Moulin Rouge Embraces the Windmill

The Moulin Rouge, Paris's famous cabaret, has a new identity and I must say I'm a fan. If you're familar with the Moulin Rouge, you know its visually distinctive feature is the giant red windmill that's stood since the cabaret's inception in 1889. The name actually means 'Red Mill' in french so it seems wholly appropriate for the logo to reflect that.

The difference between the old and new logos is pretty drastic. The old one has a kind of haphazard feel to it and the lipstick marks seems to play up the cabaret's can-can and striptease origins, whereas the new logo has a much more sophisticated look to it. The new logo plays up the windmill landmark but gives the overall feel of a higher end establishment. Both fit since the Moulin Rouge is a large tourist attraction and at around 100€ a ticket with dress code rules, it needs that classier outward appearance. I actually went to the Moulin Rouge a few years ago and saw the show. It's really mostly dance numbers with elaborate costumes and staging and sometimes the dancers are topless. It's still a classy show, so the new logo feels more appropriate.

What do you think?

via (Brand New)

Bill Cosby Teams Up With Jell-O, Again

Who doesn't remember those 80's commercials Bill Cosby did for Jell-O pudding?



Apparently Cosby worked with Jell-O from 1974 through the 1999 but it's still been over ten years since then. The duo is teaming up again for a new Jell-O campaign next month. They will be kicking off a 22-city tour looking for the best giggle in the country. Just the reminder of the old Cosby-Jell-O commercials made me smile. The only drawback to this reunion is that Cosby is going to be behind the camera only, producing apparently, and I'd love to see him in front of the camera as well.

All of LOST in 140 Characters or Less

If you've ever watched Lost or even heard about Lost, you know it's a twisted, complicated show that's captured millions of viewers—and it's ending on Sunday. The Atlantic is running a fun little competition asking people to tweet a summary of the whole show within Twitter's infamous 140 character limit. That's a bit of a challenge. I think it'd be difficult to summarize a single episode in that little space. The prize is simply a year subscription to The Atlantic magazine, but the real draw is the challenge of it.

Want to participate? Tag your tweet with #Lost140 or you can comment on their website. Here are a few of my favorites:

 David Lynch is finally given full writing, editing and directing control of Gilligan's Island. #Lost140 (@jpallan)
 

Disproportionate number of good-looking people on same plane. Crash. More good-looking people show up. Things go badly. Wonder why. #Lost140  (@VickyPaige)

Good vs. Evil, for all the magnets. #lost140 (@evanhr)

Adobe vs. Apple

If you have an iPhone or iPad, or you're just up on your tech news, you know that they infamously don't support Flash. iPhone users have been hounding Apple since the iPhone debuted to support the program so they could browse Flash based sites on their mobile phones and the iPad's debut just magnified the issue. For the longest time, consumers just assumed it was software issue that Apple would no doubt eventually overcome. They waited and waited in vain. Steve Jobs came out last month with an open letter as to why the iPhone and iPad do not, and never will, support Flash. He's makes a couple of good points and mostly blames Adobe for not adapting. Jobs asserts that HTML 5 will have enough functionality like Flash to appease most of his iPhone and iPad users.

Well Adobe didn't take that very well. Earlier this week they launched a campaign that scolds Apple their exclusion. It's an interesting little rift between two companies who, at least in my little design world, go hand-in-hand in making my job easier. I'm not such a fan of Jobs dismissing the idea of ever supporting Flash. Even if HTML 5 reduces the need for Flash, it will be awhile before the functionality and usefulness of Flash goes away completely. What do you think?

Creative Job Hunting

Closer to the beginning of the recession, we blogged about a local guy putting up a billboard off of a busy freeway advertising how he needs a job. It was bold and unique enough to get a decent amount of PR from the local news and radio stations.

Alec Brownstein, a copywriter in New York, completely outdid that idea. He used Google advertising to target some of the best creative directors in the city. Check it out:



(via Direct Daily)

United and Contintenal Airlines: Name vs. Logo

On Monday, United and Continental Airlines merged. You probably read about it in the news and maybe you even saw the 'new' logo. The way they've handled the naming and visual aspects of the new company is a little too simple. Essentially they kept the name United, but with the Continental logo. A fair trade off? A good way to merge two companies with brand equity and keep a bit of both? Maybe from a PR standpoint, but not from a brand perspective.

