Brand Ng

Contagion bacterial and fungal billboard

This is an ingenious and well-executed outdoor interactive installation for Contagion, even if it gives me further pause about having to sit in a dark crowded room for a couple of hours to buy what they're selling.

 

Great animated short about an all-knowing piece of fruit

Saw this funny 2 minute short at the Animation Block Party over the weekend. It's about a sentient orange and has biblical overtones. It gives me a pretty good feeling about oranges, so were I a citrus grower , I'd consider quietly promoting this video as a part of my industry lobbying efforts.

"The Orange" was animated by Nick Fox-Gieg and written by Benjamin Rosenbaum

Xerox begs movie execs to zip it about xeroxing

Yes, I xeroxed this ad to aid discussion

    Xerox® has been placing ads in the Hollywood Reporter begging the entertainment industry not to use the Xerox trademark as a verb or a noun.  At first, I thought this was a tongue-in-cheek joke--which would have made for a pretty great ad.  But on close reading, they seem serious.

    Never mind that the ad gives the reader zero reason to help Xerox.  Never mind the strange, circular use of puns that reference their zipper example ("come undone," "keep it together" - uh, yuk yuks all around, I guess).  No, let's not worry about those executional things.  At the heart of the brief: Xerox doesn't want people to use the word "xerox."

    It's as if it's the 80s, and Xerox is that punk-ass kid saying, "That's my name. Don't wear it out." 

    But in this era of proliferation, to be so dominant as to be generic is an extremely enviable position.  We should only be so lucky as to be the standard by which all others are judged.  We google things we want to know about.  We windex our windows and shove our leftovers in tupperware, or if the item is too big, we saran-wrap it. 

    In fact, I doubt that Nintendo is particularly pleased that thumb strains are now mostly blackberry thumbs rather than nintendo thumbs--even as the term carries a negative connotation.

    Don't cry about your place in the world, Xerox.  Poor baby.. it'll be ok.  Here, have a kleenex.

P.S. To Hollywood producers: please feel free to use the name of this blog as a verb or a noun.  For example, you can freely say that "Xerox was brandnged today over the use of the word xerox."  I promise, I won't send you cease and desist letters.

Brilliant Movie Ad with Tweet Integration for Ben Stiller's Greenberg

Check out this inventive online display ad for Greenberg the Movie. 

1. Opening panel invites you to tweet directly into the ad (you'd need to click for details)
2. Clicking the ad forces you to watch a preview of the movie.  Apparently, it's about a neurotic guy with wandering thoughts.
3. You get to add your own neurotic thoughts by entering your Twitter username/password and tweeting it. No matter what you write, it will be perfectly aligned with the movie idea.

If that weren't enough, there's a good chance that the content of your tweet--displayed to all of your followers, mind you--is about Greenberg the Movie.

That's great stuff.