Christine O'Donnell witch spot gets remixed

The Gregory Brothers have worked their Auto-Tune magic on Christine O'Donnell's "I'm not a witch" spot—with the result definitely a little catchier than the original. In other O'Donnell news, check out the sketch below about the Delaware Senate candidate from Saturday Night Live's season premiere last month—which aired as a rerun this weekend.

Filed under Music, Nudd, Parody, Politics
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More is much less in fake multiproduct spot

Perhaps you will find it funny, though. You know they threw Vagisil in there because it wasn't going that well otherwise. From the same people who brought you the fake Pac-Man: The Movie trailer.

Filed under Nudd, Parody
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Christine O'Donnell on the attack in new ad

GOP ad wizards the Prosper Group put together the movie-preview spoof above for Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, who is taking a break from renouncing witchcraft and claiming she's you in favor of whining about taxes. The video, painting opponent Chris Coons as a "Bed Intruder"-esque tax demon, has been compared to Carly Fiorina's "Demon Sheep" spot for its hyperbole (Fiorina's adman, Fred Davis, is behind this new spot, too). "Tax Man" at least makes a fighting attempt to stay on topic. But it still looks like a student project, which I'm sure the inevitable Saturday Night Live parody will reflect. (This past Saturday's SNL O'Donnell spoof is below.) Seriously, it's almost like O'Donnell's crew are now inviting parody so they can use it as proof of relevance.

Filed under Kiefaber, Parody, Politics
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Swan dive into best 'Will it blend?' video yet

It's a viral perfect storm! Old Spice meets Blendtec meets that guy from the BYU library video in this new "Will it blend?" clip. Passing up the body wash, Blendtec CEO Tom Dickson instead tears through a bottle of the original Old Spice. The result? Man smoke. And apparently, something that looks a lot like cole slaw.

Filed under Griner, Old Spice, Parody, Will it blend?
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Old Spice spoof contest is over with Grover

Just when we were all tired of the Old Spice guy spoofs, along comes Sesame Street with its own version. This one has Grover saying, "Sadly, you are not a monster," while teaching kids the use of the word "on." The whole thing is done quite well, and is yet another sign of how great advertising can still deeply penetrate the culture. The Sesame Street video ends with the tagline, "Smell like a monster on Sesame Street."

Filed under Morrissey, Old Spice, Parody, Sesame Street
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Breast checks are fun again with Boob Lube

Video is SFW. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so we'll be seeing lots of campaigns around the general topic of boobs. Here's one for Boob Lube, aka "the Original Breast Check Soap," which is a real product you can buy. It's produced by the Original ta-tas Brand, which claims to donate "at least 25 percent" of the proceeds of every purchase to fight breast cancer. Via Buzzfeed.

Filed under Breast cancer, Nudd, Parody, Personal care
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Politician's Old Spice spoof actually not bad

What's this, a political campaign ad parodying Old Spice and Isaiah Mustafa that doesn't completely suck? It's shocking. So kudos, Jerry Labriola, Republican from Connecticut's 3rd Congressional District, for creating a spot that's about a billion times better than that utter stinker from Vermont's Daniel Freilich. Via Make the Logo Bigger.

Filed under Nudd, Old Spice, Parody, Politics
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McDonald's kills a man in pro-vegetarian ad

And the award for best performance as an overfed corpse in a commercial goes to ... the stiff still clutching a burger in his greasy fist in this pro-vegetarian spot from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The anticlimactic "I was lovin' it" slogan and Golden Arches provide ample opportunity for McDonald's to sue and generate about five extra seconds of a media exposure for all concerned. The gal in black is probably crying because she's famished, and now that rigor mortis has set in, Chubs just won't let the sandwich go.

