Results tagged “monkey” from Birmingham Mail - Technobabble

Those highly paid marketing executives have once again earned their corn.

A new campaign is being launched to promote digital channel Virgin1 - and they've hatched a method which will rock the industry.

Or not. As it happens the campaign is not entirely dissimilar to that Johnny Vegas and 'Monkey' soft toy one of a few years ago during the ITV Digital promotion.

In fact the cuddly toy protagonist is almost identical - except it's red. Red by nature and Red by name (you'll recall Virgin's logo is red...).

There's the usual 'viral' touches, offering 'fans' (fans - hah) the chance to interact with the character on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and blog pages.

Jeff Dodds, the brand and marketing director of Virgin Media Television, said: "He's exactly the kind of character that our viewers love and we're sure his impish charm will play a major part in the success of our rebrand."

Or to be more exact he's exactly the sort of character viewers (inexplicably) loved when it appeared for the first time in the ads with cuddly funnyman Vegas.

The whole thing puts me rather in mind of 'Poochie' from the Simpsons.

Below: The original, and, goshdarn it, absolutely LEGENDARY Monkey. (all right it's a soft toy selling something).

No Wait! NOOO - just noticed - those Krazy Kats in the marketing department at Virgin1 have missed something! You'll not that 'Monkey' above is wearing a t-shirt, wait for it, bearing the name of product to be plugged. Whereas 'Red' isn't. Guys you've missed a trick there. The oldest one in the book - ie putting the name of the product on the thing which is promoting it.

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I saw a really positive piece on the BBC news the other night about monkeys who have been 'adapted' to control robot arms with their minds.

The piece was overwhelmingly in favour, saying this was a step forward and could help people who have been paralysed and so on.

Fair enough, but I did notice something rather odd.

If you look at the picture here, you'll notice something blocking out the top of the little chap's head.

It's not attached to to monkey, the silver metal thing is in the foreground. Now, this device works by connecting electro circuits to their brains.

So presumably behind this blocking bit of metal, the poor thing's head has been sawn off with large crocodile clips clamped to its brain.

I suppose it wouldn't have garnered such positive coverage if this had been visible...