NYC unveils even more repulsive anti-fat ad
New York City's health department grossed people out this summer with anti-obesity ads on the subway showing globs of human fat being poured from a soda bottle. Now, they've managed to one-up themselves with a video version. Dr. Thomas Farley, the city's health commissioner, tells Gothamist: "This video is playful, but its message is serious." Playful is possibly the last adjective I would have come up with. Via AgencySpy. —Posted by Tim Nudd
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Published on December 14, 2009 | Permalink
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Park-bench plaque ads argue for euthanasia
Cundari Advertising placed stickers like this one, made to look like brass memorial plaques, on park benches around Toronto, memorializing (presumably fictional) people who were denied assisted suicide and thus suffered before death—pointlessly, according to DignityInDeath.com, which is the client here. See other ads from the campaign here. One reads, "Donald J. McLeod, 1961-2007, who spent six years in a coma before finally slipping into the afterlife while the court system continued to debate his fate." There's also: "Rosa Maria Allende, 1952-2009. She finally passed after being kept alive by machines for four years at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars that could have helped find a cure for the very disease she suffered from." The text seems heavy-handed and unfeeling, but there's no safe way to frame this discussion, and even though they're partisan, the ads remind us that we should consider such matters and plan ahead while we still have the faculties and good health to do so. Via Ads of the World. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on December 9, 2009 | Permalink
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Heather Graham is hot, limber public option
Let's break down MoveOn's "Track Meet" commercial. Healthcare providers and insurance companies: bloated, bad. Public option, personified by Heather Graham: limber, good. Healthcare competition: good, because it would give consumers more choice, drive down rates and keep MoveOn from producing more ads. Heather Graham's acting career: fading fast. Apple pie: tastes good, but while quintessentially American, no healthier than the greasy fast food eaten by the people representing the insurance companies in this commercial. (That said, it'd be dumb to say, "Competition is as American as salad.") Peter Coyote's voiceover: authoritative but kinda preachy. Sounds annoyingly like Sam Waterston in the TD Ameritrade ads. TD Ameritrade: I dunno ... bad? Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on October 26, 2009 | Permalink
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New ads turn healthcare into a gender issue
The non-profits are duking it out over healthcare, with new campaigns practically every week. Now, the National Women's Law Center has joined the fray with a bold ad from New York agency The Concept Farm that reframes the debate as a gender issue. The tagline, "Being a woman is not a pre-existing condition," pretty much sums it up. But in case you missed the point, there are some nice shots of a domestic-violence victim and a cesarean scar. Apparently, women can also be rejected by insurance companies if they're pregnant or were raped. The NWLC says 25-year-old women have been charged as much as 84 percent more than their male counterparts for health plans that don't even offer maternity coverage … all things I honestly didn't know until I saw the ad. With the mild uproar over last week's suggestion by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz., moron) that as a man he shouldn't have to pay for a plan that covers maternity care, NWLC's little campaign is getting extra press—and will no doubt spawn more campaigns as other women's non-profits rally around the call. And around Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who pointed out to Senator Kyl that while he may not need maternity insurance now, his mom probably did. Oh snap, here's one right now from the DNC. |
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Published on October 23, 2009 | Permalink
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Colorado wants you healthy and/or arrested
The LiveWell Colorado program is all about challenging your friends to shoplift from shopping malls and flirting with strangers in grocery stores. That's the sense I get from these spots by Sukle Advertising & Design. Such an initiative sounds like fun. Alas, LiveWell actually promotes exercise and healthy eating. Like Mr. Chubs in aisle 6 ever ate a sprout in his life or stands a chance with that junk-food-crazed minx he self-righteously scorns. And wouldn't the mall guard lose his job for knocking down the displays every day? Is he even a "real" mall guard, or just playing dress-up with his pal? Friends don't make friends sweat needlessly or challenge them to eat salad for lunch if there's a Dunkin' Donuts in town. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on October 21, 2009 | Permalink
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Trees invade cities in Kaiser Permanente ad
The urban and natural worlds fuse harmoniously in this evocative Kaiser Permanente spot from Campbell-Ewald, directed by Biscuit's Noam Murro. Huge trees dot a city's skyscape, and wildlife freely roams the plazas below, highlighting the benefits of Kaiser's push toward paperless medical records. (This is actually the director's cut of the spot. The "official" version, posted to Kaiser's YouTube page, has a voiceover and isn't as good.) The healthcare company stands to gain more than environmental brownie points from the creation of an urban jungle, too. It'll make a bundle on claims when those redwoods fall into the office buildings and motorists hit the deer. —Posted by David Gianatasio Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on October 8, 2009 | Permalink
