Out to Launch

• by Amy Corr , Staff Writer @MediaPostOTL, July 29, 2009

Kids who play sports become well-adjusted adults who can catch, throw and use slam-dunk in a sentence. KidSport BC, a program that provides grants for children to play sports, launched a trio of TV spots starring seemingly ordinary adults thrown off-track by everyday occurrences. A man gets a cramp while swimming and asks a spectator to throw him a life preserver. Instead of flinging it, the man throws overhand and the life preserver lands nowhere near the swimmer. See it here. An office worker asks his good-looking co-worker for Post-Its. She knows how to think fast; sadly, he does not. Watch it here. "Nice one. Total dunk slam," begins another ad, shown here. A confused man listens to his co-worker describe their successful meeting as a dunk slam, while swinging an invisible baseball bat. "Sports skills are life skills," ends the spots, created by DDB Vancouver.

"There's a time and a place for comedy." Communal showers and parole hearings are not ideal locales. Spots for the Toronto Just for Laughs Festival show the importance of location when it comes to telling jokes. Things are looking up for a prisoner at his parole hearing until a board member with an Irish accent speaks. The prisoner baits the man into saying "diddly dee potatoes," guaranteeing the prisoner additional jail time. Watch the ad here. A man decides to tell a joke in the communal shower. The words screw and horny make an appearance, prompting one man to drop his soap and the rest to vacate the premises. See it here. Zig created the campaign and handled the media buy.

Baseball fields, basketball courts and roller hockey rinks in Canada are empty, because the 2nd Annual Canadian Cheese Rolling Festival is back. And it looks like fun. The Dairy Farmers of Canada are supporting the Aug. 15 event with a cinema spot, transit shelter and newspaper ads and interactive mirror clings. The winner snags an 11-pound wheel of Cracked Pepper Verdelait cheese and Whistler Winter season passes for two. The cinema spot opens with sporting equipment left at athletic courts and fields. Everyone is too busy participating in the cheese rolling festival to do much else. Snippets of last year's participants running and falling downhill, chasing a cheese wheel, close out the ad, seen here. I wonder what they call the person who lets the cheese roll downhill? The cheese cutter? Print ads, seen here, here and here, resemble athletic trading cards, showing participants in motion and the winner savoring his prize. See a picture of a mirror cling in action, here. TAXI Vancouver created the campaign and M2 handled the media buy.

Take that, $5 foot longs. Quiznos is taking aim at its competition with the Bullet sandwich, an 8-inch sub that costs $3. At this rate, lunch should cost $1.50 by mid-August. I can live with that. The talking Quiznos Toaster makes an appearance in two spots that eavesdrop on a man's therapy session. The toaster tries to convince the patient, Brian, to leave his session and head to Quiznos for a Bullet. The shrink asks Brian if the "talking toaster is in the room." See it here. In another ad, the shrink wants to know how the talking toaster makes Brian feel. "Hungry," he replies. Watch the ad here. Siltanen & Partners created the campaign.

The Buckwheat Boyz took their hit song "Peanut Butter Jelly Time," replaced the words with "Ice Cream and Cake," and what we have is an ad for Baskin-Robbins. The song is not nearly as catchy as "Peanut Butter Jelly Time," but it does make me crave an ice cream cake. The Claymation ad is guaranteed to render with young kids. See the ad here, created by Cliff Freeman & Partners.

No other brand so excels at consistently choosing the right music for its ads than Nike. The Killers' "All These Things That I've Done" is used for a branding spot that begins with the words "everything you need is already inside." "I got soul, but I'm not a soldier" is the repeated mantra throughout the ad, while snippets of monumental moments in sports, space and science are shown. Look for Steve Prefontaine, Carl Lewis, Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong, John McEnroe, Mary Lou Retton and many other past and present athletes. Watch "Bottled Courage" here, created by Wieden + Kennedy Portland.

Daffy's launched a branding campaign and contest where consumers can audition to win a rental lease for a luxury apartment in New York's West Village. A zero is dropped from the monthly rent; the lucky winner will pay $700 a month for an apartment that normally goes for $7,000. Online, print, radio, wild postings and in-store initiatives promote the campaign. See ads here, here and here. In addition, Daffy's opened a temporary pop-up store at One 7th Avenue South. Consumers have until Aug. 14 to submit a 30-second video in-store explaining why they should win the lease. Daffy's will choose five finalists and the public will choose the grand prize winner. Johannes Leonardo created the campaign.

TELUS placed hundreds of gecko-shaped magnets over transit shelter ads in downtown Vancouver to encourage consumers to purchase their Internet and phone plans with the company. The magnetic side of the geckos read "Bundle and save on the sure-footed network." All the magnets were gone the next day. No surprise here, because people love freebies. See the magnets here and here. TAXI Vancouver created the campaign and Media Experts handled the media buy. 

Random iPhone App of the week: How many calories are in your apple? There's an App for that. The CalorieSmart App can tell users calorie and nutrition details for 75,000 foods. Full nutrition facts for generic items, name brand and restaurant items are listed. A person's meals, snacks and workouts can be tracked. Cohesocreated the App, which costs $2.99.