New ad campaign guns for Florida

Foreign tourists, please pay attention: if you feel like threatening a local during your American vacation, do it in Vermont or San Francisco. Anyone who starts trouble with a Floridian now may go home in a body bag. A new ad campaign from a Washington, D.C. gun control group is warning people about a law Florida Gov. Jeb Bush recently signed, giving the good people of the Sunshine State the right to shoot when threatened in public, just as they can do to protect their homes. At particular risk are travelers from abroad, because according to some, they are the people Floridians trust the least. The print campaign from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence will run in U.S. and British magazines, and should the Brady group find itself with more money, publications in Germany, Japan and France. The law goes in to effect tomorrow.

—Posted by Celeste Ward

Published on September 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Do we want JetBlue joking around?

Anyone notice that JetBlue commercial that’s been running lately? You know, the one that features tongue-in-cheek interviews with JetBlue employees about customer service? It’s a mockumentary-type spot that tells TV viewers how JetBlue can “make your trip as easy as possible.” Employees talk with deadpan, no-frills honesty about how they help get customers get where they’re going. “When the plane is ready to board, I usually say something like, ‘The plane is ready to board.’ ” Another says, “A lot of people ask me what gate they are leaving from, so I tell them.” I appreciate the attempt to lend humor to airline advertising, and the tone works wonderfully for JetBlue’s alterna-air personality. But the timing seems awfully unusual to me. Consider the opening line: “We take off, fly around for a while, and then we land. Somewhere else.” The spot was on air last week, hours after a New York-bound JetBlue flight was stuck circling around Southern California with malfunctioning landing gear. A day later, another JetBlue plane had problems with its wing flaps. Will consumers ignore the irony, or will they see it as validation that JetBlue is not a serious airline? I’ve flown JetBlue many times, and as much as I love the blue chips and the DirecTV, when it comes to flying, I’ll take boring over buffoonery.

—Posted by Eleftheria Parpis

Published on September 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3)
Filed under Parpis

Maybe Kate has a master plan

It’s been more than a week since Kate Moss’ apparent nose-powdering led to the abrupt end of her contract with suburban-edgy European clothing chain H&M. Until now, AdFreak has been mystified as to how the media-savvy 31-year-old model could have allowed herself to be caught on film. Then it hit us: In true “no press is bad press” fashion, Miss Kate’s indiscretion may be one of the most brilliant marketing moves of her career. According to Thursday’s Brit press, Kate has checked into an Arizona rehab clinic for a 30-day “medical treatment and therapy” program—a healthy, positive first step for a woman used to running 18-hour days on little more than nicotine, caffeine and even stronger stuff than that. Sure, it’s sad that she’ll be separated from her 3-year-old daughter for a few weeks. But she’ll also be away from her no-goodnick boyfriend, pasty-faced Libertines musician Pete Doherty, whose whiny behavior and well-documented heroin habit are both harmful and passé. Even better than the promise of regaining her health? The possibility of reconnecting with mortified brands. Kate has managed to dominate the media like she hasn’t since breaking up with Johnnie Depp a decade ago, and that’s made H&M the biggest winner of all. How many Americans had even heard of the chain prior to last week? Note to H&M marketing execs: We hear Courtney Love is available.

—Posted by Randi Schmelzer

Published on September 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Chicago ad folks are wild and crazy too!

You may have inferred from our earlier post that Milwaukee ad people have the Midwest cornered when it comes to racy behavior. If so, we thought we’d set the record straight by introducing you to this photo from Monday’s Fluid Battle of the Ad Bands III, showing two exuberant members of the Happy Endings, the band from JWT in Chicago. It’s hard for Milwaukee to upstage Chicago for long.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Photo: Rob Bennett

Published on September 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

And now let's talk about me

Bon Jovi and Tony Danza didn't make it into most Advertising Week speeches, which could be one reason they were, for the most part, dry and uninspiring affairs. Samsung marketing chief Peter Weedfald, however, broke the mold earlier this week at the OMMA Conference during Advertising Week. Unruffled by eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey consistently mistaking his name, Weedfald came with his own video introduction set to The Who’s “Teenage Wasteland,” showing Samsung products and charitable endeavors, interspersed with video of Weedfald. The keynote speech ran 15 minutes over its allotted time, and was a tour de force of high-level vocab —“sinecure” and “promulgation” got a couple of mentions—and interesting takes on Samsung’s Web strategy. One statement that raised more than a few eyebrows—including those of Google vp of sales Tim Armstrong—was the revelation that Samsung does not buy any search advertising. (Armstrong later slipped Weedfald a business card after they appeared jointly on a panel.) Then, the video came back out, a four-minute affair set to Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life,” (OK, the company has done work with the band) with more cameos by Weedfald, including a shot of him appearing with an oversized check for charity on The Tony Danza Show. (The shot pictured here is from another delivery of an oversized check—he's the guy in the middle of the back row.)

