Whatever you’re selling, you can’t go wrong if you dress up your actors as food. After the jump, our picks for 10 of the best ads featuring people in food costumes.
Here’s footage from the caveman/Phil Simms golf outing that aired on CBS the day of the Super Bowl. Also unveiled by caveman überfan Make the Logo Bigger are the names of two more of the caveman actors: Jeff Daniel Phillips and Ben Weber, the stars of Son of Darkness: To Die for II (1991, uncredited) and The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy (2000), respectively. A third caveman, John Lehr, can be seen in the TBS comedy 10 Items or Less.
There are things that invite ridicule, and then there are things that invite ridicule to grab it by its shirt collar and slap it around a bit. This ad belongs to the latter category, and to a third category more Freudian and disgusting. The best I can figure is that Andrew Dice Clay, disillusioned after years of sucking at comedy, found work in marketing. Maybe he did this one, too. UPDATE: Or maybe McDonald’s is ahead of the game here. The March 2007 cover story in Wired is about snack culture.
In Switzerland, it doesn’t take much to be in a Gucci ad campaign. You photograph yourself naked, add a perfume bottle and the Gucci logo, send it to a weekly paper, and have them bill Gucci directly for the $50,000. They’ll fall for it every time. Naturally, this is now the top story at a rival newspaper.
Used to be, if you wanted to deface a New York City subway poster, you brought along a Sharpie and drew a mustache on one of the models, or maybe blackened a tooth. Now you bring along your Printable Cold Sores. Combine this with those speech-bubble stickers, and you can really humiliate these ad models. That’ll show ’em! Via Shedwa, Gothamist and Boing Boing.
Young & Rubicam in Chicago and HSI director Max Vitali have shot three new commercials for EqualMarriage.org, a group that lobbies for support of civil marriage rights for same-sex couples. The message: Gay couple irritate each other just as much as straight couples do. Thus, they’re normal. The tagline is, “Gay marriage is just like yours. Only gayer.”
One could, at first glance, cynically view Krispy Kreme’s leaner, meaner doughnut as an attempt to capitalize on a low-carb fad that died soon after that Atkins guy did. Or you could shrug it off as Krispy Kreme’s not-so-subtle attempt to pull itself out from the financial hole that said fad threw it into. In reality, it’s probably a little of column A and a little of column B, not to mention “the company’s board concluding that two former executives were trying to ’manage earnings’ to meet expectations,” in what was tastefully dubbed an “accounting mess.” There’s got to be an Enron joke here, but I can’t think of it at the moment. Besides, the impending failure of a whole-wheat doughnut is funny enough.
Sony’s PlayStation 3 has had some stumbles since it launched late last year. While it is now generally on store shelves, in the beginning there were shortages and people scalping units on eBay. Currently, the blogosphere is consumed with complaining about a lack of good games as well as the console’s price point ($600 for the unit with all the good stuff). That’s all you really need to know to appreciate this video from someone calling themselves Doc Adams. It’s called “How to Kill a Brand” and is set to the Fray’s “How to Save a Life.” It uses images of Sony games and clips of Phil Harrison (shown here), president of Sony Computer Entertainment worldwide studios, saying some things he probably regrets. Plus, the singer really, really likes his Xbox 360.
“City gave pass to rathole KFC.” That’s a rough headline for any brand to endure, particularly KFC/Taco Bell. If the rats were introduced as a high-risk, high-reward PR strategy designed to make people forget about Taco Bell’s E. coli scare, well—mission accomplished. But really, there’s no messaging spin that could fix the problem. The video of the House of Rats on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan will live forever. (Some accounts say there were 50 rats. 5-0!) Yum! Brands need not bother reopening the restaurant—who’ll eat there? The company might, however, want to remove that sign proclaiming “We deliver.” And drop off a few dozen cats.
The world’s oceans may soon be lapping at our front doors, but at least the speedboat-owning supermodels among us will be having a good time. This is apparently Diesel’s way of admitting there’s a problem—but not one its customers can’t handle. (As the tag says, they’re “Global warming ready.”) As Diesel does its part to raise awareness, so does Hollywood, with global warming getting plenty of airtime at the Oscars last night. One very happy viewer was Ron Fierman, whose agency, Digital Pulp, designed the new “Beat the Heat” Web site for the National Resource Defense Council, which got a shout-out from Leonardo DiCaprio. Says Fierman: “We couldn’t have gotten a better plug if we tried.” See five other Diesel ads after the jump.
Jesus, if it’s one thing AdFreak doesn’t need, it’s more creepy, ugly birds. But here we are again, this time on account of B’Owl, the bat/owl hybrid in this fake commercial from comedians Tim and Eric. Fake or not, parts of this ad are refreshing—I enjoyed watching it scare the kids at the beginning, and have always found joy in a pitchman who realizes he’s selling a real turd. Lots of other ads—for that horrible baby drool, Mountain Dew, for example—could benefit from this kind of honesty. Via Boing Boing.
While trying to stay awake during last night’s Oscars ceremony, viewers got to experience a few old ad ideas masquerading as new bits. The introductory video, celebrating all the nominees, was an Apple commercial without the Apple—not surprising, since Errol Morris directed it, with help from the Interrotron. Later in the show, we saw Steve Sidwell conduct a choir in an homage to movie sound effects—basically a re-enactment of Wieden + Kennedy’s Honda “Choir” commercial, which also featured Sidwell. All that was missing was an appearance by Sammy Stephens.
