Volvo

Volvos have a special place in my heart. My first car was a 1998 Volvo S70 - passed down to me by my dad. I liked the car, I thought it had character. A lot of my favorite high school memories involved the good ole' volvo.

+I remember driving it to Arlington with my best friend to meet some EFY friends. Needless to say, we got lost in downtown Dallas. So we had to pull off and ask these sketchy city-workers for directions. But they turned out to be very helpful. They let us follow them back to the right highway.

+Another time I was driving with three or four of my best friends and there was a rock in the middle of the road. I thought it was smaller than it was, so I drove the volvo right over it. I'm surprised no damage was done because it definitely hit the undercarriage of my car. It's kind of a pointless story. But my high school friends ALWAYS bring it up.

+But the best memories are the simple ones: me and my friends driving around Allen, blasting music.

So, I bring my volvo up because I saw this recent advertisement on Creativity-Online.com for the new Volvo S60 that intrigued me. Hope y'all enjoy:

*Side-note: The commercial is from the agency Forsman & Bodenfors for the Volvo S60's new pedestrian detection feature. The spot was shot in one of the busiest streets in Sodermalm (an art district in Stockholm) this summer.

Levi's Media Changes

According to Adage.com, Levi Strauss & Co. will be launching a review of their global media account that is estimated to be worth about $100 million!

Apparently the company wants to cut down on the number of media agencies they have working on the brand. They currently have 20 media agencies but are looking to work it down to one or two. Adage.com says that the executives will be inviting less than a handful of those agencies to pitch for them. Ouch.

Good news for Wieden & Kennedy though. The company says they are happy with their creative account and don't have any plans for pulling the plug for W&K.

If you want to read the full article, click here.

Gatorade Replay

I'm sure most of you have seen this Gatorade 'Replay' video, but I hadn't until last Tuesday night in my media planning class. Check it out, it's really inspirational, both for its content and from an advertising perspective.

In our media planning class, we've obviously been talking about different ways to use the media, or certain mediums, to get your message out. This particular 'Replay' campaign, wasn't your typical 30 sec TV spot, nor an everyday print ad. TBWA/Chiat/Day L.A. created this concept for Gatorade of bringing these two high school football teams together for an epic match. Instead of telling the public why Gatorade is beneficial, they showed them. They took these two teams full of men who haven't played football for 15 or so years and put them through a 3 week training program. The Gatorade was provided to enhance their performance and replenish their fluids.

This game was sold out in 90 mins (10,000 tickets), like the video said, and thousands more watched online or on TV. The event was so huge that they have done 2 more seasons since. You can't buy publicity or success like that. Genius.