Entries from October 2010 ↓

If you’re an agency creative with a great idea but no clients willing to give it a try, why not just use it to launch a new form of Internet vandalism? That’s what BBDO creative director Jeff Greenspan did when he created “letterbombing,” a group effort that uses profile photos to spell out a message on a public figure’s Facebook page. According to The Daily Beast, Greenspan created the concept as a form of guerrilla marketing for client brands, but he couldn’t find any takers. So he and some friends decided to support Stephen Colbert’s sarcastic “Keep Fear Alive” campaign by spelling out the message on fan pages for Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, FOX News, The Daily Show, Justin Bieber and more. (You can see exactly how they did it in the video below.) The messages didn’t last long, but they generated some buzz, especially when followed up with an autism-related blitz on the Facebook wall for New York Governor David Paterson. Sure, it may be vandalism, but it’s not every day you see comment spam used as a form of activism.

    1. Bogusky reboots as a consumer advocate
    2. Antoine Dodson hawking a sex offender app
    3. ‘Ghost billboard’ rises near U.S.-Canada line
    4. You could own the real Snickers ad costume
    5. Domino’s floors focus group with big reveal

See the top stories from previous weeks here.

Orange County congressional hopeful Van Tran’s latest campaign ad suggests that he didn’t get enough “Grape Job!” stickers as a kid. Tran sent voters a particularly foul scratch-and-sniff mailer suggesting that Democratic incumbent Loretta Sanchez smells like hot garbage. This tactic was used in the New York governor’s race, too. Carl Paladino sent out a flier that smelled like a landfill (not that many NYC residents would notice). Sanchez blasted Tran for his childish stunt, but she probably brought it on herself by claiming that Republicans were colluding with the Vietnamese to unseat her. Thoughtless and paranoid remarks like that stink worse than Tran’s flier.