Gimzoo

Move over cotton candy, here's "dirt floss"

MacLaren McCann gave away buckets of dirt floss to promote GMC. Via.

EcoKat (the woman is EcoKat)

Meet EcoKat, crusader of conservation and fanatic of fluorescents. She has embarked upon Kansas State University with one mission: Reduce, reuse and recycle.

EcoKat, played by a K-State student who auditioned for the role, is outfitted in a costume made of 90 percent repurposed materials. The department of apparel, textiles and interior design helped with the final look, making it an entirely sustainable project partnering many campus groups.

The EcoKat video idea was born from a serious call to action that morphed into a more humorous, tough-love take on environmentalism.

EcoKat is not affiliated with K-State athletics, but Willie the Wildcat was added as one-half of the EcoEnforcers to make the local campaign uniquely K-State.

Willie the Wildcat

You may recognize Willie as the faithful warrior on the sidelines of every K-State sporting event, but he's taking his talents even further. Joining EcoKat as an EcoEnforcer, Willie is working hard to keep his favorite place on earth beautiful and sustainable. When not perfecting his raise-the-roof techniques and sculpting his arm muscles, Willie enjoys recycling, hunting Jayhawk and watching Planet Earth.

Citizen Skywatch propaganda posters

These are the Citizen Skywatch propaganda posters I mentioned the other day from the XCOM ARG. You can download a high-res pdf of the first poster here.

*Buy propaganda posters at eBay.

Advertisement for a space age motel

Advertisement for a Disneyland-adjacent motel.

*Buy Disneyland posters at eBay.

Using Lego to advertise Clorox

Clever interactive advertisement by DDB for Clorox - - passersby could "remove" a Lego stain.

*Buy Lego minifigs at eBay.

Quadricorn

I have no idea what this commercial by Cannoball is supposed to promote, but it does feature a quadricorn.

XCOM booth and ARG; Halo diorama at PAX

Photos of the XCOM display at PAX via Kotaku and 1up. Below is a video walkthrough of the booth and summary of the status of the ARG (there are some cool posters):

And also at PAX, a Halo diorama:

More photos here.

Citizen Skywatch booth at PAX

Claire Hummel on the XCOM promotion at PAX:

The Citizen Skywatch booth at PAX was fantastic- in character G-men interrogating you on any potential ties to communism? YES PLEASE.

(I've posted her art before, she has several prints on sale here.)

Here's a 20 minute demo of the game:

(The "home movie" ends in 90 seconds, and real gameplay starts at 8:30. The Tron-like, or maybe Lawnmower Man-like, alien is pretty cool.)

Memorable print advertisement

Advertisement by Draftfcb.

Video roundup

Ken Block's latest insane driving video is a tour through Universal Studios. (I posted a few of his older videos here.)

Video shows how recycled paper is turned into toilet paper. Via.

The latest advertisement for Rock of Ages takes a tour through video game history.

Face forms in the clouds (starting at 57 seconds). Via these sites.

Baseball player collapses/slides into home. Via.

Link roundup

1. Warren Ellis:

The New DC comics stuff looks so much like stuff I would never read that it oddly fills me with hope that they are targetting the core audience they want. If a 43-year old man looks at most of this promo stuff and goes meh, then that’s very probably a good sign for them.

2. Clever advertising by Morton's steakhouse.

3. Fascinating article about the Ottoman Empire and Turkey's current political plans.

The dinosaurs are here

Advertisements by Richter7 for Utah's Hogle Zoo. Via.

Ads by Noma Bar for IBM

Ads for IBM in the Chicago airport by Noma Bar.

*Buy Noma Bar's books at Barnes and Noble.

Link roundup

1. "A teenage Formula One fan has been fitted with a souped-up artificial hand after he offered to sell advertising space to Mercedes - on his prosthetic limb."

2. "Top five computer monitors for under $200."

3. "Here's A Sneak Peek Inside [Thomas Keller's] Bouchon Bakery [in Los Angeles], Opening Tomorrow."

Cool beer billboard

Billboard in San Diego makes clever use of light and shadow similar to Kumi Yamashita's artwork.

Which of these political ads is not a parody?

The most Tea Party-esque ad yet - - for Wisconsins senate candidate Kim Simac. Via.

Stephen Colbert's super PAC "cornography" political ad. Via.

Link roundup

1. Great writing about living in China at the time of the Beijing Olympics. Sample paragraph:

Our son had asthma. There was no use pretending it was the squeaky-clean, sensitive, upper-middle-class kind of asthma. He had the asthma that ghetto children come down with, because they live in the dirt. He was wheezing because at last, today, on the morning of the Olympics, the filth of the city where he was born had gotten into his tender lungs. He was sick because we had let him live in Beijing.

2. How to market to old people. For example:

Marketing to the elderly is tricky. The direct approach—say, calling your product “the soap for the over-70s”—does not work. And traditional advertising fails. “You can’t use TV adverts: they forget them,” groans the 30-something executive. “We show it again and again and again—and they still can’t recall it,” he sighs. Word-of-mouth is the only way.

3. "The governor of a prison near Moscow has lost his job after photographs emerged of his inmates holding a toga party complete with caviar and a McDonald's fast food delivery."

*Buy Olympics posters at eBay.