Maxim Online video

I got an e-mail from the people at Maxim the other day. They have an exclusive behind the scenes video of Mandy's photo shoot session online.

You can watch the video here.

Mandy on IGN?

Mandy was recently mentioned in the mailbag section of IGN's Babes channel.

Hey guys,

You graced us w/ the wonderful Jessica Chobot for all of us video game nuts, but how about giving some love to the comic fans.

Mandy Amano gained some fame for airing in an iTunes/Pepsi Super Bowl commercial. She sparked an internet blog and has her own website:
http://www.mandyamano.com/
http://thatpepsigirl.blogspot.com

Get us an interview IGN!!

Thanks!

You guys should really check out those links. Wow. I might have to make sure not to let Chris get this one. A couple issues of Wizard and I'll be ready for her.

Let's hope IGN gets that interview!

What a stalker

A post i found on someone's Xanga.

I finally found out her name

It's Mandy Amano. You know, "Pepsi Girl"? Like the girl on the Pepsi-iTunes commercial during the Super Bowl? As with any guy that watched it, I instantly fell in love. My mind switched into stalker mode -- just had to find out more about her! Turns out she already has a popular fan-blog right HERE made by an adoring fan (stupid punk beat me to it). Combined, she only had less than 10 seconds of air-time in the commercial but her impact has been tremendous, and her appeal partly comes from her comic book loving background. Now that I know I have to share her with 10,000,000 other stalkers, it cooled off my passion a bit.

But today, I was sitting at the bus stop just thinking about her and wondering what the odds would be to run into her. I stared around around the corner to see if I could jinx myself to make it come true, but after 10 minutes... nothing. So the bus comes and I'm now in a downtrodden mood. As I clamber up the steps into the empty bus, I look up... and WHoA! There she is! Or at least a look-a-like. She blessed me with a smile but I totally lost my balance (must have blushed too) and all sense of direction as I picked out an inconspicuous seat -- not too far away but not too close. As (un)fortune would have it, a fat lady sat in between us and blocked my view. But that's ok, I think I was fidgeting and nervous the whole time. Eventually I had to part from that bus but this incident totally made my day . I'm so easy to please.

Creepy.

So in semi-related news

That Diet Coke Girl? Her name is Nicole Vicious according to this and this.

Her name is Nicole Vicious... She is an actress from New York and one of the sweetest girls to work with!

The more you know!

Added: Or maybe it's spelt Vicius.

this is what the internet needs right now. innocent, happy, cool, sweet girls..on rollerskates ;)

- ThatDietCokeGirl

Beverage blogs

I found an article on clickz.com that mentions this Pepsi Girl blog. It's a good read. Here's an excerpt:

Affinity brands have long generated their own word of mouth and Web content. Consider at brands such as Apple. Consumer products companies have it, too. Check out the recently launched Gatorade blog and the popular That Pepsi Girl blog for examples of unlikely customer/fan work. These sites may not be as flashy as commercially produced viral stuff (see Viralmeister for examples), but in many ways they're actually better. They're authentic, or very accurate facsimiles of authenticity.

- Can Viral Marketing Be Serious?

Read more

So we have a Pepsi blog and Gatorade blog. No Coke blog? Somebody's gotta be a Coke fan out there.

That Diet Coke Girl?

Found a post on another blog comparing one of the new Diet Coke TV ads, 'Sparkle' (see the ad here), to the Pepsi/iTunes ads:

First off, Diet Coke now has Splenda. Its a Nutrasweet like artificial sweetner. But this lead to a few of their new advertising campaigns with the likes of Adrianne Brody doing the "Bounce". But the important thing is in one of the latest commercials to come out last week was the "Sparkle" commercial. U can see all these at the Diet Coke Website under thier little commercial section. Now the Wang has noticed that unders "Sparkle" they go with the hip route, using a song by Oakenfold and even using this yong blonde girl. I think this is Coke's answer to the Pepsi Girl, Mandy Amano of superbowl ass shaking fame. Still i think the blonde care-free roller skate look, works with the sunset and the Santa Monica beach look. And the Wang likes. So if the cola commercial battles will lead to cute girl intro casualties like these, then the Wang says let the War of Colas begin!!

- worldwidewang.org

So... anybody know who That Diet Coke Girl is?

;)

IMDB links

Mandy's IMDB profile was recently updated again with more info and some miscellaneous Mandy links (including this site!) amongst other things, but more interestingly, a Yahoo! Group dedicated to her (and nope, i didn't make that one!). So check it all out.

Added: Oh and just recently, Mandy was also featured as Artist of the Week over at AArisings.com!

This blog is not a piece of viral marketing!

Or is it?!

I found a pretty interesting post about this Pepsi Girl blog over at Clive Thompson's blog, who also writes for The Boston Globe, The New York Times Magazine and Wired, among others. Here's an excerpt.

During the Superbowl, Pepsi ran an ad called "Pop the Music", which technically was supposed to be a spot for its iTunes tie-in. But the commercial inadvertantly made a star out of a Mandy Amano, a woman who appears in the ad for about three or four seconds. Geeks swooned over her and began posting frantic mash notes on discussion boards planetwide.

Read more

Also, Brand Noise reports:

People are dedicating serious time to following the every move of the models in commercials. The two current objects of desire are "That Pepsi Girl" and "The Blonde Old Navy Girl". These sites demonstrate the new "layered" reality to advertising.

Read more

Mandy's STARmeter: #1!!!

Got this via e-mail:

Thanks to IMDb featuring TPG on their normal page, TPG has leapt to NUMBER ONE on IMDbPro's StarMeter ranking! Usually that's reserved for the likes of Brad Pitt or Lindsay Lohan.

Nerima

Once again, here's the full screenshot just in case it's not there anymore!

