The Ex Files

What Elena Said!

Here's what Panasonic and agency Renegade, N.Y., have been up to. I'd write a story for Ex Files, but our Web editor beat me to it! Becky (bebenkamp@brandweek.com)

Pork, Beans & Rock 'n' Roll

Food fight!

The band Weezer is engaging fans in a virtual food fight at music community Buzznet to promote a new single called "Pork and Beans."

Users start slinging the sludge by visiting www.buzznet.com/cp/weezerfoodfight, where they get a code that they can paste into their friends’ Notes section on Buzznet. What results is a smattering of splatterings, which the page owner and visitors can view. Pork and beans haven't received a musical tribute of this magnitude since The Who's  Tommy.

The more notes that are left for a person, the more dense the pile of porky badness becomes. Fans can also invite friends to join the food fight by sending them the invitation link.

Up With Bottoms!

Blame Seinfeld episode 155 if you wish, because ever since it aired, "muffin tops" have been viewed as the icing on the cake (and we don't mean the type that results from ladies squeezing their trunk junk into too-tight, low-rise jeans).

To advertise its new muffin tops, Bloom supermarkets and ad agency BooneOakley, Charlotte, N.C., are staging a fake protest this month in which a quartet of human-sized, headless, jealous muffin bottoms retaliate via three-hour store picketing stunts, charged fliers, crudely "defaced" Bloom billboards and videos that can be viewed at www.crumbworldwide.org. The fauxtest publicizes the evolution of Bloom's longtime signature product, the Blueberry Jumbo Muffin, to Bloomberry Muffin Tops. The Coalition of Really United Muffin Bottoms (aka CRUMB), also have a dedicated MySpace page. Bloom is a division of Food Lion.

Sexman, Meet the Love Guru...

Meet the new David Manning! Web 2.0 has its very own earnest, excitable movie critic, and he absolutely gushes about The Love Guru!

If you're not familiar with "Sexman," he makes video film reviews from his bedroom--or, at least, somebody's as the backdrop usually involves an unmade bed. He posts them on YouTube, where he gets heckled by anonymous message board types, and thus increases his page views (and prominence). His more notable "critiques" include Rambo ("It had a lot of heads gettin' blown off, and there was a lot of blood and violence--it was great! Five out of five stars!") and 10000 B.C. ("I didn't even notice that there weren't any swears because it was that good of a film.")

And now, he's got a few words to say about the Paramount/Mike Myers flick, which hits multiplexes on June 20. "It really looks like it's actually gonna be good!" the kid offers up in response to watching the trailer on YT. Did the studio rope him in to the viral campaign (that would be kinda genius), or is it just the beneficiary of a serendipitous Sexman plug? You decide! The review has been up for a week and has about 10,000 views.

I Can Has Cheezburger, a Home

Cats: Thanks to blatantly biased media portrayals they are seen as finicky (hello, Morris), sneaky/evil (Lady and the Tramp, if you please) or lazy, sloe-eyed lasagna lovers (damn you, Garfield). Or worse! Meanwhile, their canine counterparts coast by on cool slogans such as "Dogs are man's best friend." Today, more than 70% of the unlucky cats living in animal shelters are euthanized compared with 56% of dogs. (OK, mutts have it pretty rough, too.)

To bring awareness to the gritty kitty sitch, national adoption database Petfinder.com and Cat Fancy magazine created the Cats Rule! Ad Contest. People enter by creating a 7" x 10" ad that shows the world "the value and importance of cats." Finalists will be posted online so that readers can vote for their favorites, and the winning entry will run as a full-page ad in Cat Fancy and appear on PF/CF Web sites.

The winner will be announced in June, aka Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat Month. June? Oh, great! Cats are being upstaged by brides, too...

Truthiness in Advertising

Stephen Colbert won a prestigious Peabody award last week. He wasn't comfortable accepting that honor on his own, however, so he unleashed his mighty fan army to rectify the situation. On the April 3 edition of The Colbert Report, the pretend pundit directed viewers to www.colbertnation.com to print up "Peabody Award Winning!" labels that they were instructed to stick on any and all bags of Doritos snacks on grocery store shelves (Such as these in Louisiana, above).