Filed under Gianatasio, Health, McDonald's, Parody
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Baby carrots sexy, futuristic in ads by CP+B

Last week, we mentioned that Crispin Porter + Bogusky was helping the carrot industry launch a $25 million campaign to make baby carrots cool by making them look like junk food. That item focused on the packaging. Now, we get the TV spots. And they are awesome. Three new spots (one below, two more after the jump) portray carrots as sexy, extreme and futuristic—via skillful, great-looking parodies of just those types of ads, which are usually reserved for junk food rather than health food. Whether kids will start gobbling up baby carrots like Cheetos after watching these ads is an open question—but if they don't, it won't be because the ads weren't cool enough. Via The Boston Egotist.

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Filed under Crispin Porter, Food and drink, Nudd, Parody
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Smoking likened to being eaten by zombies

Zombies are everywhere, it seems, even in American Legacy's latest "Truth" commercials. Timed to the launch of The Real World's 24th season (Jesus!) on MTV, we get Zombieville, a Real World parody with young people on a reality show tormented by the undead. And for a change, it's not each other. The trailer is below; see the first two episodes after the jump. This all sounds miserably convoluted and overly high-concept, but the episodes so far are decent—a mix of goofy gore and thankfully minimal anti-smoking rhetoric. (Smoking and zombies both kill you is the basic premise.) Any campaign where a snotty geek gets his head torn off is aces with me. If only this crew had cigarette lighters, they could set the zombies ablaze. Instead, these goody-goods have plump, healthy, flavorful lungs for those monsters to munch on. The spots will air in breaks during the MTV show this fall. Arnold helped with story lines, but the spots were produced in-house by MTV.

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Filed under Anti-smoking, Arnold, Gianatasio, MTV, Parody, Truth, Zombies
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Hong Kong advertises canisters of fresh air

The air quality in Hong Kong is so bad that they're starting to sell fresh air in canisters, which you can strap to your face to enjoy lovely, brief periods of unpolluted respiration. Available in pleasant scents like vanilla, the beach and "horses," the canned air is "the revolutionary new product that lets you experience breathing like the rest of the world does," according to the spot below. Of course, it's a parody infomercial, nicely produced by DDB and the Hong Kong Clean Air Network (CAN), urging environmental protection. Says the line at the end: "If we do nothing about Hong Kong's air pollution today, we can look forward to this tomorrow." Via Time magazine's NewsFeed.

Filed under Asia, DDB, Environment, Infomercials, Parody, PSAs
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Levi Johnston for mayor, the campaign ads

Levi Johnston's effort to become mayor of Wasilla, Ala., won't get far, at least not if there's a God, but that didn't stop Jimmy Kimmel from offering a few potential campaign slogans, which became the basis for the Slate V mock campaign ad below. There are a few too many Playgirl shots in it for my liking, but his relationship with Sarah Palin and his many stupid public comments are ripe for parody, and overall, Slate did a really good job of it. Unfortunately, Levi's past might not necessarily doom him in real life. Nude modeling isn't a career killer in politics, as it turns out.

Filed under Kiefaber, Parody, Politics
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Vermont politician lacking Old Spice charm

The Old Spice guy homages are coming fast and furious. After Cisco's lame effort, I figured most marketers would think twice before trying to glom onto "The Man." I forgot about the politicians. Vermont's Daniel Freilich, a candidate for the U.S. Senate (and a Democrat, for those who think AdFreak has some kind of political bias), has made a video that truly defiles the legacy of the Old Spice guy. The awkward spot features Freilich in doctor's garb (he's a physician), jogging in place and ultimately mounting a sickly-looking cow while he tries to imitate the deep intonations of Isaiah Mustafa. Thankfully, Freilich decided against any shots where he is clad only in a towel. Via We Are Organized Chaos.

Filed under Morrissey, Old Spice, Parody, Politics
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Dodge chimp story told in Taiwan animation

Dodge and Widen + Kennedy's humorous replacement, under pressure from PETA, of a real chimp with an invisible chimp in one of its ads has earned the automaker the ultimate 2010 Internet honor—an animated retelling of the story by the tireless news watchers at Taiwan's NMA World Edition. See below. This puts the episode on par with some of the year's top stories, including Lindsay Lohan's stint in jail, the JetBlue guy's meltdown and Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi's assault on President Obama with a wine bottle (fact checking required on the latter). See more of NMA's masterpieces at the company's YouTube channel. Via Jalopnik. 

