From MediaLife:

Handing out free samples to promote your services is pretty old hat. But then there’s never been a free sample quite like this.
The box itself looks like any other home pregnancy test. But this pregnancy test isn’t for women. It’s for men.

It’s called the ReadyDaddy pregnancy test, and it was distributed on the streets of towns across Israel in May as part of an alternative media campaign for Israeli HMO Clatit, one of the nation’s major medical services.
The HMO wanted to promote its pregnancy services among young couples, but it knew that its message would get lost if it reached out to young women, who are already bombarded with pregnancy-related promotions and advertisements.

“The tests were active, and if a men took the test, the result would always come out ‘not ready’ (unless the man was pregnant),” Eyal Gan-mor, ReadyDaddy was a bit hit with those who received it. A few men actually took the test, and many more logged on to the associated ReadyDaddy web site, which directed surfers to information about Clatit pregnancy services.

From MediaLife:
“It’s all over the news, all the beaches along the Gulf Coast that have been ruined by the BP oil spill.

Yet beaches further down the coast are still pristine, and that’s created a public relations challenge for businesses in those areas. How do you tell the public, specifically vacationers, that your beaches have not been affected?

That was the issue facing the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, which was worried that potential tourists would forego a visit to its beaches because of their proximity to the spill.
The bureau hit on an innovative solution: Each morning it uploads pictures of the oil-free Panama City beaches to digital billboards across the Southeast, where most of its tourists hail from.

“Everybody here very much wants to make sure we’re doing everything we can to get the message out that there is no oil along any of the beaches in northwest Florida,” says Dan Rowe, president and CEO of the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. “There’s no better way to reassure the public than to show a photo that is live as you can be.”

“The top sticker is a coupon for $5 off any $20 purchase at CVS. The coupon pulls off to reveal a second sticker, an ad for CVS that stays on the bill when it leaves your wallet and goes back into circulation.”

Well done, very targeted.

From MediaLife:

“Imagine taking an image of the president of the United States and throwing it up on a billboard, in Times Square yet, to hawk overcoats, of all things.

As one would expect, the White House was not amused and basically ordered the offending coat maker, Weatherproof, to take down the billboard. The coat maker, as one would expect, protested, citing the First Amendment. The media pounced on the story, again as one would expect, treating the showdown with far more seriousness than it deserved. Legal experts expounded at length.

Finally, Weatherproof blinked, agreeing to take down the ad, which by then had brought it great heaps of media exposure, all for free of course. That all happened two weeks ago.

But there’s more to the story.

Just as the Obama billboard was to come down, one playing on it went up right next to it.

Put up by AMC, the ad shows a character in a very similar setting–we see, as in the Obama ad, the Great Wall of China behind him–in an identical pose, looking quite serious, hands tucked in his coat pockets.

The type in the ad is of the same font and size. In place of “Weatherproof” on the original ad are the words “You got No Proof,” the letters all run together, and below that, “Getting Away With It Since 2008.”

In place of the tagline “A Leader in Style,” the AMC ad has “A Dealer in Style.”
The ad is for the show “Breaking Bad,” about a teacher turned drug dealer, and features the show’s star, Bryan Cranston, with a gas mask perched on his head of the sort used by drug makers. The reference to 2008 refers to the year the show debuted.”

The couple seems the very picture of domestic bliss in their wedding day photo. They are smiling, happy and holding each other tight.
But as so often happens in life, unforeseen forces begin to draw them apart. They get separated, quite literally.
This is not your average couple, you see, but a picture of a couple on the doors of an elevator, the man on the right panel, the woman on the left.
As the doors open, man and woman separate and begin moving farther and farther apart until suddenly there’s nothing left of our happy couple. They are gone.
Against the back wall of the elevator we see a sign. It reads: “Sabina Stobrawe, Divorce Lawyer. 2nd floor.”

[campaign by Masterminds for Beau Rivage Resort & Casino at the Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport]

Let’s see if:

• different country
• same type of client
• same ambient

this ad will win Cannes too.

This was no ordinary vending machine but a clever alternative media stunt to raise awareness of the plight of nations lacking clean water. It was for Unicef’s Dirty Water Campaign, aimed at raising awareness and encouraging donations to help fight the problem.

Non un normale distributore d’acqua ma un’intelligente sistema per aumentare la consapevolezza verso le nazioni che mancano di acqua potabile. Fatto per la campagna “Acque Sporche” di Unicef, per notorietà e per incrementare le donazioni in favore della lotta a questo problema.

Imagine this: You are sitting at the bar drinking beer with your buddies when you go to put your glass down on the coaster.Only you can’t.When you set the glass down, the coaster moves away.You try again. Again, the coaster moves away, as if repelled by your glass.Have you had one beer too many?No, what’s taking place is quite real, and there’s a message to it, as you realize when you look more closely at the glass and the coaster.”Drinking and driving don’t mix” is in big letters on the glass. On the coaster is an image of a car.Aha, the light goes off. The glass and the coaster are equipped with repelling magnets. It’s a clever alternative media campaign by Foster’s beer and parent company SABMiller that ran in India earlier this year.What made it so clever was that it delivered the message at the point of consumption. That’s better than a billboard on the highway, which comes too late, after the beer has been guzzled down.

An agency in Brazil came up with a unique approach: an ad for a sunscreen that the reader could take out of a magazine and expose to sunlight to see the benefits of the sun-blocker.

Un agenzia in Brasile ha seguito un approccio unico: la pubblicità di un protettore contro il sole può essere esposta alla luce del sole e mostra i benefici del prodotto.

It’s much more effective to give a visual reminder of what those 41 people (the minute’s visits to a site) could mean. Houdini Amsterdam rounded up 41 people, put them on a bus, and drove to 15 dealerships in 15 cities across the Netherlands; all was filmed and used in a direct email campaign to other dealers.È più efficace mostrare realmente cosa significhino 41 persone (le visite al minuto ad un sito). Houdini Amsterdam le ha raccolte, messe su un bus e scaricate in 15 autosaloni in 15 città diverse dei Paesi Bassi; in più il tutto è stato filmato ed usato in un mailing agli altri esercizi.