When Stephen talks, people listen: Previous successful Colbert come-ons have resulted in mass, reality-blurring edits to a Wikipedia page on elephants, and a Bridge in Hungary being named in his honor. The host often brags about politicians receiving a "Colbert Bump" after appearing on the show, and for a time polled ahead of democratic candidates Chris Dodd and Joe Biden when he threw his hat into the 2008 presidential race last fall.

Frito-Lay's Doritos Spicy Sweet Chili is the "official sponsor" of The Colbert Report's primary election coverage, during which the Comedy Central smart-ass makes declarations such as "I am proud to announce the Stephen Colbert's Doritos Spicy Sweet Pennsylvania primary coverage from Chiladelphia, the city of brotherly crunch." Last fall, Doritos sponsored Colbert's presidential run. When he didn't make the South Carolina ballots, Colbert joked that at least his body would "stop producing bright orange waste."

Scion Makes Ass of U & McGee

Used car king Cal Worthington has long said "I will stand on my head to beat anybody's deal." Then again, he's probably never met Assy McGee, who's already got the bottom's up advantage.

To target young adults, Turner's Adult Swim has developed a mock commercial with ad partner Scion for the second season of its show Assy McGee, which premieres April 6. After the first half of each ep, Assy stars in a 35-second animated ad set at a car lot and offers viewers "low, low prices" for the Scion xB. Sure, there's a lot of gas, but individual mileage might vary...

Download assy_spot_021208.mp4

Cal and his "dog," Spot:

Must. Type. Blog.

Becky tired! Becky head hurt! Becky post WWE pic and call it a night!

As a part of the local hoopla for WrestleMania XXIV, WWE secured a football field-sized logo in a field adjacent to the airport approach in Orlando.

Showtime at the Sheraton

To launch the second season of The Tudors, Showtime Networks transformed New York's Sheraton Towers hotel (52nd & Seventh Ave.) into a replica of a castle and the Royal Court of King Henry VIII for the premiere party on Wednesday, March 19.

A mesh vinyl wrap serves as the castle's stone façade. The interior was designed after the Royal Court's den of iniquity with burgundy, velvet-wrapped boards and columns alongside images of the cast.

One Source Visual Marketing Solutions' OS39 Creative was the design agency. The façade will stay up for three weeks. The show's new season premieres March 30.

Flick in a Box

It is suggested that one shouldn’t discuss religion or politics at the Thanksgiving dinner table, but as far as IFC knows, these topics are fair game at a film festival, a university hall or a meeting of the local Rotarians.

To create a groundswell of interest in death penalty documentary At the Death House Door, the Independent Film Channel is offering “Screening in a Box” kits, which contain all the fixins for organizing a viewing party and follow-up discussion. The doc profiles Rev. Carroll Pickett, a Presbyterian minister who spent 16 years as the chaplain of a Texas State Prison, where he accompanied the first 95 inmates to the execution room after the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.

The kits, which are available to political, religious, educational and other groups, contain a DVD of the film, postage-paid invitations, promotional posters, planning tips, discussion guides, snack vouchers, customizable press releases and a sample letter to the editor of a newspaper. Enclosed postcards promote tune-in for the IFC airing on May 29. Interested groups can also download the screening materials at a Web site.  Partner organizations include the ACLU, Amnesty International, The United Methodist Church, Stanford School of Law, University of Georgia, Church Women United and Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing.

“The goal is for IFC to be a platform where the death penalty discussion can be had,” said Jennifer Caserta, evp-marketing, communications, scheduling and alternative platforms, who expects to reach about one million people with the effort. Marketing agency Civic Entertainment Group, New York, helped implement the program.

In special hearings on punishment, capital, in state capitals, such as Austin, Raleigh and Sacramento, IFC will invite community leaders to view film clips and discuss such issues as wrongful convictions and lethal injection.

Since the state is a “star” of the film and is well known as a convict kill mill, IFC decided Death House should premiere in Texas, too: On March 9, the film debuted at SXSW.
bebenkamp@brandweek.com