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NYC subway system full of squandered food
It's irritating when you wait 15 minutes for the subway, and then a train shows up and it's full of apples. Draftfcb and The Mill enlisted half a million CGI apples for this anti-hunger PSA on behalf of City Harvest. They also supposedly shot the live-action footage on an iPhone, for even more Apple. The point is to remind New Yorkers how much food is wasted every day in the city, and ends up aimlessly riding the 7 train all day and night. —Posted by Tim Nudd
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Published on November 30, 2009 | Permalink
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Canadians all sick and tired of cancer's crap
Web videos are the centerpiece of DDB's "Join the Fight" campaign for the Canadian Cancer Society. Non-actors whose lives have been ravaged (and in some cases, ruined) by the disease address the illness as if it were a person, expressing their outrage, grief and resolve to keep fighting. Unlike TBWA's recent prostate-cancer ads, where the disease is played by a guy in a costume, here cancer is an unseen yet palpable presence. We get the idea that the fight is tough, often heartbreaking, but sometimes winnable. The message is gritty and honest, but empowering. If I were cancer, I'd clear out, because that guy in the white T-shirt who spits into the mirror looks angry enough to whip the disease with his bare hands.
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Published on November 30, 2009 | Permalink
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Axe encouraging sex in the snow this winter
BBH London counsels guys to "be prepared this festive season" and to carry their Lynx (Axe) Bullet portable body spray with them, because you never know where spontaneous sex might occur. The three ads in the series seem a bit menacing, though, with the dark alleys and lonely frozen roads evoking non-consensual encounters. Maybe the ladies should carry a different kind of spray. (As Adland points out, Old Spice Red Zone did a similar though more angelic ad several years ago.) Of course, even if both participants are willing, they'll catch colds at the very least. My advice: If you must behave this way, keep the mittens on. Via Ads of the World. UPDATE: In comments, Steve notes that BBH has manufactured a personal alarm for women through its Zag product-development unit. The ila Dusk, "emits a piercing, high-decibel female scream designed to shock and disorientate an attacker." The perfect defense against Axe-toting lunkheads. Nice synergy, BBH! —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on November 30, 2009 | Permalink
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With no Interstate battery, you're on thin ice
In a new campaign, Firehouse positions Interstate car batteries as "outrageously dependable." But the spots aren't really outrageous. By today's wacky standards, they're pleasantly restrained. The "Pinball" spot (below) makes good use of its minute-long running time to build suspense and get viewers hoping that maybe, just maybe, the dude can get his car started and avoid the seemingly inevitable collision with the vehicle sliding his way. Even if, like me, you were rooting for a crash (after Black Friday, I have no goodwill left toward men), the ad's still effective. Same goes for the second spot, which shows a hippie/IT type guy struggling to get into his car, which is sandwiched into a parking-lot space. Life clearly let this guy down. The last thing he needs is his car doing the same.
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Published on November 30, 2009 | Permalink
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Schweppes brings 1950s Christmases to life
Mother London adds live-action arms and hands (along with some goofy and mildly smutty humor) to classic 1950s Christmas illustrations in these amusing 10-second spots for Schweppes tonic water in the U.K. The voice talent includes Martin Freeman, who played Tim on The Office. The best line has to be: "Don and Tabitha, you're just in time. I'm about to hose down Felicity!" Via The Inspiration Room. —Posted by Tim Nudd
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Published on November 25, 2009 | Permalink
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Shake your big percussive butt for OranginaVideo is NSFW. Continuing with the butt theme, here's an absurd, NSFW video from Orangina featuring some impressive butt shaking, butt slapping and butt clapping. It advertises the drink brand's "Shake That Orangina" contest, which asks you to upload a video of yourself dancing (not just butt clapping) for a chance to become an official "Shake Star" of Orangina. As a Shake Star, you will "appear on posters, billboards, flyers, online videos and more" and "have the opportunity to travel around the globe to witness firsthand your rising star in the dance world." Via Animal New York. |
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Published on November 25, 2009 | Permalink
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Glasses that look great on all kinds of asses
It's tough to know what to say about these Italian print ads for Glassing Sunglasses, but I'll try. Some might find it objectionable, but it's offensive in a cartoony, memorable way, like naughty Mad magazine illustrations from 20 years ago, so folks might want to lighten up. Some Web commenters have bashed the ads for implying that people who wear the sunglasses are asses, but that's probably too literal of a read (though, based on my experience with those who wear shades as a fashion accessory, quite accurate). Maybe it's spec, but since it advertises specs, that's probably alright, too. Sure, it's easily dismissed as being odd for odd's sake, but there's nothing wrong with that, since catching consumers' attention is half the battle. It'll crack some people up, I'm sure. Beyond that, I'm wiping my hands of it. Via Ads of the World, which credits Y&R for the campaign.
