Sometime later today, after a month of unprecedented buzz, 80,000 feet of film, 460 million liters of foam, a crew of 150 and three years of growing expectations thanks to the Bravia campaign, Fallon London, director Simon Ratigan and Sony will unveil the finished Foam City commercial for its digital imaging products -- the Handycam, Cyber-shot and alpha.

On March 9th, I was told that I "was going to see some amazing things."

Later today, if all goes as planned, so will you.

Have they created yet another experience like no other?

What music did they use?

Is it, dare I say, foamtastic?

Be sure to check back here later today to find out.

Sony - Foam City (Quicktime) now here
UPDATE: The Sony UK Foam City Microsite is now live.

UPDATE 2: The musical score was custom-composed for this commercial by Warren Ellis, a fellow that some of you might recognize from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Grinderman and Dirty Three. They handed him the spot and asked him to see what happens.

Converse is celebrating being a century old with a new ad campaign, and music to boot. The first video can be seen here: Converse - My Drive-Thru featuring Santogold, Julian Casablancas & N.E.R.D. and there are print ads featuring other artists, including MGMT, Bradford Cox of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound, YACHT, Kid Sister, Eleanor Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces, Frank Carter of Gallows; Does It Offend You, Yeah?, and Sophie of Care Bears on Fire.

The idea of matching musicians not from the same genre together is explained by Geoff Cottrill, Chief Marketing Officer of Converse. “Converse has been embraced by an amazingly diverse group of musicians and artists over the years. As we celebrate the brand’s first century, we thought it would be fun to bring together Pharrell, Santogold, and Julian, to create new music together that bridges the styles they are known for. The results are everything we hoped for and we’re excited to add ‘My Drive Thru’ into the mix of music that fans will listen to this summer. We are also providing a platform for a number of emerging artists from around the world. The music industry is changing and this partnership is about the music and sharing it with fans for free.”

Inside there's an interview with Marie Hyon & Marco Spier who shot the converse commercials and “My Drive Thru” music video.

My my, you must be really really naive if you thought that the Dove campaign was't a tad retouched. Of course it was, retouch includes getting better colors and removing distracting stuff such as plain old dust, seams in clothing or stray strands of hair. Still, some people find this quote from an interview with Pascal Dangin in the New Yorker a 'shocking revelation'.

I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual “real women” in their undergarments. It turned out that it was a Dangin job. “Do you know how much retouching was on that?” he asked. “But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.”

You make the call after the jump:
Is this a well-done ad for a network television show
(in this case, MGM's American Gladiators on NBC),
or a sly PSA on the possible side effects of steroid use?

I chat a little about Adlands history and a lot about advertising in Blogfonks quest to see "what Fonks creative peoples minds?"

BlogFonk: Is there difference in mentality of creatives in the countries you've worked?
Wäppling: Not really, creatives fit certain stereotypes wherever you go. There's the 'work-smart-not-hard' guy who clocks off at 5 to pick his kids up from school, the never-stop-working types who scribble on napkins at bars until the wee hours, the cynical whiners, the hacks and rip-off artists, the 'good-enough' creatives who never put up a fight for anything with the motto 'pick your battles', and the utterly crazy creatives who passionately come up with one groundbreaking idea after another can be found in every country. The only thing that really changes is the language (including the visual) which they speak. Every single country has someone who says: 'This country is not so ad-literate, we can't do that ad here. Maybe that ad would fly in [insert other supposedly more ad-literate country here].' Seriously.

Every country I have looked for work in has at least one agency head that says with a straight face: 'We do very Danish/Swedish/Dutch/French advertising here.' Seems they forget that creatives can sell expensive cars to rich old men, even though they themselves bike, tampons to women, even though they are men, and diapers to mothers, even though they are childless. It's our job to communicate to people in various 'cultures' - be it a national one, or a target groups culture. We research and get on with it, cultural insight doesn't have to come from being born within it, but can come from observing it with an open mind.

Y'all probably recall the old Ogivy hijack where Asa Bailey viral ad agency secured the domain .co.uk. - see these articles to refresh your memory: Ogilvy London Hijacked, Ogilvy London Hijacked - Part II and my post "ASABAILEY Ogilvy stunt jumps the shark twice over".

The Scotsman carries a quote from Winston Fletcher about advertising aimed at children in an article about same.

"In Sweden advertising to children has been banned ever since commercial television began there, but 18 per cent of Swedish children are overweight - much the same as in Britain," says Winston Fletcher, who chairs the Advertising Standards Board of Finance and is a director of advertising agency DLKW. "Advertising to children was banned in Quebec more than 20 years ago, but 28 per cent of children in the province are overweight - about the same as in the rest of Canada where advertising to children has always been permitted."

Unfortunately, this quote has been allowed to go unchecked by journalists. Fletcher seems blissfully unaware that both the laws he quotes are completely toothless and have no effect at all in diminishing the amount of advertising children in Quebec and Sweden see every day which undermines his argument.

In the war of the chickens, Kentucky Fried Chicken has won its advertising battle with Chicken Licken. Chicken Licken was also ordered to publish an apology for contravening the ASA's code of conduct.

"In complaining to the ASA, KFC submitted that the ad was "disparaging in the extreme as it shows the colonel to be listless and somewhat impotent until he eats Chicken Licken."

from iol.za

Earlier this year, Yum Brands Pizza Hut launched it's new pasta offering by setting up a fake restaurant named Tuscani, serving their new pasta and then video taping the diner's reactions when they told them it was pasta from Pizza Hut. Superadgrunts see one of the ads below:

CKE's Carl's Jr and Hardees have this week launched a new campaign with the same the same fake restaurant idea. The ad campaign "Fake Restaurant" fooled consumers into thinking that the expensive burger they just ate was worth $14 or $20 when it actually came from the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's chains. Just like the Pizza Hut campaign, it captures on hidden camera the experiences of customers who believed they were eating expensive burgers at a fancy restaurant. Mendelsohn|Zien created the concept and a series of 30-second spots started airing Tuesday in Hardee's markets, and will begin airing in Carl's Jr. markets on June 22.

Here's a Badlander sure to amuse, and horrify, all ye adgrunts out there. No, not because there's a scary mummy in the ad, and not even because the mummy in the ad is played by one of the adgrunts here who did the ad - but because there's been yet another a case of recycling the ad image not approved by anyone.

Original: Shot in Egypt starring adgrunt HaHaSoup as the mummy