Not that I'd expect the strictest adherence to journalistic standards from Fox's Good Day New York, but it's still sad to watch an anchor backpedal after unknowingly ripping a sponsor's ad. To be fair, the guy was actually ripping the ubiquitous Rachael Ray more than Dunkin’ Donuts. But then his co-host warns him, “Dunkin’ Donuts is one of our sponsors.” What follows is an awkward and entrancing bit of live television. Watch the video over on Gawker. —Posted by David Griner
Jim Pruett owns a gun shop in Harris County, Texas, and is worried that the Second Amendment could be overturned any second now, allowing jackbooted thugs to arrest anyone in possession of a firearm. While we’re not belittling his concerns (mainly because he scares the shit out of us), Pruett could have found a more constructive ad slogan than “Buy them cheap. Bury them deep.” In his defense, Pruett says he isn’t suggesting people buy his guns, shoot people with them and then make sure they’re disposed of properly. Heavens, no. He’s encouraging us to bury the guns after buying them, thereby hiding them from the anti-gun legislators. That must be it. Frankly, we have no idea why anyone would suspect violent intentions from a man who once called for people to arm themselves against Katrina refugees.
It takes a lot of guts to drive through all 48 contiguous states in the U.S. in less than five days. But for three guys to do the whole road trip with “Menlove” written on the side of their car? Now that deserves a medal. If they’d gotten to Texas a few months earlier, they could’ve campaigned for this guy before he dropped out of his congressional race. Via The Presurfer.
Rachael Ray, a terrorist? It was an ugly scarf, certainly. But there's a more sinister force at work in commercial land, one that threatens to poison the youth of this great nation with zippy harmonies and twangy guitars in the service of Baby Bottle Pop candy. That force is the Jonas Brothers. They’re more irritating than Rachael. Are they terrorists? Sure. Just stop putting them in ads. And stop comparing them to Hanson. Hanson was about the music, OK? (“Baby Bottle POP! Baby Bottle POP!” I can’t get it out of my head!)
I got an e-mail pitch today that began: "Have you noticed that the insurance industry, of all things, is becoming the surprising new hip marketer? ... There's even a social networking site called 'Sexy Insurance!' " Too bad the pitch wasn’t for Sexy Insurance, because, naturally, that’s where I went. The site’s kinda campy and fun. Instead, the e-mail was from FirstBest, which sells software to the insurance industry. Or maybe vice versa. Either way, FirstBest isn’t fun, campy or in any way sexy. They make Liberty Mutual look like Jessica Alba. But by mentioning Sexy Insurance in the e-mail, they found a way (sort of) to sell their unsexy story. Good for them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to YouTube for some Jessica Alba clips.
Here's the first spot in Mullen's "Power of action" campaign for utility company National Grid. My initial reaction is: Polar bears have broken out of the zoo! They’re stalking people in their homes and at work and at school and in swimming pools! Let the bear have your sandwich, kid—just run! I think the commercial is about the environment and preservation, saving polar bears and such. Given the chance, those bears would preserve us as snacks, that’s about it. Just ask Stephen Colbert. A recent headline about the company warns, “National Grid seeks electricity, gas rate hikes.” That sounds more like the action of power to me.
Man, Europe is really going all out with the violent ad imagery these days. This time, England has come up with a campaign to scare kids away from knives that looks like it was taken from Jack the Ripper’s day planner. It includes two videos, including one featuring a slideshow of brutal knife wounds. Also, “postcards depicting a hand mutilated by a knife attack are being handed out on the streets,” according to the Daily Mail. We’d love to see the reaction of the guy who thinks he’s just been handed a strip-club coupon. All joking aside, hearing about a knife-crime culture run amok hits American ears funny, but of course we’ve got different issues.
It's hard to get people's attention nowadays, so we should expect—nay, demand—bigger and better advertising stunts, preferably with a whiff of possible carnage. If David Blaine can get millions of eyeballs by holding his breath, why can’t a forlorn brand? Honda seems to agree, and will air a live three-minute spot tonight showing of a bunch of skydivers linking up to spell out “Honda.” (The photo above is from a practice jump.) The experiment, from 4Creative, is part of Honda’s “Difficult is worth doing” push. (BTW, Brits call taglines “straplines”? Never knew.) Scamp likes it so much, he’s ready to award it a Black Pencil immediately. Let’s see if it works out first. I’m still scarred from childhood by Geraldo’s failure to find much in Al Capone’s vault. UPDATE: Honda pulled off its stunt (the ad is now posted above), although the Guardian said the “N” was a little weak.
The offer to cap gas prices at $2.99 for three years seems to be working for Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge. But it also appears to have started a contest among op-ed writers to see who can muster the most dire scenario for how this gimmicky promotion will actually send our society off the rails and into the ravine of crippling oil dependency. Writing in The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman says it’s “the moral equivalent of tobacco companies offering discounted cigarettes to teenagers.” However, Friedman admits that his take pales in comparison to that of Tim Shriver, who wrote in Monday’s Washington Post: “So Dodge wants to sell you a car you don’t really want to buy, that is not fuel-efficient, will further damage our environment, and will further subsidize oil states, some of which are on the other side of the wars we’re currently fighting. ... The planet be damned, the troops be forgotten, the economy be ignored: buy a Dodge.” It’s a little wordy for a tagline, but it might be worth testing in a few select markets. UPDATE: More skepticism found here.
