Carlton United Breweries and George Patterson Y&R today launched the successor to Carlton Draught's Big Ad titled 'FlashBeer'.

To quote a small part of an excessively long press release :

"After parodying advertising stereotypes in previous ads, Made from Beer has taken on new creative territory with 'Flashbeer' by sending up one of the most ubiquitous film cliches of the 1980s - the audition scene from the closing minutes of the 1983 movie, Flashdance.

With all eyes on its passionate leotard-clad hero, 'Flashbeer' has fun with the notion prevalent in many 80's films (hit films like Flashdance, Fame, Footloose and Dirty Dancing) where the 'power of dance' can make any dream come true.

'Flashbeer' is the journey of 'Kevin Kavendish', a peanut inspector by day, who harbours a secret dream to work at Carlton Draught Brewery. The odds seem stacked against Kevin when he goes to a job interview at the brewery given his distinct lack of experience, but then through the
'power of dance' we see our hero realise his dream of brewing his favourite beer.

The famous audition scene was (somewhat) faithfully re-created – about as faithful to the original as you would expect from Carlton Draught anyway."

The Sydney Morning Herald has a discussion happening over at its blog "Will a big bloke in a leotard be as popular as Big Ad?" The critics are out swinging too.

To view it, head on over to the microsite Flash Beer - unfortunately it's streamed using Vividas so no download or blog embedding options, and it doesn't appear to be on YouTube either which I think is a real mistake.

Posted by Ashadi at 9:43 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Campaigns

A rather unfortunate ad placement given the editorial beside it. This appeared on the Sydney Morning Herald homepage earlier today.

Posted by at 12:48 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Media Gaffes

Is good website design about ease of exploration or fun with exploration?

there seems to be a slight shift away from Scale, Tension and Dynamics (STD) a little of late - talking about the Airwaves site that was posted recently, more illustration, more fun and more time spent.

Especially this bit of irreverence as a link out from the above.

Here's another good old skool website with newskool features, sharp and sexy, for ladies attire.

ps NSFW possibly... yep pretty possibly.

Posted by tobie at 7:54 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
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For those interested. (and who doesn't love graphs) We have been tracking the stats on the RSS feed since we started the site. Through the great service provided by Feedburner.

Here is a graph of the readers since we began this site just over a year ago.

You can see the dips every weekend as our readers get their weekend away from the screen. The RSS is provided only for the main part if the site and not the news. Which so far hasn't attracted much traffic, it seems people just want their banner fix and get their industry news from other sources.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 9:33 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: BB News

This is an interesting one if you're in the business - I'm guessing most of our readers are, as an insight into "how"...

About 6 weeks ago I was invited to go along to a 4 day TV, Press and interweb shoot near Malaga, Spain - If you're/were/have been in the UK of late you would/should/must have/may seen the TV press or online activity.

Orange, a global brand, invite 40 UK residents to make an ad in the middle of spaghetti western spain, with none of it being scripted apart from the call sheets and blow up dolls. All at the behest of Mother and Poke.




"This was about creating and capturing genuine emotion and experience.

The intention was to create an event in which the public could participate and interact, something more akin to an art installation as opposed to a traditional ad - the best works of art are the ones where normal people are as excited by it as the art establishment. Ultimately, this is an event media ad as opposed to a genuine art installation done purely for art's sake but we do feel that we managed to achieve and push what is expected from a traditional advertising campaign."

The online outcome of which was:
Brand/Offer microsite
Behind the scenes/making of Blog
Online advertising one example here
YouTube library of ads, extended cuts, anecdotes and extra footage x 65+
Image collection on flickr x 1500+

Also, the press photograper jesse took some killer shots from the chopper, yes the chopper.

Seriously worth a look for something different.

Posted by tobie at 5:35 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Campaigns