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Published on November 25, 2009 | Permalink
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Fighting tooth and nail for a flack internship
I don't envy new grads trying to break into marketing and advertising. The intense competition for entry-level jobs is apparently forcing our next generation of leaders to humiliate themselves for the right to do menial tasks. Advertising Week created an entire entertainment program out of it, making would-be creatives jump through hoops for the promise of a 30-day freelance gig at entry-level pay. Now, unsurprisingly, public relations is getting in on the act. Eisen Marketing Group, which bills itself as "Cincinnati's largest PR firm," is holding a reality-TV-style competition to hire a single "PR rockstar." Recent grads apply at the Eisen Web site for the honor of being one of a dozen contestants subjected to three weeks of "PR hell" starting in January. Naturally, the humiliation will be aired as Webisodes that Eisen says will follow in the tradition of The Apprentice and Survivor. I imagine one of the challenges will be to find the most creative way to say, "I'm calling to follow up on an e-mail I sent you." The winner gets a paid internship. I can't help but wonder if these kinds of stunts, which arise out of a crappy economy and high unemployment rate, breed resentment from serious candidates looking to build careers. —Posted by Brian Morrissey Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on November 24, 2009 | Permalink
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Ohio Lottery gets crafty with its holiday ads
Speaking of nutty holiday ad characters, Northlich introduces an overeager arts-and-crafts enthusiast in its new spots for the Ohio Lottery. One ad is posted below; see a bunch more here. The theme is "Makin' It Fun With Maggie." But in Ohio, as in Illinois and every other state, lottery tickets just aren't much fun as gifts. If they're losers, it's like not getting a present at all. If they're winners, it's worse, because then you feel obliged to share, since the giver will be pissed off if he doesn't get a cut. Ohio tickets are especially bad, because you have to go to places like Cleveland to collect. And folks who live there can't afford to move because they waste all their cash on lottery tickets. Look, I'm a grinch, and I usually don't give a sh*t for the holidays. But this year, thanks to Oxfam, I just might. —Posted by David Gianatasio Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on November 24, 2009 | Permalink
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Target's 2-Day Sale lady totally frightens me
Target is attempting to lure shoppers to its annual two-day sale with a cautionary tale about a Christmas-crazed housewife. Overzealous holiday shoppers are a fairly common theme, but rarely are they as serial-killery as this lady. She hasn't slept in days, she's convinced she'll "win Christmas," and I hope to God she doesn't knife me if I get to the doorbusters before her. The spot below is one of a series. Check out the other ads here. The actress, Maria Bamford, has that special kind of Christmas-crazy down pat. (Bamford is known for her stand-up jokes about depression and loneliness, which comes as no surprise whatsoever.) Target must have realized she'd frighten some shoppers, because they made another spot for people who don't "channel all their insecurities into Christmas." Unfortunately, Target has also just reminded me why I hate Black Friday: having to elbow my way through a store of people just as bat-shit as their spokeswoman while praying I don't get trampled to death. Agency: Wieden + Kennedy. |
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Published on November 24, 2009 | Permalink
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Yahoo! knows that life isn't fun for creatives
For anyone in the advertising business, particularly those on the creative side, this Yahoo! video surely hits close to home. It touches on the big three broad ad caricatures: the cheesy, spineless account guy, the faux hipster creatives and the unreasonable clients. A personal favorite moment is when one client says, "My whole thing is, Are people going to tweet about this? What's the tweet factor here, guys?" The other adds: "I don't even know what tweeting means, but this isn't going to make me want to do it." —Posted by Brian Morrissey
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Published on November 24, 2009 | Permalink
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Stunt buddha jumps Benihana shrimp buffet