If Barack Obama wins the election this fall, some consumer brands can bask in the glory of being presidential favorites. A piece this week in The New York Times offered a list of Obama’s “likes and dislikes.” Though no brand names appeared on the dislikes list (just generic items like mayonnaise and asparagus), the likes roster included Planters Trail Mix: Nuts, Seeds & Raisins, Dentyne Ice, Nicorette, MET-Rx chocolate roasted peanut protein bars, and “handmade milk chocolates from Fran’s Chocolates in Seattle.” A larger article, to which the likes-and-dislikes list was a brief sidebar, mentioned Black Forest Berry Honest Tea as another Obama favorite. On the whole, the faves list skews a bit more upscale than seems ideal for a candidate who’s trying to strengthen his appeal to blue-collar voters, so Obama may wish to keep some of these preferences under wraps until after Election Day.
Leave it to the professionally offended to ruin everything. This time it's Michelle Malkin, who led a charge of blogosphere criticism against Dunkin’ Donuts because one of its ads featured Rachael Ray wearing a scarf that sort of looks like an Arab headdress. Malkin says, in essence, that doing so supports terrorism. Despite Ray not wearing the scarf on her head, Dunkin’ pulled the ad to avoid “the possibility of misperception.” Malkin responded by saying she was glad an American company took a stand against Islamic terrorism. As opposed to all the American companies that support it. Sheesh. Something tells us this is where Michelle would like to see future American marketing efforts go.
Over at The New York Times' Freakonomics blog, Ian Ayres presents a probing analysis of this cigarette ad, which he found posted around Athens, Greece. If the bulldog is the smoker, and the bone is the “Silk Cut” cigarette that he’ll face any risk for, then what does the alligator represent? What potentially fatal danger could a smoker possibly be willing to flout in the name of rich, smooth flavor?
Ad shop Blattner Brunner tries hard, damn hard, to portray coal mining as an appealing career in this Web recruitment effort for Consol Energy of Pittsburgh. The cheery intro bids us to don our safety goggles and check out the rewarding opportunities mining has to offer. (Unlike the old General Electric clean-coal campaign, the miners here are fully clad.) There’s even a mining trivia arm-wrestling game. Maybe I’m a pampered wuss (like anyone doubted that), but I felt the walls closing in and started gasping for air as soon as I saw the foreboding landing-page visual: a dimly lit shaft-descent elevator—leading, no doubt, straight into the inky blackness of hell. What’s that Police song, “Canary in a Coal Mine”? What’s that Bee Gees song, “New York Mining Disaster”? What’s that Gordon Lightfoot song, “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”? (Mining’s not the only dangerous job, people.) Let’s just send robots into the mines. Oxygen’s not an issue for cybernetic servitors. And those metallic limbs make them formidable arm wrestlers.
Wow, where to start with Charles Haeberle, who has taken out an ad offering $5,000 to any woman who would agree to marry him. Paid in installments. Yes, after years of searching for love in bars, churches, and on the Internet—the worst places on earth to pick up women, by the way—Charles has resorted to full-on bribery. Which isn’t so bad, really. There are people on Craigslist right now who would spend more to do much worse. But the real kicker is that Haeberle, a 39-year-old man, is looking for a woman “between the ages of 23 and 43.” Really, he can pretty much forget about women in their 20s. But that kind of romantic ambition shows that for someone who barely sounds capable of approaching a woman, Charlie’s got balls.
Life gets harder for smokers by the day. It's tough enough here in the U.S., where smokers are harangued to quit by people like Throat-Hole Guy, the woman with stubs for fingers, and the guy who lost a leg to smoking but still smokes anyway. In England, Saatchi London and the stop-smoking organization Quit like to needle smokers right at the point of cigarette disposal. Their vertical ashtrays show transparent images of lungs, which then appear to fill up with butts as the day wears on—adding, no doubt, to the offender’s smoky, guilty feeling. See the full image at Osocio. UPDATE: Adland has more pics.
This PSA from director James Gartner envisions a "marketplace of good deeds" where "products" such as "literacy for Moroccan Girls," "violence counseling for victims in Ghana" and "rescue one Nepalese girl from servitude" can literally be bought from shelves in a warehouse. The spot promotes social education and donations site GlobalGiving. Imagine the positive PR that Wal-Mart, Sears or some other giant retailer could drum up by stocking similar boxes among their giant plasma-screen TV sets and auto parts—and actually making donations in the name of customers who indicated a willingness to buy. C’mon, Smiley Face, be a sport. You can always write it off.
Having never seen Yes, Dear, I still have a largely positive opinion of Mike O'Malley, based mostly on his role as “The Rick” in the old ESPN ads—some of which were directed by Christopher Guest. By comparison, his “Satellite TV hates puppies” work for Time Warner Cable (above), certainly not directed by Christopher Guest, is a bit of a drag. Still, O’Malley, who was once the next big thing in sitcoms (until his eponymous NBC show got canned after two episodes in ’99), tends to have a sense of humor about his missteps—as he made clear in his humorous commencement speech to his alma mater, University of New Hampshire, in 2006. Unfortunately, there are hardly any “The Rick” spots online—all we could dig up were the outtakes below.
