Post Enfatico, Dell Tamely Invites You on a 'Rendezvous'

Perhaps still smarting from the shrapnel of Enfatico, Dell turned to Mother London for its new Streak tablet. And "Rendezvous" is what Mother produced.

It's warm, just trendy enough, and inoffensive. Impressive handling by Mother of a socially traumatised and still-rattled brand.

"We wanted to show that our technology enables something important—relationships—and forge an emotional connection with viewers," explained Liz Matthews, Dell's global consumer brand director.

There remains the question of who'd buy one of these when everybody's swinging from Apple's nuts right now. The answer, at least according to Boston Consulting Group, is possibly a lot of people, actually: 49% of respondents from a May 2010 survey plan to scoop up a tablet in the next three years.

People want something multi-purpose (meaning Kindle's singularity may be a turnoff) but also blanch at the price tag of your standard iPad (which starts at $499). Dell's Streak is currently going for $299.99 - not a bad compromise, especially if you want to differentiate yourself without looking like a Luddite.

You'll Always Find Them in the Kitchen at Parties.

IKEA's in the entertainment business now. Last week, YouTube account thekitchenbyikea published "Jona Lewie Presents Man Like Me - You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties," a catchy, dangerously mod three-minute music video about two guys with crappy luck in love, with music (and a cameo) by English singer/songwriter Lewie.

The interesting thing about visiting an IKEA is its modular quality: each individual kitchen, bedroom and living room environment is meticulously put together, simulating a home setting. But in the end it's still just a showroom, crammed with people that take up strange roles while strolling its lanes: those of actors playing house, or voyeurs.

This is something that agency Mother London started playing with: the idea that the environment is familiar, but not at all real. In some ways, I think that's what its previous cats execution was all about.

This video plays with that modular quality, the exquisite surreal poorly disguised as a banal setting. Two guys go to a party. The theme is that they go to a lot of parties and are always hanging out in the kitchen. So the house they enter is a modular space filled with different kitchen environments. Cut open in front like a dollhouse, you can see the kitchens in full glory. Each also represents a different party, and the guys meander through, followed by a camera that doesn't neglect to pan over the full array of IKEA home setting products.

It's a great way to see a lot of items in a lot of different contexts at once, while playing with the strange modular ambiance of IKEA stores (which, curiously, forces you to walk through it in a determined path - much like the guys in this video.) Crucially, the work is also fun to watch. It's entertainment - the crux of any or most good viral work. (Though that's never guaranteed. The piece has a respectable, but hardly epic, 19,680 YouTube views as of this writing.)

Here's the 1:00 TV ad (10,852 views):



Same idea, outfitted with a nice closing tagline for the audience on the couch: "Kitchens for every party. Planned, delivered, installed." Clean and relevant.

Full YouTube stats on The Kitchen by IKEA:



Via Influencia.

Mother London Breeds a Fresh Crop of Gullibles for Next Year.

Nodding to all the estranged princesses and Nigerian CEOs that overrun your email with promises of untold fortune, Mother London decided to write its own such letter and give the entirety of the Christmas budget to the first guy to answer.

Turns out that out of hundreds of emails sent, demanding a full name and bank details, only one guy was dumb enough sufficiently compelled by the belief in Christmas miracles to respond.

So they pay him a visit. With a suitcase full of cash. Which the winner in turn decides to......

...well, you just have to watch it. This definitely wins the race for best agency holiday greeting though.* Guess the rest of you slackers can just hang out and colour until January.

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*Actually this one by kirshenbaum bond senecal + partners was kind of all right. No, not really. What's ad land's fixation with self-aware body hair?

Equipped with Diet Coke and TNT, Ugly Betty Makes a Mean-Ass Doll.

I know Legs is all about that left-of-center puppet hype, but in the case of these Ugly Betty vignettes for Diet Coke, you gotta wonder: did it watch the show even once?

15 mini-spots depict a girl ("Eleanor") wreaking explosive havoc in a high-fashion boutique, which is actually pretty close to the Ugly Betty premise, but it's all done out of a sense of tinny puppet malice; less because she's chunky, awkward and constantly courting apology with sad little eyes.

I can't, for example, imagine Ugly Betty blowing a hole through a hat just to prove to a chic shop-keeper that it is, in fact, a scarf. She'd more like grovel and call her boss, who'd rescue her by effecting his indiscriminate libido.

Created in tandem with Mother London and marionette-makers Puppet Heap, the spots are currently running in the UK, which I guess suits because British humour's off the chains anyway. I'm posting three, but you can see all 15 here if you like.

"Paint":




"Skirt":




"Scarf":




From Legs: "Our inspiration was Bjork meets Rambo with ultra-glam couture accessories." An apt description for this series, and a lesson on managing retail egos: if I came into Hermès toting explosives and spraypaint, I'd probably get faster help. Or, well, a nice set of conjoined silver wristlets.