Benihana was hot in the '70s when it was a novelty for chefs to prepare food at your table. That's not so special now, and neither is this "Big Jump" spot via Wieden + Kennedy and Matt Lenski of Epoch Films. They use tiki-mug figurines to tell the tale of a self-styled Buddah Knievel with a salad-cycle who leaps over a spread of shrimp. This isn't nearly as wild as a real Asian ad would be, and it's undercooked as a parody/homage. Now, if the cycle guy crashed into the condiment tray, à la Gary Wells, and played a dramatic death scene in a pool of soy-sauce blood, as tattooed salt-and-pepper-shaker Yakuza blew everyone away with chopstick machine guns … now you're talking! And a broccoli-stalk Godzilla wouldn't hurt. Maybe Japanophile director Quentin Tarantino could spice up the next spot.
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Published on November 24, 2009 | Permalink
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'War on Christmas' army attacking Best Buy
The holiday season means traditions. One of the more recent that's fun to watch is the "war on Christmas," with advertisers taking flak for being too inclusive in their holiday messaging. Of course, they just want to sell more stuff. But that hasn't stopped the vigilant WOC shocktroops from going after Gap for having the temerity to urge people to have whatever kind of holiday they want ("Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanzaa, Go solstice ... go Christmas, go Hanukkah, go whatever holiday you Wannukuh"), an effort that's offensive more for its schmaltziness than anything else. Now, Best Buy is in the crosshairs. The mistake: a lowly circular that says Best Buy offers good cheer for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. It turns out the retailer has scrubbed any mention of Christmas from its advertising, presenting an interesting double standard. One thing is for sure: There's a fair chance Best Buy is in line for plenty of free media from people like Bill O'Reilly. All those shots of the circular can only drive awareness of those $397 HD televisions. Maybe this is an ingenious viral marketing stunt cooked up by Crispin Porter + Bogusky. I smell an Effie. —Posted by Brian Morrissey Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on November 24, 2009 | Permalink
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10 best celebrity computer ads of the 1980s
When geek-culture blog Topless Robot dug up the Prime Computer ads above, from 1980, featuring Tom Baker's classic incarnation of Dr. Who (and his equally classic sidekick, Lalla Ward as Romana), I was shocked to see they were actually great commercials. They're clever, endearing and memorable—even if they do oversell the machine's capabilities by a light year or two. In short, these ads are everything that most vintage computer ads weren't, especially ones that involved celebrities. Click here to check out our picks for the top 10 celebrity computer ads of the 1980s. —Posted by David Griner |
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Published on November 23, 2009 | Permalink
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VIDEO: Tina Fey celebrates Ad Council work
Tina Fey emceed the Ad Council's annual dinner last Wednesday. Here's a video of her amusing opening remarks, in which she bemoans NBC's fourth-place ratings ("Actually, we're in ninth place if you count the couple of radio stations that are ahead of us right now"), recalls some classic PSAs from her youth, and even brings back her Sarah Palin impression. "They recently made a porn movie about Sarah Palin," she says at one point, "and then the same porn actress, Lisa Ann, played me in a parody of 30 Rock. ... Weirdly, of the three of us, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy. But I know the most about threeways." |
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Published on November 23, 2009 | Permalink
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JCPenney back in the doghouse once again
JCPenney had some success last year with its Beware of the Doghouse holiday campaign. Yes, the Web site got millions of views. But I knew it had broken through when my father-in-law sent me the link, along with the message, "Too FUNNY!!!" So, naturally, Penney and Saatchi & Saatchi are back with an encore: Return to the Doghouse. The clip below is basically a replay of last year's video, featuring guys who've bought their wives and girlfriends crappy, insulting gifts (vacuum cleaners, gym memberships, etc.) and so they get thrown in the doghouse, which leads to an underground tunnel where they have to fold laundry and face all-female tribunals for parole hearings. Same setting, same actors, even some of the exact same jokes—and it will probably get the same impressive amount of traffic. —Posted by Tim Nudd
