Parasailing Donkey – Promo Stunt or Blatant Cruelty?

We all come up with some pretty ‘out there’ ideas from time to time but usually such crazy plans are vetoed by colleagues upon first review before they ever see the light of day! One of the most bizarre promotional stunts I’ve seen in a while took place last week. A parasailing company in the Russian resort of Golubitskaya parasailed a donkey to promote their service. Immediately you’d think…that must be fake. Nobody would harness up and donkey and send them up, up and away over the sea…would they!?

Well apparently this particular Russian outfit did.

Reports state the donkey was put in a harness and catapulted into the air! Braying loudly (wouldn’t you!) the donkey was towed above a boat for about half an hour with onlooking children crying on the beach at the scene. The donkey is said to have landed awkwardly on the sand and was dragged across the beach before being removed from the harness and comforted by locals.

Police have now launched an animal cruelty investigation into the incident. Check out the video footage here:

As in the recent ‘Dr Pepper Facebook Porn‘ debacle, marketers often walk the line between what will grab attention and get people talking and what is socially acceptable. This stunt leapfrogs any imaginable line of reason, moving into the realms of the unbelievable. Animal cruelty will never help to sell a product or service. I mean really…how many people sitting on that beach were likely to go…’huh…parasailing…well if a donkey can do it, be in distress and get dragged along the sand just show me where I sign up’!?

Male Cheerleader Gives it some Oomph

Just for Friday kicks…

Old Spice Guy Makes Twitter Fan’s Marriage Proposal

The shirtless, buff, Old Spice guy came onto our screens back in February as part of a successful TV ad campaign for the brand. Within a fortnight the YouTube video had over 2.9 million views and Old Spice guy even made it on to the Ellen DeGeneres show in the US -- such was the ads popularity. The brands social media campaign has been picking up pace in the last couple of weeks. The latest viral sensation, Old Spice have started to create customised videos for key influencers on sites such as Twitter and Facebook -- the likes of Perez Hilton have the Old Spice dude talking directly to them.

The brands simple strategy -- to target bloggers and social-media savvy celebrities with large online followings -- quickly paid off as those who had received a video, shouted it out to all their followers online.

They have now started creating some personalised adverts for ‘average Joe’s’. An Old Spice Twitter fan called Johannes S. Beals tweeted on Monday, “Can U Ask my girlfriend to marry me? Her name is Angela A. Hutt-Chamberlin”. Sure enough Old Spice dude obliged and proposed to Angela:

….and Angela said yes. Romantic -- no. A good story to tell the grandkids -- definitely.

You’ll notice that the personalised videos are all done to the same backdrop…it’s the innovative concept, unique script and drole humour that make the videos a success so they can get away with putting the same green screen background…all eyes are on the ‘hunk’ after all! A great way for the brand to get maximum mileage out of a great concept and reach a huge number of potential customers very cost-effectively.

By the way -- Old Spice guy’s real name is Isaiah Mustafa…alas he shall be forever known as Old Spice guy.

Lidl Big Trolley a Big Hit on Facebook

In the run up to their 10th anniversary in Ireland, last month Lidl Ireland joined Facebook. In the last week they really started to grab consumers attention on the social network by launching a simple but effective competition on the site and earning themselves almost 5,500 ‘likes’ at the time of writing. Interesting when you consider that the ‘Boycott Tesco Ireland‘ Facebook Group has more members that the collective ‘likes’ of the various Tesco Ireland Facebook pages.

The Lidl Big Trolley competition the idea is simple – correctly guess the prices of ten Lidl store items in a row and be in with the chance to win a daily €100 voucher. It’s actually even simpler than it sounds as a price just appears and you whether you think the price is a ‘Lidl’ price or ‘Higher’ than a Lidl price.

A very clever way of highlighting the range of products sold in the store and the value on offer. The majority of people trying their hand at the competition would probably never pick up one of the trillion supermarket inserts which fall out of our newspapers, yet they will happily watch product shots and prices flash by them on Facebook as these advertisements are presented in a new and engaging way. Continue reading »

Pac-Man iPhone Wallpaper

When Google transformed their homepage into a playable version of the classic video game Pac-Man, we were all hooked. In fact it’s estimated that the game resulted in $120m in lost productivity as workers spent much longer on the page than the usual 11 seconds it takes the average user to search.

A Japanese company has now developed a nice Pac-Man wallpaper for the iPhone – OS 4 only. It lines us perfectly with your rows of apps.

The only problem is that it’s a static image so it doesn’t have the movement that most people would expect. ‘In your face Apple’ says Google whose Android phone allows for animated wallpapers.