The new logo itself feels wrong. It's enough that the ditched the better of the two logos (and the one still using its original Saul Bass design), but just swapping out the name Continental for United without any other visual change makes the logo feel more like a gag design than a new, merged company logo. I get that both Continental and United are major airline brands and want to keep that equity through the merger, this wasn't quite the way to do it. As much as I'm not a fan of the new MillerCoors logo, at least it had the right idea. I'd rather have a United Contintental Airlines with a new logo that this weird little mash up. Brand New makes an interesting point about how this logo doesn't work mostly because it has brand equity.

What’s funny is that if this were a new airline, and we didn’t have the accumulated associations of both brands we would just say it’s boring and move on, but it’s impossible to see the new logo and not feel that there is something inherently wrong with this equation. In all likelihood we will see a new logo in the next year or two, unless they have started painting planes—in which case we are screwed.

Fully Acknowledging the Scam Ad

I've written before about the annoying, yet common practice among ad agencies of running ads just for the sake of making them award show eligible. If you're in the business, you've seen it done. Perhaps the agency even footed the bill, because winning those awards give the agencies and the creatives something to brag about. 

10 advertising was looking for a Creative Director and figured some of the best creative directors are those chosen to judge awards shows. So how do you get them to know you're looking? Better yet, how do you get them interested in working for you? By showing how creative your agency can be. That's exactly what 10 advertising did when they created a tiny little ad that ran in the cheapest magazine just so they could enter it in the CCB awards and get their message out to all the judges. Which, just in case they missed the point, is fully explained in their award show entry (below).

Clever, very clever.

(via Direct Daily)

The Real Cost of Drinking and Driving

Ogilvy Brazil has a great new PSA guerilla campaign reminding bar goers of the real cost of drinking and driving by adding those costs to their bar tab. They actually did this in a bar in Brazil. Check out the video below:



(via Direct Daily)

Applebee's Jumps On Calorie Bandwagon

In light of the new national law requiring restaurant chains with 20 or more locations to post the calorie content of their food, Applebee's has an interesting new marketing angle for their menu—the under 550 Calorie menu. While this not a new law for California and New York, or even a new direction for Applebee's, I like what they're doing and they're the first ones I've seen advertising a calorie specific menu.

Applebee's had (and maybe still has) a Weight Watcher's menu that also provided healthier choices, but if you weren't in Weight Watcher's it meant little. You basically assumed you were getting something healthier that what was on the rest of the menu. A calorie specific menu, however, is something everyone can relate to whether you're dieting or not. The menu items look pretty good too, even if the commercials don't.





I'm sure more marketing campaigns like this one will start appearing as we get closer to when the law goes into affect, but Applebee's is a full year ahead of the game. Unfortunately, as much as I like the marketing idea for a calorie specific menu, the actual campaign and creative leaves much to be desired. I expect chain restaurant commercials to have that all-too-familar uber-friendly, cheesy vibe the concepts behind these two commercials were just lame.

Regardless of the mediocre creative, I think Applebee's is on to something.

Nestle Crunch gets creative with fun hotline promo

Nestle has done something quite refreshing: It's made the always-dreaded automated caller system highly enjoyable.

To promote its Crunch candy bar, Nestle's developed some fun options on its 1-800 hotline menu. But they're not explicitly sharing the secret of calling this phone number as in the recent US Cellular commercials--it's only been passed virally through Facebook. I hadn't heard of the fun until a Facebook friend of mine posted this yesterday:

"TAKE A MINUTE AND DO THIS! Call the Nestle Hot line at 1-800 295-0051. When asked if you want to continue in English or Spanish, wait quietly for about 10
seconds and you will smile. Keep going and press 4. Then press 7. Don't give
away the surprise. Whoever thought of this at Nestle... deserves a raise and a
pocket full of sunshine!! Totally worth it!!!!! Enjoy"

It also seems that it's not new. This article about it was written back in November.

I'd recommend calling, perhaps a few times. Follow the instructions above, or take your own adventure. Just don't be surprised if you get a busy signal--seems it's pretty popular lately. You can also shortcut and hear the fun here: forthekidinyou.com.