Perrier's anniversary

You probably all know Perrier water, the sparkling water that costs the price of a cocktail, but sounds soooo French ;-) to order at a café. Well it's currently celebrating its 150th anniversary and, to celebrate, they are running a huge ad campaign on TV and in the streets. They also have a Warhol limited edition that you can see in the poster that I photographed in the 13th arrondissement. The nice part, for a French at least is that we also get to see again all the fabulous Movie theater and TV ads that they have been running for the last 30 to 40 years. Including this one from 1976, that I remember having seen live before it was banned for being a little too... graphic!

Karl Lagerfeld likes Coke!

Look what I found on the way back from a dinner party at friends' last night: a bunch of diet coke (Coca "light" in France) bottles "trapped" into an ad in a bus stop. They are not just any coke bottles, but ones designed by his highness Karl Lagerfeld, the famous fashion designer of Chanel (among others...). Funny. And probably expensive too, as they are only on sale at specific stores: Bert's, Lafayette Gourmet, La Grande Epicerie du Bon Marché and Colette. Here is a closeup if you're interested ;-)

Stupid is cool!

It's a weird advertising campaign I came across today at the Palais Royal (well, Place Colette, to be more accurate). It promotes... Stupidity! Well apparently it's a little more subtle than that of course (according to what the messages say, stupid people take more risks than smart ones, which is seen as a positive thing). Intriguing and original. BTW, the clothes brand Diesel is behind all this (check this little video).

Attitude change

Before I left for my vacations I thought today was going to be "the best photo of the year theme day", just like last year. But... I discovered only after my departure that it had been postponed to January 15th and that, instead, today's theme day would be "changes" (click here to view thumbnails for all participants). So let me show you a change... in attitude. The French are now more conscious than before of the damage caused by drinking and driving. And in case they would forget, the government  has a few messages for them. Hence this campaign that goes "For the holidays, the best gift is to come home alive" which I think is pretty effective. I know it's not a very festive photo for the first day of the year, but it's at least an optimistic message! Happy new year everyone, don't forget that this year PDP will turn 5.

The Beatles invade the Paris streets

Funny isn't? I took this shot last weekend right in front of my home, as this typical English bus passed by me, in the street. On top, there was a band playing Beatles' music - pretty well actually. I figured out it was some street marketing operation so I did some research... And I found out on this site and this one that all this was to promote a new game : The Beatles Rock Band (for Wii and PSP).

French Invasion!

I can't resist showing you the current ad campaign for Eurostar (the train that goes from Paris to London via the Channel tunnel) for I find it funny (it's probably even funnier to my British visitors). The English and the French have often been at war (including the one that lasted 100 years in 1337), but since 1904 and "l'Entente cordiale", we get along pretty well. Only, we still call them "Roast beefs" while they call us "frogs", but nothing nasty about it. Having said that, I may consider buying a Eurostar ticket for 77€ (that is really cheap) and pay a visit to London, Canterbury or... Cheltenham!

Quiet Please!

One of the side effects of the smoking ban in cafés and restaurants is that smokers feel compelled to go outside in the street to have their shoot fix. And what happens when they are outside altogether? They talk, laugh, chuckle... drop their cigarette ends on the ground and trigger much anger from the neighbors! The problem has become so important that the town hall had to react and launched a massive campaign. The photo I took shows one of the posters you can now find outside many places. It says "Outside, let's talk quietly" and the little shoeshine box on the left is, in fact, a portable ashtray that is provide for free to cafés and restaurants so that they can give them to their customers.

Garden at the opera!

It's a very unexpected scene that I came across a few days ago, as I was passing by the Paris Opera (well the one we call Le Palais Garnier) ; a real "forest" growing on the front steps! I searched the web to find out more and I discovered that this was a street marketing operation to promote a new perfume for men by Guerlain (have a look at their web site, you have to be patient but it's quite impressive). I'm talking quite impressive!

Save the Brits!

Even if it's improving, the French are generally not very good at foreign languages and at English in particular. That is why some companies that specialize in language training take advantage of this situation to sell their courses. One of them - Telelangue - is currently running this pretty funny ad campaign at the moment on Paris buses. It shows a "typical Englishman" (well, according to his tartan, this one is probably more Scottish than English...) with the following caption: "Stop massacring the Englishman" which, in French, also means "Stop massacring the English language". Funny.