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Published on November 23, 2009 | Permalink
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PETA Thanksgiving always awkward as hell
Ever wonder what a PETA Thanksgiving would be like? Of course not. But it turns out it's a serious downer, as we find out in this spot from ad agency Matter and director Dave Laden. The little girl asked to say grace ambushes the family: "Dear God. Thank you for the turkey we are about to eat, and for the turkey farms, where they pack them into dark tiny little sheds for their whole lives. Thank you for when they burn their feathers off while they're still alive, and for when the turkey gets killed by people who think it's fun to stomp on their little turkey heads." Will someone send this brat off to bed without her supper? She might be onto something, though. Skipping the turkey gets you to the whipped cream and pumpkin pie faster. And no, the cream was not harmed during the whipping. Lighten up, PETA! —Posted by David Gianatasio
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Published on November 23, 2009 | Permalink
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Generic U gets you on fast track to nowhere
Smith Brothers Agency takes an offbeat approach to college advertising by creating the ultimate "everyschool" called Generic U, attended by dull, cliché-spouting plastic figures whose lives are going nowhere because their education is lacking. Sounds kind of like every college in America, doesn't it? Actually, the client is Point Park University, which, given its relative standing in the academic pantheon and its location in downtown Pittsburgh, probably needs all the help it can get with matriculation. Of course, the best I could do with my Boston University degree was AdFreak, so who am I to tease? These clips make me wish I'd majored in advertising, where folks get paid to play with dolls all day. In other jobs, that just merits uneasy stares from co-workers and a summons from HR. —Posted by David Gianatasio
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Published on November 23, 2009 | Permalink
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'Tis the season for 'sexist' U.K. commercials
Considering how much advertising gets squeezed into the holiday season, life for the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority must be hell from October to mid-March. They're already fielding complaints about this Marks & Spencer's Christmas ad, whose final scene is supposedly "offensive and demeaning to women" because the actor, Philip Glenister, likes seeing hot girls in their underwear. Shocking that a guy in a bar could be so crass. As usual, the aggrieved come off like they've never watched TV before. This ad is juvenile, but hardly demeaning. Now GoDaddy, that was demeaning. —Posted by David Kiefaber |
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Published on November 20, 2009 | Permalink
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Polar bears more screwed than you thought
The U.K. is on a roll with its climate-change PSAs. First, there were the dogs drowning in rising seas. Now, we get this gruesome spot from Mother (posted below) for PlaneStupid.com, in which polar bears fall from the sky to splattery deaths—to make some point about airplane emissions. "An average European flight produces over 400kg of greenhouse gases for every passenger … that's the weight of an adult polar bear," the spot says. There's plenty to find objectionable here—the nonsensical connection between that stat and the rain of bears, as well as the general airplane-skyscraper-death theme, complete with a pretty blatant 9/11 Falling Man reference, which will evoke extremely negative emotions for some. Why do environmental groups shoot themselves in the foot like this? Via Animal. —Posted by Tim Nudd Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on November 20, 2009 | Permalink
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Get naked, say the pervy scrubbing bubbles
What's really inside your household cleaning products? It could be a bunch of dirty-minded chemicals, who are all bright and bubbly and innocent in TV commercials but who indulge in debauchery off camera, hanging around long after cleaning time to watch you give your naked bod a good scrub in the shower. That's the warning in the video below from Droga5 and Method, the maker of environmentally friendly cleaning products. "When did clean become so dirty?" the company asks, and wants you to ask your elected officials. The goal is to require all cleaning products to list their ingredients on their labels, and to keep depraved bubble gangs out of your bathroom. UPDATE: Method has now pulled the video off YouTube after complaints that the spot is sexist.