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New ads deride NYC for attack on junk food
We haven't seen enough 1984 references lately, so let's thank the Center for Consumer Freedom (an advocacy group funded by food companies) for giving the world this sarcastic Big Apple/Big Brother poster in response to the New York City Health Department's nanny-state campaign against junk food. Granted, NYC's human-fat ad was a tad ghoulish, but it's hardly a stretch for a health department to publicly oppose unhealthy eating habits. In its broader campaign, which goes beyond NYC, the CCF is out to defend high-fructose corn syrup. It includes the commercial below, in which a man examines a police lineup of three sweeteners—high-fructose corn syrup, sugar and honey—but is unable to tell which of them caused his weight gain. Of course, the only reason anyone uses high-fructose corn syrup is because it's cheaper and easier to transport, but the truth often gets lost in hen fights like these. Via Gothamist. —Posted by David Kiefaber Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on October 1, 2009 | Permalink
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St. Jude spot poignant, but won't haunt you
Ads for children's hospitals are often soul-crushingly sad, except in Finland, where they're horror-movie creepy. This Hill, Holliday spot is neither. It promotes Chili's support of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospitals, and is based on a nice simple idea: Actual parents of St. Jude's cancer patients talk about how they're looking forward to moments in their kids' lives—their first speeding ticket, their first date—that parents typically dread. "They'd like nothing more than to be able to witness their children live a normal childhood," says Hill, Holliday's Steve Grskovic. "Even if that means borrowing the car and leaving it on empty." The spot directs viewers to Chili's Create a Pepper site, where they can donate. Via Osocio. —Posted by Tim Nudd Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on September 29, 2009 | Permalink
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Will Ferrell ad mock-defends health insurers
Here's the latest commercial parody from Funny or Die—a video that pleads for help for insurance-company executives, the forgotten voices in the healthcare debate. Will Ferrell stars (and produced the ad with MoveOn.org), along with various vaguely recognizable actors, including Jon Hamm and Olivia Wilde. "Insurance companies are detail-oriented enough to deny claims for things like typos," Ferrell says. "If you spell something wrong, do you really deserve surgery? I don't think so." |
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Published on September 23, 2009 | Permalink
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Schizophrenic man on the loose in U.K. PSA
The most shocking thing about this U.K. PSA from Time2Change is its tabloid-style title: "Schizophrenic Man Terrifies Kids at Party." He does so by telling stories and wielding balloon animals. The point, of course, is that we shouldn't prejudge his behavior. I must admit that I did just that. I was actually let down, though not exactly surprised, when he didn't freak out—and I knew the general theme of the spot going in! I also found myself thinking that those kids look awfully small and vulnerable alone in the room with that guy. These impressions (and they can't be mine exclusively) underscore the need for continued thoughtful and humane initiatives to chase away such ignorance for good. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on August 26, 2009 | Permalink
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Blue M&Ms could be very, very good for you
Back in 1995, M&M fans were asked to choose the candy's new color: pink, purple or blue. The electorate voted for blue, and it was apparently a wise choice. Researchers recently found that the blue food dye used in M&Ms (and other products such as Gatorade) might help treat spinal injuries. It worked on injured lab rats, who were able to walk again (and turned blue!) after an injection of the "Brilliant Blue G" compound. While any human treatment is likely years away, there's one group that's already benefiting from the discovery: the marketing folks at Mars. "Blue M&Ms" was the No. 1 trending topic Tuesday evening on Twitter as thousands of users shared the weird story. And really, this karma's been a long time coming for Mars, which once voluntarily shelved the red M&M for nine years due to a consumer freak-out over a red dye that the product didn't even use. With this latest news, it doesn't seem so weird after all that the Blue M&M wants to just sit around licking himself. —Posted by David Griner |
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Published on July 29, 2009 | Permalink
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The healthcare debate can make you sick
Oh good, it's healthcare ad time again. This sure won't
get petty and pedantic in a hurry like it always does. This time our journey
begins with an ad, sponsored by Patients United Now, where Canadian ex-pat
Shona Holmes rails against the government healthcare system that would have
left her to die of a brain tumor had she not come to America for treatment.