Mandy on IMDB.com

Holy crap. Mandy is on the front page of IMDB.com.

Here's the full screenshot just in case it's not there anymore.

This is obviously very big news. VERY big news. As IMDB is, and i quote, "Visited by over 25 million movie lovers each month!". So congratulations Mandy!

Oh and check out the amazing photo that they have on there now. Beautiful.

Thanks to Uncle Grambo and Kevin for alerting me to this piece of news. Kevin says:

No doubt you're going to be bombarded with this news: It seems that she's the new Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) "Meet the new Publicity Photo Actor." In the recent past, they have primarily been very attractive women, which is what all the message board comments say, and will probably say for her, once thousands of people click on the picture and find out "that's where I've seen her before!" She has the most incredible eyes in the included picture, made more dramatic in black and white (that still doesn't sound as obsessive as people have made you sound).

Her filmography is rather short, and I think she only shows up for about 4 seconds in Coyote Ugly (if she's one of the short-haired girls dancing on the bar). If you have the DVD (and I identified her properly), her first scene is at time point 1:05:39 for two seconds (under the ceiling fan) and her second and last scene is at 1:05:49 (at the left of the screen). There's going to be a special unrated edition released in June, but only 7 minutes of restored footage, who knows what is in those scenes.

Mandy on Halvsie.com

Mandy has been featured on Halvsie.com, a site dedicated to all things half Japanese.

Mandy is an actress who became an instant internet celebrity based on her appearance on the iTunes + Pepsi ad that appeared during the 2005 Superbowl. Given the wide audience and the connection to Apple computer, numberous postings were made almost immediately after the commercial first aired.

The most famous posts are on a blog called That Pepsi Girl, which is entirely dedicated to Mandy, and maintained by blogger/stalker "Justin" from Michigan.

Read more...

Also, here's Mandy's Maxim Online page in case you haven't already seen it. You'll find two other Web Only pics from her photoshoot on there too.

Behind the Curtain

Found a site chronicling the making of student film that has Mandy in it over here. Nice to see some of the older stuff she's been in! You'll also find two pictures of Mandy on that site if you look hard enough. Nothing major. But check it out if you like.

On an unrelated note, here are two (eeriely similar!) quotes from two different blogs talking about this Pepsi Girl site of mine.

Being hot, she has attracted at least one fanboy who is either a stalker or a great viral corporate stooge.

Creepy stalker or brillant viral marketing? I report, you decide. (She is pretty hot)

Oh my, i wonder which it is!

Excuse me while i ponder it over a bottle of Pepsi.

The Maxim write up

So i finally got my issue of the May Maxim in the mail today. Took long enough!

Here's the full write up they gave her:

Real name: Mandy Amano

Better known as: "That Pepsi girl from the Super Bowl commercial"

Her story: This Dallas-bred cutie launched 1,000 Web posts with a single appearance dancing in a Pepsi iTunes ad, inspiring nerds from Germany to Japan to create online odes to her beauty. "It's crazy," Mandy says. "I was on screen for 13 seconds. I guess i owe it all to my Pepsi wiggle." (And what a wiggle it is.)

But wait - it gets even better. The Wilhelmina model is a comic book freak, thanks in part to her father, who writes comics and raised Mandy on a steady diet of superheroes. "All my friends' parents had Georgia O'Keeffe on their walls," she says. "We had the X-men."

And on May 7 you can take Mandy home...for nothing!

To celebrate Free Comic Book Day, stores around the U.S. will be giving away copies of Ronin Hood, featuring a character based on Mandy.

See more Mandy photos and video at maximonline.com

"Crazy" indeed!

Now who would've thought that this blog would get her onto the pages of Maxim? Sure as hell not me. So imagine my surprise when Maxim contacted me (!) about getting in touch with Mandy.

And not only that, this blog also got her on the Kevin and Bean show at KROQ 106.7! And since the guys over at KROQ were gracious enough to invite me to be on the show (!!), i even got to say hi to her on air! (!!!)

Now that i would've never thought would ever happen.

But whaddaya know. It all did!

Anyhow, be sure to pick up Beckett Comics' Ronin Hood on May 7th. It's free so you've got nothing to lose!

Seacrest OUT.

MandyAmano.com updated

Check out MandyAmano.com for a flash slideshow of Mandy. And if your browser can't display flash animations (which it should, come on now, it's 2005..) click here for a gallery in .jpg form.







Oh and hey, here's an idea:

There is a blog devoted to the girl in the Pepsi commercial - the one that first aired during the Super Bowl and featured all those people opening bottles and hearing music. She was the first person in the ad, and was in it for about five seconds. Now, go ahead and have a blog about her - she's pretty cute. But this guy gets mentioned on radio shows! Here I am, blogging away, providing valuable public services to my adoring public, and this guy is getting mentions on the radio. I'm so sad. Maybe if I did a blog about some obscure actor or actress ... how about a blog about that actor in the weirdly pornographic Brawny paper towel commercial? Or would that be too gay? Krys says I should do one about the old Brawny paper towels, with the 1970s porn guy. I dug him.

- Delenda Est Carthago

So...

Has anybody gotten a copy of the May issue of Maxim yet? I'm still waiting for mine to arrive in the mail. Should be here in the next coupla days. I'll probably go out and buy another copy from the store though. That way i'll have one to frame and one to... you know...

To read.

IMDB info

Mandy's IMDB bio seems to have been updated with a little bit of trivia. Have a look. Never thought that i'd see this site referenced on IMDB!

I also got an e-mail about a short film that Mandy was in 5 years ago. Check it out.

I don't know if you have seen this, but Mandy Amano is on this short film hosted on IFILM. Here's the link:

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2404112

Cheers,
Joe