Filed under Animals, Automotive, Dodge, Nudd, Parody, Wieden + Kennedy
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Social-media sites get vintage ad treatment

You've gotta love these vintage-style ads for social-media sites, such as "Twitter: The sublime, mighty community with just 140 letters!" Check out four full-size executions here. While it might look like the results of a clever Photoshop contest, this is actually a campaign from Brazilian agency Moma to promote Maximedia Seminars. The tagline on the second page of each spread is: "Everything changes fast. Update." While some of the English is a bit rough, the São Paolo shop deserves credit for capturing the aw-shucks enthusiasm of golden-age American advertising, with lines like the description of YouTube as a place to "send and watch splendid and captivating films." The real proof these ads aren't actually vintage? There's not a single woman getting spanked or male lust tarp in sight. Thanks to my friend Bill for pointing me to this on Laughing Squid.

Filed under Brazil, Facebook, Griner, Parody, Skype, Twitter, Vintage, YouTube
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Mel Gibson lashes out at the Old Spice guy

Here's a pretty hilarious mashup of the Old Spice guy's videos and Mel Gibson's phone-call tirades. Obviously, Mel's side of the conversation is mostly NSFW. Nice choice for the Old Spice guy's opening line, too.

Filed under Nudd, Old Spice, Parody
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Old Spice ad inspires suave studying habits

Yes, I realize we've all heard enough about Old Spice and its astounding transformation from geriatric afterthought to social media superlative. But we still wanted to end the week with the video shown below, a new and endearing homage to the original "Man Your Man Could Smell Like" spot. Well done, Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library. Well done.

Filed under Griner, Old Spice, Parody
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Ronald barfs the rainbow on Threadless tee

Fast food clearly has its share of critics, particularly when it comes to marketing it to children. Even the man responsible for creating Burger King's mascot has his qualms. A new T-shirt at Threadless captures the critique rather graphically. The "Not So Happy" graphic tee shows Ronald McDonald literally losing his lunch against a wall while a little girl mocks him by turning McDonald's longtime "I'm lovin' it" tagline around on him. We'll see if Ronald lawyers up on Threadless.

Filed under Apparel, Food and drink, McDonald's, Morrissey, Parody, Restaurants, Threadless
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Absolut pours lemony whitesploitation flick

Absolut and TBWA\Chiat\Day have released this trailer for Lemon Drop, a short '70s action-film send-up directed by Traktor and starring Ali Larter kickin' ass when her kittens are purloined. Our heroine confuses pop-culture eras by donning skin-tight Kill Bill-style outfits while sporting a B-52s beehive. The trailer promises lots of innuendo and explosions amid the low comedy, plus—and I apologize in advance for even saying it—pussy galore. (The kittens, perverts!) The movie will premiere soon on Facebook. The style and sensibility come from tough-chick drive-in classics like Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones, but the abundance of product-tie-in lemony hues and Caucasian cast might make Lemon Drop the palest blaxploitation spoof ever. Via Adland.

Filed under Absolut, Alcohol, Gianatasio, Movies, Parody, TBWA
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Pork board angered by unicorn-meat slogan

One of the perils of a successful slogan is dealing with parodies, and one of the perils of dealing with parodies is being heavy-handed and coming off as a Grade A jackass. For example: The National Pork Board, purveyors of "The other white meat," have sent a cease-and-desist to ThinkGeek after the latter claimed its Canned Unicorn Meat is "The new white meat."  Of course, it's also "an excellent source of sparkles," but that's a separate issue. Aside from the difficulty of proving in court that anyone is confusing fictional unicorn meat with pork, there's this other little issue: Canned Unicorn Meat doesn't exist. It was an April Fool's Day gag. ThinkGeek has responded with a mocking blog post. "It was never our intention to cause a national crisis and misguide American citizens regarding the differences between the pig and the unicorn," the site says. They're offering a promotion as an apology: Get $10 off an order of $40 or more by using the code PORKBOARD at checkout.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