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Published on November 20, 2009 | Permalink
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Muscle Milk pilgrim sexing up Thanksgiving
Considering how naughty Halloween has gotten, it was only a matter of time before someone took a crack at Thanksgiving. That someone is Muscle Milk, the athletic drink brand, which channels Justin Timberlake in this spoof hip-hop music video "Sexy Pilgrim" (posted below), courtesy of ad agency Pereira & O'Dell. It's fairly similar to the Smirnoff "Tea Partay" video from a couple years back. The clip is mildly entertaining, although I doubt many people will take Muscle Milk up on the download-the-song option at SexyPilgrim.com. (The coupon might do better.) Muscle Milk is pretty absent from the video, with the muscle-building properties of the protein drink implied via the buff versions of Miles Standish and Squanto.
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Published on November 20, 2009 | Permalink
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Prostate cancer gets a proper street beating
TBWA\Chiat\Day goes the high-testosterone vigilante route in this pair of anti-prostate-cancer PSAs. The guy in the cancerous-mass suit looks like an alien from '70s Dr. Who or the grotesque but misunderstood Horta from Star Trek. Sure, it strikes the first blow in the spot above. But the thing was cornered by that gang of scruffy toughs with their "Movember" men's-health-month moustaches and was basically just defending itself. And the dudes are so ... unlikable. It's unfortunate when PSAs drum up sympathy for the diseases they're battling against. Contrast this approach with last month's New Zealand breast-cancer campaign. Same basic concept, but the NZ effort quietly generates menace by simply allowing the deadly growth to expand, just like it does all too often in real life. |
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Published on November 20, 2009 | Permalink
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Big Tobacco ad interviewer meets his match
I'd grown weary of American Legacy's fake-job-interview "Truth" spots from Arnold, but the latest iteration, this Web-only clip called "Nostradamus," ranks among the campaign's best. The phony Big Cig exec almost gets one-upped by a guy who frankly comes off more like a professional actor or repressed psychopath than a job seeker unaware he's being filmed for an anti-smoking commercial. Anyway, he challenges the notion that the tobacco business will cause 1 billion deaths around the world this century, pointing out that the world could end on December 23, 2012, at least according to Nostradamus. If the 16th-century French apothecary and reputed seer is correct, the guy says, that's when "all the planets align ... it'll throw off the gravitational force, we'll go out of orbit, we'll leave this galaxy, and we'll just go into oblivion." The interviewer replies, "Um ... why are you lookin' for a job, then?" More to the point: If the world really will end in three years, now's the time to start smoking. —Posted by David Gianatasio Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on November 20, 2009 | Permalink
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Vodafone ads show sad face of text bullying
It's not such a g'day Down Under when text-messaging bullies go all Qwerty on your ass. That's the basic thrust of this Colenso BBDO print campaign for Vodafone in Australia and New Zealand. The work effectively (if somewhat derivatively) plasters frowny-sad emoticons on the faces of school-age victims. Of course, if they actually look like that—bright yellow disk-shaped heads with no ears or noses—then they do have something to cry about and they will get teased. But seriously, this is a legitimate mobile-age problem that's generated its share of tragedies, so kudos to client and agency for confronting the issue, um, head-on. Via Ads of the World. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on November 20, 2009 | Permalink
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