Archive for category Brand Advertising

Dr. Dre Meets Facebook

Nov 28

Posted by Andrew Machado in Brand Advertising, Technology | 6,129 Comments

Dr. Dre has been working on his followup to Chronic 2001 called Detox for nearly Ten Years.  There have been constant rumors its coming, but every year it continues to slip.  Well fast forward to just a few weeks ago and all of the Sudden the first single Kush appeared on drdre.com.

What was interesting about this was not the song…which felt like usual Dr. Dre (piano, rhymes written by someone else, snoop, etc), but the fact to listen to the song you must Connect with Facebook.

After you connected with Facebook your feed was populated with the Song, an image of the cover and it looks like the Application information states Universal Music Group.

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The minute the user connects via Facebook the song starts playing.  Now how has the song done since release?

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Sadly not too well.  Despite all the excitement of Dre returning it seems like iTunes fans have moved on to crap like Katy Perry Fireworks.  Kush is sitting at #28 and the highest I ever saw it was #20.

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FaceBook Places tries on Gap Jeans….and they don’t fit

Nov 5

Posted by Andrew Machado in Brand Advertising | 9,076 Comments

When Facebook announced their local deals product earlier this week one of the big announcements was a free pair of jeans when you check into any Gap retailer.  Well today that promotion went live….and Facebook Places promptly bit the big one in terms of stability.

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Of course about six hours later I tried to check in again and it worked, but the free jeans were sadly gone….but hey at least I can get 40% off a single item.

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Drake’s Thank Me Later and ProActive’s Latest Ad Campaign

Jun 4

Posted by Andrew Machado in Brand Advertising | 9,124 Comments

1. Drake’s Thank Me Later CD Leaks

Normally when leaks happen its damaging to an artist assuming its a terrible album.  The most recent I can remember is Christina Aguilera’s Bionic which leaked weeks ago and is terrible.  When you get married, bring in Le Tigre, Santigold and M.I.A you better come up with something epic and instead it feel longs, electric for no reason but to be electric and left me pretty disappointed for someone as talented as X-Tina.  I have no problem saying “Stripped” was a solid CD, it was an album that contained I believe over 15 tracks which at the time was unheard of for a pop record.

Anyway onto Drake.  Thank Me Later is going to please everyone.  It has a very interesting flow, Fireworks with Alicia Keys starts off mellow, then you have Karaoke which is also mellow and then finally you reach 1st single “Over” which is a total banger.  The album is loaded with guest spots, female rapper of the moment Nicki Minaj, T.I., The-Dream, Jay-Z and even Lil Wayne takes a break from jail to spit.  Not being a huge fan of Drake I came away impressed, he is versatile which I think is needed nowadays if you are going to have a long career.  My favorite track is Karaoke, love the production and feels a little Maxwell like.

2.  Proactive’s new Ad Campaign

I walk to the Apture office usually every day and along the way I see new billboards at Moscone Center, but over the last few weeks I’ve been watching Proactive’s new Ad Campaign take flight.  It centers around two ideas.

Celebrity - Featuring Mandy Moore, Avril Lavigne, Jullianne Hough and others.  The images are big and bold, you know who it is right away.  I also believe they are only using females for print which makes sense.  Women naturally are easier on the eyes and line up with a great majority of their customer base.

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Messaging

I’m not perfect. I’m Proactive.  Within two seconds I’ve read it and taken the message with me.  It’s thought provoking and lines up with what the product does.  Some other slogans they are using “I’m no pushover. I’m Proactive”.

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Proctor & Gamble is handling the campaign.  Well done its the first set of ads in a long time I’ve wanted to talk about with others.

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UFC Undisputed 2010 and Perez Hilton’s Goss ‘n’ Sass

May 29

Posted by Andrew Machado in Brand Advertising, Video Games | 9,210 Comments

UFC Undisputed 2010

The game officially came out this week.  I’ve previously covered the last version calling it the next Madden and I just might be right.  This latest version had over 800,000 pre orders which I believe is a record for a sports franchise beyond Madden.  The game feels much of the same to me, a lot of new fighters and a new single player mode where you actually have fun growing your fighter from a rookie to champion.  Maybe I was expecting more due to all the hype about the game “feeling” so different from last year, but after playing a few hours I could safely say if I never played it again I wouldnt mind.

Perez Hilton debuted a new Video Blog today called Goss ‘n’ Sass

After a rumored buyout of PerezHilton.com for $20 million I expected Perez to sit back and count his millions, but instead he is debuting a new video blog called Goss ‘n’ Sass centered around whats going in the Celebrity world with @adriannacosta.  You can watch the first episode here, I’m curious as to what the plan is for this video blog.  Constantly these things fizzle, the production costs, the time to film them and do retakes to get it right then there is making it go viral.  Perez does not allow embedding of his videos hoping on direct traffic, but I doubt something like this would go viral.  He simply is not that charismatic and his sense of humor is somewhat lacking when it comes to general comedy.  Also at the end he said tweet him with the hashtag #gossnsass which from the looks of it isn’t exactly setting the world on fire.  So the question is how long will this project last.  Judging by early response I’ll say 4 weeks totaling 4 episodes.

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