The city that brought us Eagle Man (and which needs to check its water supply for LSD) is back with more humanoid animal fun, as Moo and Oink rap their way through their store, listing off their dead friends and what parts of them are tasty. Hearing a cow endorse roast beef is unsettling, especially in a cartoonish rap song that sounds like something Hanna-Barbera would have written for Scooby Doo. These two mascots sound way too happy to condemn themselves to the slaughterhouse, that’s all I’m saying. Although their song, as bad as it is, still beats out every nerdcore MC ever. Via Consumerist.
We in Boston clearly cannot handle these newfangled promotional stunts. They make us nervous ... downright edgy. I can barely peck this out on the keyboard, what with the sweaty palms and trembling fingertips. A month ago, the metro area went into a bomb-scare tizzy over a campaign for Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Then, last week, Dr Pepper suggested that a $1 million coin was hidden in a Colonial-era burial ground—the resting place of John Hancock (his memorial is shown here), Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, no less—and consumers showed up with shovels. (Thankfully, no patriots—or “brewer patriots,” in Adams’s case—were disturbed.) Call us provincial, but we don’t like cartoon-image generators that may resemble bombs, and we prefer to let our dead rest in peace. Now, there is a progressive town that knows how to mix morbidity and marketing. It’s the home of cheese steak, Rocky Balboa and the 1976 Flyers, and it has plenty of historic graveyards for product tie-ins. —Posted by David Gianatasio
It’s a travesty when the Catholic Church has to literally sell guilt. According to The Washington Post, “the Archdiocese of Washington is ... using ads on buses, subway cars, a Route 301 billboard, 100,000 brochures and radio spots in an effort to get people back to the confessional.” Waning interest in the elemental rite has been attributed to busier weekends, a culture that promotes irresponsible behavior, and people’s inability to even recognize sin these days (hint: it looks like this). The rise in self-help and therapy is also recognized as a factor, and maybe that’s the model confession should follow. If nothing else, the marketing is shrewd. The tagline, “The light is on for you,” may ring a bell. A slightly different version did wonders for Tom Bodett and Motel 6.
Want a phone call from Fabio? Didn’t think so. Still, he’s still offering one, presumably to talk you into participating in some contest to find a secret island. If you find it, you’ll be flown there for a fabulous vacation, whereupon you’ll probably meet Fabio, and he’ll talk your ear off about the same damn butter-type product he’s been shilling since I was in middle school. But I suppose it beats what he’s been doing since his 15 minutes ended; according to Henry Rollins, Fabio spends his days at a Gold’s Gym in California, offering to spot any female unfortunate enough to wander into his field of vision. Creepy.
Well, I guess this isn’t too surprising. PR Week gathered a group of public relations executives in Britain to discuss the pressing issues of flackery. With transparency all the rage these days, PR Week thought it would be a good idea to have a vote on whether the industry has a duty to tell the truth. Honesty didn’t fare so well, losing the vote 138-124. The justification is that PR’s duty is to the client, not some silly, slippery thing like the truth. I wonder how the vote would come down with advertising agencies. Via BuzzMachine.
Mac-user-as-ass isn’t a new concept. Here’s a scan (not an Apple ad, presumably) from MacAddict magazine back in 1996. (Click the image to enlarge.) “Seinfeld cut.” Earring. Backpack. “Mandatory wacky watch.” This guy looks like the life of the party. In related news, it seems that people are complaining about the Mac guy in Apple’s U.K. ads as well. Via Gizmodo.
If you start thinking like a gringo, you’ll see weapons of mass destruction everywhere you look. That’s the comical message in this new spot for Mun², the bilingual Hispanic cable channel, from agency la comunidad. “Is your American dream becoming too gringo?” says the narrator. “Take one Mun² per day, and instead of dreaming about war, dream about nicer things.” See two more spots after the jump. All three are directed by Aaron Ruell, who played Kip in Napoleon Dynamite and who also directed those recent odd McDonald’s ads.
I suppose by flipping the bird while singing George Bush’s name during a recent concert, Ricky Martin was trying to make a ham-fisted (pun intended) political statement. Or perhaps he was seeking some personal brand rejuvenation via the tried-and-true celebrity method of courting scandal. After all, Sinead O’Connor once tore up a photo of the Pope on Saturday Night Live, and look how it revived her career. OK, bad example. Let’s consider George Michael: Since he was caught engaging in a “lewd act” in a public toilet nearly a decade ago, his career has gone straight into the ... O-kay. Moving on, we spy Pee-wee Herman, whose “big adventure,” so to speak, in an adult theater led to ... well ... court appearances, actually. (He beat the rap. Pun intended.) Anyhow, Ricky’s got 384 Google News mentions today, which is probably 384 more than last month. And when you’re Livin’ la Vida Anónima, no publicity’s all that bad.
The last time we checked in with DCLugi, he was doing a decent Bono impression in a spoof Snakes on a Plane video called “Someone Tell Sam Jackson He’s My Bro.” In this new short, he answers the age-old question: caveman or gecko? —Posted by Tim Nudd
On a list of dream jobs, one would think that Pizza Hut vice president of pizza (a position for which they’re currently taking applications) would be pretty high up there. It’s a job any toddler could handle. But read the fine print, and you may not think it’s that great after all. Yes, you do get a company car and free pizza for a year (though I’d think the latter, at least, would be standard). But the salary is $25,000. Seems a corporate position at Pizza Hut isn’t as lucrative as they’d have you believe. So, it’s all about the title. Ted, “America’s favorite delivery driver,” can tell you more here.
The Girl Scouts really want to be modern, which is why they’re going all high-tech with their cookie-selling enterprise, launching a new Web site, GirlScoutCookies.org, and a MySpace page. At the same time, they’d be silly to do away with nostalgia entirely. Which is why they’ve also dusted off some old 1970s commercials like the one above and posted them online. See a few more after the jump.
