Honey-bee populations are mysteriously dwindling worldwide. In England, the Banrock Station winery created the “world’s first ad with live bees” to call attention to the problem. They used queen-bee pheromones to attract a giant swarm of bees (as many as 100,000, according to the BBC) from a nearby honey farm to spell out an “SOS” message on a billboard. No bees were harmed and no one was stung during the stunt. The winery is also donating 5p to the honey-bee cause for every bottle sold.

Source: AdFreak

No one can accuse Head & Shoulders of lacking a sense of humor: The Procter & Gamble brand says it has insured Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu’s trademark hair for $1 million, and that the policy will cover those crazy Samoan curls for the entire football season.

Polamalu’s locks even rate their own Web site — troyshair.com — with all kinds of fun, including a way to upload a friend’s face under his hair, apps, and a “Mane Event” bracket to vote on the strangest ‘dos ever to come out of the NFL.

The insurance policy (from Lloyd’s of London) and site are just the latest part of P&G’s plan to maximize its NFL connection. Now in its second year as the official sponsor of the league, it hopes its ads will appeal not just to football fans, but to the women who love them — as well as the women who just think those girly-curls are cute.

Meanwhile, P&G is sprinkling Troy’s hair site with hirsute trivia (he hasn’t seen a barber in seven years, and laid end to end, it would span 100 football fields) and with plugs for H&S’ Hair Endurance for Men, along with games, gimmicks and contests. Prizes include a Super Bowl XLV VIP package.

Source: Marketing Daily

A group of nearly 50 carrot growers, including Bolthouse Farms, recently unveiled plans for an industry-wide marketing campaign created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky to rebrand baby carrots as an extreme, ultimate snack food. According to a bunch of carrot farmers, carrots are powerfully crunchy, subtly sweet, gloriously versatile, mischievously addictive, and perfectly orange; so why wouldn’t they be your favorite snack?!

The campaign will include new product packaging similar in design to it’s junk food counterparts such as Cheetos, school vending machine distribution, outdoor and TV advertising, seasonal tie-ins (think scarrots for Halloween), an iPhone app game called Xtreme Xrunch Kart powered by the sound of you crunching baby carrots, and online webisodes titled Munchies featuring Chip and Abdul during the Late Shift in aisle 3. You can get a sneak peek of what will ultimately launch on September 7th, just in time for back to school, at babycarrots.com or follow the action on Twitter with @babycarrots

Sources: USAToday.com and creativity-online.com

If you’re advertising on Jersey Shore, better see if you can leave New Jersey out of the media buy. A Quinnipiac University poll of voters in that state finds many taking a dim view of the MTV “reality” show and few expressing a positive opinion of it.

Fifty-one percent of respondents said they have an unfavorable opinion of the show, vs. 11 percent having a favorable opinion of it. Despite all the brouhaha about the show, 35 percent said they hadn’t heard enough about it to offer an opinion. The rest simply declined to answer.

Twenty percent of respondents to the poll (fielded in the first half of August) said they think the show is good for the state. But 54 percent think Jersey Shore is bad for New Jersey.

The governors of New Jersey and New York have offered competing views as to why the people on the show are so badly behaved. New Jersey’s governor said it’s because the show is populated by characters from New York, while New York’s governor theorized that the Jersey shore environment causes people to act badly.

Asked to say which view they find more persuasive, 35 percent of respondents subscribed to the they’re-from-New-York position, while 19 percent agreed that the Jersey shore environment is to blame. The rest declined to choose.

Source: Brandweek

How do small businesses compete with national companies backed by big budgets? Go directly after their claims! Anthony’s, a local Denver pizza chain has done just that with an advertising campaign directed at Domino’s recent recipe change.

Very clever!

Source: makethelogobigger.blogspot.com

It could be here sooner than you think…

The Financial Times is reporting that Google is in talks with major Hollywood studios to bring streaming movie rentals from their catalogs to YouTube by the end of the year. Citing multiple sources with knowledge of the plans, the FT claims that the YouTube on-demand video service will probably launch first in the US, and will offer movies, simultaneous with the DVD release, for about $5.

The movies won’t be downloadable, so you’ll need a live Internet connection to watch them. But the lack of a download capability isn’t as big of a deal as you might think at first. The recently launched Google TV platform, which brings YouTube directly to Internet-connected televisions, presumes a constant Internet connection, so the rumored streaming rental model is a perfect fit for it.

Source: Ars Technica

Ben & Jerry’s have jumped on the “double rainbow” bandwagon of success and updated their we

bsite - www.benjerry.com/. Check it out - not sure how much long they’ll keep it up there!

Check out this newscast from Portland, Oregon, where vintage Mario Kart symbols (think bananas, stars and mushrooms) were spray painted on a popular bike route, in the bike lane. Pretty cool!

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He may be older than dust, but, make no mistake about it, John McCain is a certified “Twitter Genius.” According to a recent study conducted by researchers from George Washington University and New York University, the 73-year-old Arizona Senator ranks at the very top of the U.S. Senate’s “Twitter Geniuses.” The academics came to their conclusion after calculating every Senator’s “Digital IQ,” which they modestly call the “definitive benchmark for online competence.” As Politico explains, the metric combines a politician’s use of social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as his or her online following.

Out of all 100 active Senators, only seven scored a “genius” level Digital IQ, with McCain, of course, coming out as the clear winner. His 625,000 Facebook fans nearly triple the number of people following runner-up Scott Brown, and is about 8.5 times greater than third-place finisher John Thune’s total.

Read more here

Snickers is teaming up with the NFL to give away 17 trips to Super Bowl XLV for you and a guest, as well as over 2,200 additional prizes! To play, just purchase a participating snickers product, go to snickers.com and enter the game code printed on the inside of the package to see if you’re a winner. The sweepstakes runs from August 16 - December 16, so start snacking on some snickers for your chance to win.

Source: Marketing Daily