"Now," says an ominous narrator, "Washington wants to bring
Canadian-style healthcare to the U.S." If this were true, it would be
awful. Canada is the only industrialized democracy in the world where people
can't seek health insurance outside the government monopoly, even for medically
necessary services. But President Obama's plan has been described as "an
optional, government-run plan to compete with private insurers," and the
total shutout of single-payer advocates is a sign that the only things we're
importing from Canada are oil, beer and the occasional Mark McKinney television
pilot. In any case, the Campaign Media Analysis Group says that $31 million has
already been spent on healthcare advertising this year, with more coming down
the pike. I hope an assisted suicide plan is in the works, because I'll
probably want to kill myself by the time these jackasses are through haranguing
each other. —Posted by David Kiefaber |
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Published on July 14, 2009 | Permalink
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Gold's Gym can't look at your nasty cankles
Gold's Gym and McKinney are making war on "cankles," a slang term for how an overweight person's calves don't narrow at the ankle. Gold's is ramping up efforts to warn consumers about this aesthetic affliction (which is, ironically enough, outpacing "muffin tops" and "saddlebags" as the No. 1 bathing-suit killer in America) with direct mail and a Web site, Say No to Cankles, where there's a contest in which people vote on who has the best legs in Hollywood. While the fitness chain considers this a fun, lighthearted way to tell people to get in shape, making fun of people's specific body parts for aesthetic reasons and then comparing them to celebrities who can afford nutritionists and personal trainers isn't really going to help. There's a line between highlighting obesity's health risks and flat-out ridiculing fat people. Getting rid of the celebrity stuff and the tacky Facebook applications will put Gold's Gym on the right side of it. |
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Published on July 2, 2009 | Permalink
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French Alzheimer's ad not quickly forgotten
It's French PSA day on AdFreak. Here's a powerful Alzheimer's awareness ad from Saatchi & Saatchi Paris. Compare it with the fluffier British Alzheimer's spot below, produced by Red Bee Media. |
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Published on June 22, 2009 | Permalink
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Another ad filmed from the POV of a vagina
Commercials shot from the point of view of the vagina are becoming ever more popular. Last year, we had that Grey Amsterdam spot for GlaxoSmithKline's Lactacyd vaginal cream. Now, Cossette in Vancouver offers up this cinema spot titled "Eye of the Cervix" for the B.C. Cancer Agency and its Cervical Cancer Screening Program. At this rate the vagina will soon be a regular walking-and-talking character in commercials. |
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Published on June 17, 2009 | Permalink
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For a low $49.99, you too can go for a walk!
Do you like walking but hate the idea of taking a break from consumer electronics? Well, Nintendo has just the solution for you. For just $49.99, the new video game Personal Trainer: Walking helps you track your progress through a revolutionary device that measures the number of steps you've taken. "It's pretty much a pedometer. Period," gushes one 2-star review on Amazon. To be fair, the game has some neat features, like illustrating how far you've walked on a global map. And it is nice to see anything that encourages gamers to get moving. But I'm not quite sure if I buy this video's pitch that the game "makes a walk more than a mode of transportation or routine physical activity—it makes walking productive and fun." Call me a Luddite, but I think I could have just as much of a ribald good time with a $5 pedometer and a sheet of graph paper. |
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Published on June 1, 2009 | Permalink
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Parkinson's ads capture the body's struggle
Do you sometimes wish you had extra hands so you could get more things done? What if those hands had minds of their own? "Everything's harder when your body turns against you," says these powerfully illustrated print ads from Taxi in Toronto for the Parkinson's Society of Canada. The multiple limbs are, of course, eye-catching and surreal. But the mundane household details—the African-looking vase on the bookcase, the sun seeping in through the blinds, the papers hung on the fridge—are what drive home the message that this can happen to anyone. Those details enhance the overall sense of unease. The technique here is not unlike Saatchi's approach in the recent Alzheimer's ads from France. Both give us a sense of what it's like to struggle against rapidly deteriorating physical and mental aspects of ourselves. Via Ads of the World. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on May 20, 2009 | Permalink
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Old swine-flu PSAs will soon come in handy
If the U.S. government finds itself in need of some seriously awesome swine-flu-vaccine PSAs, they can just re-air these old fear-mongering spots made during the last big scare in 1976. They've got it all: frightening, echoey sound effects; hammy acting; cavalier attitudes followed by feverish hospital visits. In the second ad, there's even a casually mentioned old-person death. We won't get PSAs that are half as good this year. We will get lots of new-media communications, though. You can start off with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's swine-flu video podcast. |
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Published on April 27, 2009 | Permalink
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Ads take a closer look at sneezing, laughing
