Chinese Takeout

Along with milk cartons, Chinese Food Takeout containers have been making a comeback as a place to stick a message (via)

Apparently, Cingular utilized Chinese takeout boxes in 2002 (via):


Now, do the advertisements on the boxes offset the cost of delivery at all?

Ice Sculptures: a PSA

"To draw attention to climate change, the World Wildlife Federation had Brazillian artist Nele Azevedo set up 1000 ice sculptures on the steps of the Berlin Concert Hall. [Image via Getty]" - Gawker

This concept is great, but Brazil is hot - I can only imagine how long those little men were around. In terms of effectiveness, if anything, the word of mouth is the real media placement here, as opposed to the hundred of icemen situated on these steps.

Milk Cartons: Old Media Turned New

From 1979-1981, Milk Cartons were a way to publicize missing children.

Since, there have been a few parodies, as this phenomenon made its rounds in pop culture.

As of late, the advertising industry has decided that milk cartons, once again, are an effective way to reach its consumers, and have consequently decided to use it as a paid media vehicle.


Here, the music group Plain White T's is featured on milk cartons in a cooperative campaign promoting both milk and the band. These milk cartons in particular are being distributed to schoolchildren during lunchtime.

Wonder what the FDA would have to say about all this...

Their Whole is Greater Than the Sum of Their Parts

OMD, Pepsi and CBS will pioneer the convergence of Video and Print on Sept. 18th, as they team team up to place a video in Entertainment Weekly magazine.

"As part of a unique marketing partnership, PepsiCo will join with CBS to promote its Pepsi Max diet cola for men in the print ads and sponsor the fall debut of CBS's Monday-night comedies on Sept. 21.

The intriguing promotion serves to illustrate how TV networks and advertisers are experimenting with new technologies to get their messages out to consumers." - AdAge

As an attempt to save print from an untimely death while correspondingly creating something new and buzzworthy, this is very impressive. Kind of reminds me of Esquire's E-Ink Cover (9/08).

....it also reminds me of Harry Potter.

Google + Advertising

Going along with Ricky Van Veen's theory on the future of media, here is an example of a digital company using traditional media to launch an advertising campaign.

Google launches billboards to push its new business software via:

This comes after they launched TV spots to promoted Google Chrome back in May:



Also, want to see spoof ads? Go here.

Traditional, But Not Dead

Ricky Van Veen, founder of CollegeHumor, on the future of TV:


It's funny. On the advertisers' and clients' side, we all want to go from old media to new... but on the production side, all the viral stars want to make it big in TV.

"Media as the new Creative"

It has been said that "media is the new creative." To clarify, the idea is that in this age of hyper-audience fragmentation, the "who" you're speaking to is now as important as the "what" that's being said. -Media Post

Upon entering UT's advertising program, I (along with many, many others) had the great "creative dream." Upon entering Maria Rivera's ADV 325 class, I knew I was clearly destined to become the genius behind world-renown ads. Long story short, the copy of Photoshop I bought that semester (SP 07) is still sitting in its plastic on my desk.

So, I'm not going to be spending endless hours racking my brain for catchy phrases, or cursing the blur tool on CS4. It's true. However, the truth is, Media is where the real creative comes to play. Media strategies and vehicle choices truly shape the entire campaign as well as the creative messaging.

Need proof? Some of the greatest campaign ideas were started at media agencies. See Breyer's Smooth and Dreamy, Sprint/Suave's In The Motherhood, and BMW films - The Hire.