The Pittsburgh Penguins and the Detroit Red Wings are in the current Stanley Cup finals, but most Americans don’t know that, because hockey is largely ignored (except in Canada, which we shouldn’t have made a state in the first place). I guess the league couldn’t afford to actually shoot a commercial. Y&R takes a flip-book approach in this spot, using 800 still photos showing Stanley Cup champions raising the trophy. (I think a couple of frames from the new Indiana Jones movie are in there, too.) My point: What self-respecting sport makes some guy’s cup its ultimate prize?
Considering that this guy almost decides to have a smoke break at the worst possible time, doesn’t it seem that his reaction at the end is a bit extreme? This British PSA is from 1989, although most of the advice seems to hold up. These days, Brian would be wise to leave the house before using a land line or cell phone, since they can apparently blow you to hell, too.
Good news for the government: People do seem to be spending their tax rebates on random purchases that might boost the consumer-driven economy. The bad news? Mainstream marketers might not be cashing in. I just spent an embarrassing amount of time on the highly addictive blog How I Spent My Stimulus, and there was hardly a recognizable brand name in sight. As of this weekend, the most popular category was “Travel and Vacation,” followed by “Home and Garden.” But don’t worry, “Debt/Credit Card” was a close third. Economics and marketing aside, it’s worth browsing the site for a while just to see a fascinating cross-section of America. The stories are entertaining, inspiring and sometimes heart-wrenching. If you’re curious about the ones we pictured above, here they are: gun, bra, camera and puppy. And if you’re curious how I spent my rebate, then you can get the disappointingly pedestrian answer here. Via Consumerist. UPDATE: Turns out the site was created by Rudy Adler, who was a student during the first year of Wieden + Kennedy’s WK+12 ad school.
It's been a while since we found a good reason to mention zombie-based marketing. Oh, who am I kidding, we do it allthetime. But that’s no reason to overlook Saatchi & Saatchi Toronto’s top-notch series of parody posters for the very real Evil Dead: The Musical. Over at Ads of the World, you can check out high-res versions of this Hairspray execution (ooh … sorry for the pun), along with takes on Les Misérables and Mama Mia.
Lifestyles condoms, which we last saw letting it all hang out, has unveiled a new set of online videos created by ad shop AMP in Boston. “Lifestyles Condoms Aim for the Funny Bone,” Brandweek explains. The clips feature standup comedians Noah Starr and Baron Vaugh, who tout Lifestyles and promote frank talk about safe sex. “Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls,” says Carol Carozza, the company’s vp of marketing. She continues: “The variety of people Noah and Baron encounter have a variety of different sexual tastes. With our vast mix of customized products, Lifestyles can accommodate these sexual needs.” Now there’s a refreshing departure from the usual corporate-speak that CMO types dish out to describe new campaigns. Oh wait—funny bone! I just got it. Ha.
In a campaign for climbing gear manufacturer Petzl USA, ad shop TDA Advertising & Design imagines a world in which star climbers enjoy the same fan appeal as mainstream athletes. Print ads show how memorabilia collectors would honor Chris Sharma (who?) and Dave Graham (who?!). Graham’s been rendered as a bobblehead doll (“rockhead” seems more apt), and Sonnie Trotter (who!?!) gets a Topps-style trading card. Unfortunately, it’s just a Sonnie Trotter, so it’s not worth that much. I’ve decided to launch a line of Bloggerhead dolls. They’ll come with carpel-tunnel wrist-braces, dark circles under their eyes and little Wi-Fi antennas in their backwards-facing Nascar caps. Why risk your life climbing mountains when you could earn the same obscurity and lack of respect hunched over a keyboard all day?
Justin "Scrappers" Morrison long ago entered into ad folklore with his scene-stealing role, alongside stuffed-raccoon sidekick, in this video about WK+12, the in-house Wieden + Kennedy ad school that Morrison attended in 2006. One thing that’s been lacking over the years, though, is a good Scrappers Photoshop contest. Luckily, one of Scrappers’ buddies, a guy named Dickbird, has organized one. Visitors to Dickbird’s site can upload a background image, pick a Scrappers headshot, and let the hilarity ensue. Over on his Flickr photo stream, Scrappers explains: “My buddy dickbird and I have had an ongoing photoshop war for a couple years. He might have just destroyed me with this website.” Quite the opposite, we feel. We attempted a couple of entries here and here. If you feel likewise inspired, we can add yours to the gallery, too.
I like our site and all, but that's not to say it isn't made just a touch better by the presence of a zaftig pink streaker. Indeed, his plump little bare-ass scuttle makes me smile every time. Yes, I know there’s nothing new about overlaying randomness on other sites, but I still think this banner ad for Vodafone is good times. The payoff line is “Feel unrestricted,” supposedly referring to something called a “$49 Prepay Maxi Cap.” That sounds dirtier than the streaker, actually.
