoint, I like the optimism to rebrand anything, even fish. A plus for effort from this unpaid intern.

In related News:

JESUS CHRIST IT'S A SEA KITTEN--- GET IN THE CAR!!!













(image credit goes to something awful, photoshop phriday )

Ad Stuff: Burger King kicks even more ass than I thought

If there's anything I love it's shitty food. I also love shitty movies, but I feel like I've been scooped on that front by some dude here who reviewed the Unborn, focusing entirely on the star's epic booty. Oh, I also love epic booty. But returning to my original point, I love shitty food. As a result, I'm sort of a fan of Burger King. I don't eat there very often, but whenever I do I always think it's pretty rad. The soft drink recipes are always good for a lol, and the general demeanor (especially born out by any and all ads they run not feature that asshole Puff Daddy) is that they don't really give a shit. The stuff with The King is brilliant and a great example of when advertising enters into culture in a way that is not lame and abrasive ( See: Whassup, Got Milk, Where's the Beef etc.)

Anyway, enough silly bullshit. Burger King's agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, has taken this FGSFDS attittude to the next level, branching out from lols into lulz and pwnage. Their new(ish) facebook app allows facebook users to delete friends in exchange for Whopper gift certificates. This shit is epic. Everybody knows that facebook is crap and forces you to be friends with a bunch of people from freshman year who you don't care about anymore. Burger King helps you solve that problem. The only catch is that it informs the former friends that they have been sacrificed for what is probably a pretty lackluster burger. Oh well.

Now, Ad Week updated this story saying that facebook starting bawwing about this and forced Burger King to end their updates and blah blah blah blah. It was still an epic idea and probably the only worthwhile facebook application I have ever heard of. Props to you Burger King, for being the rare client willing to risk being a total douche. Also Props to you, Crispin.

TL;DR-- Crispin Porter + Bogusky--- please hire me when I graduate and give me lots of money to be an asshole to strangers. Love, Josh

What I want to spend my life on.

As a leading young advertising intern, I often pause to reflect upon what ads I used to enjoy as a kid, especially when, as I now am, I am working on ads for children. In that spirit, here are a few spots I remember from my youth. The colors, duke, the colors!





I really don't remember these commercials being so shitty. What's wrong with them, you ask? Everything. Everything is wrong with them.

Chi-Chi-Chi-Chi-Chi-Chi-Chi-Chi!

And this is what I spent my day on while at work yesterday: