October 22, 2004

		eBay: "People are Good"
		BREAKING: What if MTV Were a Salesman?
		MOVERS: Matejczyk Returns to Goodby, and other moves
		ON THE WEB: Mascots are Murder?

eBay: "People are Good"

eBay "Belief"

"We began with the idea that people are good," reads the copy in a new television spot for eBay from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. "You proved it."

That idea -- that people are basically good, as evidenced by the community of buyers and sellers that has cropped up around the auction site -- animates all of eBay's breaking new campaign, which features TV, print and online executions, all based around the tagline "The Power of All of Us."

On TV, an anthem spot directed by Biscuit's Noam Murro features a montage of people doing small, kind acts, like recycling or leaving a note after a fender bender. Meanwhile, print ads feature the headline "People are Good," along with copy like, "By our count, they've done the right thing more than 2.3 billion times." Online, Goodby has launched a site, www.thepowerofallofus.com, dedicated to celebrating the communal aspects of the eBay experience -- including a forthcoming feature that will allow people with similar interests to form online communities on the site.

BREAKING

MTV "Salesman"

MTV can be the greatest at anything it puts its mind to. Selling industrial supplies, foosball, doing nails. Anything. That's the premise of a new promo campaign created by Randy Krallman -- who is repped as a director by HSI -- and Aaron Stoller, who co-directed the spots via MTV's in-house promo department.

In the copy-driven spots -- Krallman also wrote them -- we get to imagine what it would be like "if MTV were a regional sales rep for an industrial supplies company." According to the hilariously boastful narration, provided by Alec Baldwin, "He would easily garner the highest sales in the tri-state area, even though it was just his first year doing it and he didn't have the good accounts yet. And then when he'd meet the buyers, he'd present the products to them, but he wouldn't sweat them. He'd just lay back in the cut like, 'That's what's up. Take it or leave it.'"

We haven't seen high-speed banter carry the day like this since the first round of FedEx's "Business Legends" campaign.

MOVERS

John Matejczyk, who joined Fallon/Minneapolis last year as group creative director on the Citibank business, is returning to Goodby, Silverstein & Partners as an associate creative director, overseeing HP's consumer marketing. ... Venice-based edit house Spot Welders has announced plans to open a New York office in February 2005. Longtime Mad River Post editor Dick Gordon will head the office and serve as lead editor. ... Twist Audio, which will function as a satellite office of audio house Sound Lounge, has launched in the former location of Loredo Audio Post at 333 Hudson Street in New York. The shop will be manned by mixers Glenn Laredo, Peter Buccellato and Mark Schultz, all formerly of Laredo.

ON THE WEB

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is upset with Burger King about the www.chickenfight.com promotion created by Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. The site allows users to pit two guys in chicken suits -- representing different chicken sandwiches -- against each other in a cage match. Not funny, according to HSUS president and CEO Wayne Pacelle, who says in a statement, "Whatever the intent of this promotion, the effect is to make light of chicken fighting. Cockfighting, which is illegal in 48 states, is a disgraceful practice not only involving animal cruelty, but drug trafficking, illegal gambling and human-on-human violence."

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