These two new spots were made a long way from each other, but still seem separated at birth. The ad above, created by Jamshop for the South Australian Department of Health, promotes flu shots—by showing super-slow-motion footage of people sneezing. The ad below, created by Modernista! for the Dutch version of Comedy Central, hypes the channel's laugh-out-loud humor—by showing super-slow-motion footage of people laughing, with many of them spewing water all over the place. In a head-to-head battle, the Australian ad would probably win due to its sheer disgustingness. Modernista!'s only hope would be to reshoot and try to get people to laugh even harder until they shot milk out of their nose. |
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Published on April 21, 2009 | Permalink
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Publicly humiliate her into joining your gym
Here's another entry for our public-shaming file: this bus-stop ad for a health club in the Netherlands. It has a scale in the seat and displays the sitter's weight for all to see. We're sure Fitness First is expecting a huge spike in membership from this, but the effect is ruined the moment two people share the seat. That and, you know, trying to win people's business by humiliating them. Agency: N=5. Via Gizmodo and Animal New York. |
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Published on March 16, 2009 | Permalink
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Aspirin maker has new theory on dinosaurs
Scientific claims don't get much more dodgy than this. A new print campaign from Graffiti BBDO in Romania for an aspirin product says the dinosaurs were killed off by the common cold. See a larger version of this ad here, and one more here. I thought the dinosaurs perished because of a meteor strike or something. Maybe the point is that their giant medicine cabinets indeed weren't stocked properly to deal with the chill brought on by plummeting global temperatures. Whatever the case, why listen to acknowledged scientific authorities on this subject when cold-medicine ads have all the answers? The campaign also raises the issue of dinosaurs as pets. Sure, they're cute when they're small, but those little raptors will tear your face off someday. Has no one seen Jurassic Park? Did you catch the name on the bowl in that second ad? "Rex." Classic. Via Ads of the World. |
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Published on February 26, 2009 | Permalink
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British PSAs getting even tougher to watch
They don't really skimp on the shock tactics in British public-service messages. These two commercials, quite uncomfortable to watch, are part of the ACT F.A.S.T. campaign, a new U.K. effort aimed at helping people to recognize the signs of a stroke, and to act quickly and reduce the damage caused. "When a stroke strikes, it spreads like a fire in the brain," says the voiceover. "The longer it goes undetected, the more damage it does." Public reaction seems to be falling into two main camps, which are now doing battle: those who find the ads upsetting (including some who think they're airing too early in the evening); and those who, perhaps nervously, are making light of the spots—and suggesting that the warning signs of a stroke are confusingly similar to the faces their friends tend to make late on Saturday nights at the pub. |
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Published on February 25, 2009 | Permalink
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A little too happy? They have a drug for thatThis might be the wrong economic climate in which to launch Despondex, "the first-ever prescription depressant," but it's hard to deny The Onion its subversive merrymaking. And there's certainly an appeal to any drug that keeps people from personalizing their license plates. Homeopathic methods of tempering one's chipperness, like considering man's impact on nature or keeping up with the news, are also good. But I would also suggest a dual treatment of medications like Despondex alongside lectures from one's parents about how you should have majored in business/marketing instead of English. Wearing pants at every opportunity can only help, too. |
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Published on February 13, 2009 | Permalink
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Warm up with heated ads from Tylenol Cold
Deutsch, Fuel Outdoor and OSI put heating units on Metro Lights displays in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia to tout Tylenol Cold Warming Liquids. According to Deutsch: "Fuel's heated Metro Lights will be placed at eye-level in places where people can interact with the unit, specifically targeting areas such as parking garage entrances where people are looking for a quick warm-up throughout the winter." Unfortunately, the folks on the street who need that warmth most—the homeless—will probably be shooed away by security or the men and women in blue. Judging by the sorry trajectory of the economy, however, the ranks of those without shelter could swell to frightening proportions. Soon, there'll be no one left to shout, "Move along!" So, perhaps Tylenol would be good enough to leave those heaters running for a while. They might ease more pain than anyone imagined. |
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Published on February 12, 2009 | Permalink
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ALS Canada's ads just as unsettling in print
Lowe Roche in Toronto and the ALS Society of Canada crafted one of the more emotionally wrenching TV spots of 2008: this one, with the children's song "Head and Shoulders" and the father who is inexorably ravaged over time by the disease. Now, Lowe extends the campaign to print. See three full ads here. They show ALS sufferers with disintegrating chalk maze outlines superimposed on them, stretching from the head down one of their limbs—a simple, arresting and disquieting way to illustrate ALS's slow-motion destruction of the motor neurons that allow the brain to control the body. "One by one," reads the copy, "your muscles become paralyzed, making it impossible to walk, talk, eat, and eventually, breathe. Please, help us find a cure. Visit www.als.ca to donate." |
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Published on February 11, 2009 | Permalink
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