Orangina turns green for one day

Last week, a friend of mine who publishes a site dedicated - among other things - to sustainable developement, alerted me that the soda brand Orangina (a famous orange juice soda in France) was about to organize a "Greenwashing" in some areas of Paris. Principle? Turn parking spaces into a little fake grass green spot (an idea that was apparently "stolen" from the park(ing) day movement). I had to see this... I chose to visit the one spot located on my favorite place in Paris: La Place des Victoires. Here you go. Nothing really extraordinary, but unusual enough to be worth a post on PDP ;)

Smart Ratatouille

Do you recognize this guy? I know you do... If you were in Paris at the moment you could see hundreds of him, all perched on the roof top of Smart cars. They had the clever idea to use these cute little cars to promote the DVDs of this cute little rat! And it works pretty well; people can't help turning their head when they see one of these cars coming, several newspapers wrote about the operation and the little rodent even made it - again - to the home page of PDP!! (Well, last time, was much less cute, was it?)

Democratie en France

Over the past few days I noticed that Paris was covered in these little posters and I really wondered what they were all about. Only today did I find out that they're intended to promote a film called "Démocratie en France" made by four American directors who wanted to picture the French democracy during the last elections. To be honest, I just saw the trailer, and I'm not really thrilled. Maybe, because I already saw thousands of after elections analysis and I don't need to see another one...

George who?

When it comes to home made coffee in Europe you can be sure that a Nespresso machine is not very far. Nespresso (a brand of Nestlé) is a huge success here: almost 1.5 million machines and 2,3 billion capsules sold and18% of the capsule machine market. All this success is due to the good quality of the coffee of course, but also the advertising campaign which stars George Clooney. From what I read though, Americans will never see this campaign as George refuses to "spoil" his image "at home"! Click here to see the television and movie theater version.

Smart car of the month...

It's been a while since I've shown a little Smart car on PDP. In Europe, a lot of them are used for advertising, like this one which is currently used to promote the release of the Jungle Book DVD. Why do people accept to have advertising on their car? For the money of course! Providing you drive at least 700 km per month (about 500 miles), each campaign can help you make between a 100 to 300 euros a month. BTW, I hear they are going to sell the Smart car in the US, I'm really eager to see if American drivers will go for such a small vehicle.!

More street marketing...

Do you remember this photo with this very unusual advertisement for Ray Ban? Well it seems that Sony had a similar idea... To promote a new product they scattered "cling rites" - that is what these little "figurines" are called - throughout Paris (I shot this one at Bastille; you can see the column in the back). Of course some of these cling rites are winners and if you discover the right ones you can win a prize. Pretty clever but it just sucks they did not disclose the product yet, as they promised they would on June 15 on their official site!

Adriana Karembeu in Paris!

This photo will probably ring a bell to those of you who have been visiting PDP for more than a year, but I could not resist taking another one today. As you may know, top model Adriana Karembeu is the "ambassador" for the French Red Cross in France and every year she appears in an ad campaign to boost gifts during the annual money collection weekend (which is this weekend.) The principle of this campaign is that, since Adriana cannot be everywhere this weekend, all money collectors should replace her! Obviously some of them take their part very seriously!! Visit the 2007 website (French).

Chirac's farewell party

Within the next 24 hours (precisely Sunday at 8 pm French time) France will have a new President. I have no idea who this might be but one thing I know for sure is that Chirac will soon leave the Elysee (the Presidential residence) - precisely on May 16. A French television channel (Canal Plus) grabbed this occasion to run a very funny ad campaign using the expression "Pot de départ" which is what most employees do when they leave a company: invite they colleagues and share some peanuts and a glass a wine while expecting for gifts in return!

Eurostar

The Eurostar is the train that links Paris to London under the English Channel tunnel. All Eurostar ads are excellent, I must say (I already showed one here) and this new one makes no exception. Of course, you have to be familiar with the the Beatles and their Abbey Road album to fully enjoy it, but I'm sure most of you will. Isn't this ad clever?! BTW, the text says "how about spring in London?"

Better late than dead...

I just found out about this clever ad campaign they run ad the moment around the city town hall. They show shadows of people - to let us think that they died - with a message like "Philippe, 42, was late. He drove his scooter too fast". That's all. The "caption" says that there has been 64 lethal traffic accidents last year and 7 000 wounded. I may keep taking the metro after all! Talking about death I came across this dreadful site today.