Filed under Controversy, Cullers, Food and drink, National Pork Board, Parody
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Mini/Porsche showdown a lot like 'Rocky IV'

Mini won't let up with its challenge to Porsche. First, it challenged Porsche to a race (the Cooper S against the 911 Carrera S). Porsche said no. So, Mini flew a taunting banner over Porsche's North American headquarters. That didn't get a rise out of Porsche at all. But now, the tension has reached Cold War proportions with the release of the video below—a spoof of Rocky IV, with Mini cast as Rocky and Porsche in the role of Ivan Drago. It's an amusing parody, though it could use an Apollo Creed character. Maybe Mercury? Via Jalopnik.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under Automotive, Mini, Nudd, Parody, Porsche
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People love making crass fake VW Polo ads

What is it about the Volkswagen Polo that makes it a target for off-color parody ads? Five years ago, we had the infamous spot with the suicide bomber driving up to a cafe in a Polo and trying to detonate a bomb—but managing only to blow himself up, as the "small but tough" roadster absorbs the blast. Now, we get the clip below, from some German film students, featuring a Polo, some violence against women and lots of blow-job gesturing. The pathetic hipster sheep in the most recent actual Polo advertising surely would not approve. Via Illegal Advertising.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under Automotive, Europe, Nudd, Parody, Volkswagen
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'Half-Life 2' promo gets the '1984' treatment

Knock-offs of Apple's "1984" are nothing new, but I still enjoyed the teaser promo below for video game Half-Life 2, which you can now download for Macs via the Steam distribution service (at a limited-time, bargain-basement price of $6.99). While the game definitely lends itself to the oppressive-future vibe, the spot is also a nice metaphor for the fact that gamers can now enjoy multiplayer games across the great PC-Mac divide. Next up, I want to see a StarCraft Zerg Rush version of Carlton Draught's "Big Ad."

—Posted by David Griner

Filed under Apple, Griner, Parody, Video games
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Netflix hypes Wii service with movie spoofs

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners parodies the four major movie genres—medieval epics, spy thrillers, musicals and films in which dogs reveal that children are trapped in wells—in four great-looking spots for Netflix (directed by Anonymous Content's Markus Walker and edited by Geoff Hounsell of Arcade Edit). See the medieval ad below, and the musical one after the jump. ("Spy" and "Rescue" aren't appearing online.) The spots promote Netflix's streaming content on the Wii. Thus, the Wii remote is the prized possession in each of the vignettes. The ads are obviously for people who already own a Wii. Luddites, meanwhile, might be confused about just what Netflix is offering here. The maiden above speaks for many when she says: "Seriously, what is it?"

—Posted by Tim Nudd

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Filed under Goodby, Silverstein, Netflix, Nudd, Parody, TV, Wii
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Unlikely model aping American Apparel ads

Jes Sachse, a Canadian woman who has a rare genetic disorder called Freeman-Sheldon syndrome, appears in a bunch of American Apparel spoof ads from photographer Holly Norris—part of an art project that seeks to question the way people with disabilities are presented in the media. Norris explains on her website: "I chose American Apparel not just for their notable style, but also for their claims that many of their models are just 'everyday' women who are employees, friends and fans of the company. However, these women fit particular body types. ... Women with disabilities go unrepresented, not only in American Apparel advertising, but also in most of popular culture." Norris got approval from American Apparel itself to run the photos in the Toronto subway, according to the Toronto Star. Of course, Sachse, 25, is hardly an everyday woman herself. She's 4-foot-9, her spine is curved, and her right leg is shorter than her left. Yet she's more comfortable in her own skin than many models. She says of the photos: "I feel like my own sexual confidence is projected through. ... I feel like I look confident in what I'm doing."

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under American Apparel, Canada, Fashion, Nudd, Parody
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