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Published on September 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Filed under Morrissey

Those crazy Milwaukee ad types

We haven’t written much about Milwaukee’s ad club, known as United Adworkers Local 208, primarily because we didn’t know they existed. We may check in with them more, though, as we hear they are experts in public urination and breast flashing. As the story goes (and this comes from club president Jeff Ericksen of BVK, who swears it’s true), the Adworkers had to switch venues for their annual golf outing this year after being booted from their favorite spot, the Fire Ridge Golf Club in Grafton, Wis., for behavior that included excessive drinking, on-course urination and reckless golf-cart driving (one accident evidently left a guy unconscious). Oh, and something about female broadcast producers taking their tops off. Pleased as punch with themselves, the Adworkers used the expulsion as the basis of this year’s invitation, which features the headline: “There are over 50 golf courses in the Milwaukee area. Thank God.” They also created signs like the one shown here to post at every hole on the course. (Another one in the series reads, “No use of flagsticks to simulate your ‘wang.’ ”) We wonder if this is par for the course for this club, whose motto is, “Creativity is king. Politics are crap. Beer is yummy.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on September 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)

What was this advertiser smoking?

Another rule of thumb: If you want your billboards to stay up in a small Wisconsin town, don’t put enormous images of marijuana leaves on them. A law office in Weston, Wis., seeking to help people facing marijuana charges, forgot that rule. Three of its billboards featured huge pot leaves, along with the text, “Use of a controlled substance can restrict your liberties.” After criticism that the boards glorified marijuana, they’ve been taken down. “I think to drive down Schofield Avenue in the village of Weston, a community that prides itself on being safe and drug-free, it’s a little daunting to see that big marijuana leaf staring back at you,” the village administrator says.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on September 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lamborghini promo too rich for us

Even though Grand Central Station has become the staging area for tons o' promotions, it was a little surprising to find two 2005 Lamborghini Gallardos—one orange, one black—in the terminal's great room the other day on either side of the iconic clock. (Top speed: 192 mph; 0 to 60 in 4.2 seconds.) They're prizes in the 2005 Columbus Week Raffle being sponsored by a non-profit outfit called the Columbus Citizens Foundation, which runs New York's annual Columbus Day Parade and has a "commitment to preserving the rich Italian-American heritage and supporting a range of philanthropic causes."  Winning a Lamborghini! Cool! So we picked up a flier from one of the Foundation's helpful representatives. Oh, wait ... there's a catch: each raffle ticket costs $1000 and only 300 tickets will be sold.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on September 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Einstein teaches Germans how to smile

Albert Einstein, Ludwig van Beethoven and Katarina Witt are all starring in a new campaign—to lift the spirits of the apparently depressed German populace. The campaign, which carries slogans such as “You are the miracle from Germany,” (just a tad stilted, no?) comes as the country grapples with massive unemployment and “political deadlock” following the Sept. 18th elections, according to this story. The man who organized the effort—Bernd Bauer—explains that Germans tend to be more pessimistic than some other nationalities and, basically, need a campaign to tell them to cheer up. Nice idea, we guess, but what's this line from the campaign, which claims “A butterfly can start a typhoon”? We know, having Googled it, that this ridiculous attempt at trying to make the point that anyone can make a difference is part of the belief system of chaos theory. Which, as you might have guessed, is only a theory. And not the kind of thing to boost the morale of what is probably a pretty skeptical populace. Still, we’re all for happiness. Let a smile be your umbrella, Germany!

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on September 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (5)

Jon Stewart goes to town on magazine editors

Those looking for a pithy quote about advertising from last night’s “Laughing Matters” panel with Jon Stewart had to settle for Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter’s thoughts on Google. “I read recently that Google is making as much money off advertising these days as the top four newspapers combined or something,” he said. “Well, I’ve used Google a lot, and I have never, ever remembered any ad I ever saw on it.” The supposed theme of the evening, sponsored by the Magazine Publishers of America and part of Advertising Week, was humor in magazines. But insights into that weren’t exactly flowing, either, as Stewart settled for a broad, comic approach to interviewing the four editors—Carter, Jim Kelly of Time, Kate White of Cosmopolitan and David Zinczenko of Men’s Health. Mostly, this meant being mock contemptuous of them, when he wasn’t appearing actually contemptuous. He asked White and Zinczenko to confirm that their magazines are simply repositories for product placement. He ribbed Carter about his Paris Hilton cover and Kelly about how Time is constantly finding Jesus. And he asked Zinczenko why Men’s Health is “so gay” and why the guys on its cover always seem to have just showered or are about to shower. (Zinczenko didn’t help himself by saying things like “Fit is the new rich” and “We worship at the altar of our readers.” He also evidently prepared for the event by typing the word humor into Bartlett’s, and he farce-ishly quoted both Marshall McLuhan and Freud on the subject.) Eventually, the floor opened up for questions, and Stewart wound up telling the auditorium full of magazine people that print media is simply “not relevant” (in terms of driving the discourse, he later clarified). He got a better reaction when asked what his favorite magazine is. “I enjoy Juggs a lot,” he said. “You know, gigantic tits are the new rich.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Photo: Steve Maller

Published on September 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (6)