F'd Ad Fridays: Australian sex robot coffee stand

Copyranter just posted this really moronic (fake?) Australian coffee ad featuring a robotic sex doll:



Yeah, I'm mad at me for wasting my time too.

Have a great weekend.

F'd Ad Fridays: Serbian "Skins" ads are real torture

The art direction is interesting. The messaging strategy is on.

But...

Dudes! Torture? The Spanish Inquisition? It may have been over 500 years ago, but it's hardly light comedy. (Unlike when Monty Python did it.) Considering torture is still a scourge of war, and religious intolerance still a major cause, half a millennium might still be "too soon".

Via Ads of The World

F'd Ad Fridays: Bizarre, jingoistic American honey campaign

Here's a strange online campaign...

visit the odd microsite of Sue Bee Honey and you are treated to a Cold War era East German female stereotype in a filthy kitchen full of livestock, telling you how impure honey blends offer better "performance".

It also offers disgusting recipes, like "Hilda's Honey Mustard Fish Heads" and "Hilda's Honey and Radish Cobbler".

The nationality is given as "Blendoslavian", so I suppose no specific nationality could complain (unlike with Borat) but does that make a difference? The Wall may be down, but barriers of cultural ignorance remain. It's especially awkward when you're selling the "purity" of a domestic product.

And Borat, at least, was funny.

F'd Ad Fridays: Japan is really hardcore on video pirates

10 years hard labour? 10 Million Yen fine? That's way more disturbing than this goofy ad.

Via Reddit

F'd Ad Fridays: Gloriously f'd Aussie rum ad

This inspired lunacy from Leo Burnett, Sydney made my day. And I haven't even started drinking yet.



Thanks to AdFreak for the tip. (Although I had to go looking for an iPhone-friendly embed — damn Apple/Flash feud!)

F'd Ad Fridays Fashion Find: Fortunately, it's so small you can't see it

The photo, I mean.

Via The Essentialist

F'd Ad Fridays: Why I love to hate US political ads

Politics aside, this ad is actually pretty cool to watch with its futurism and its melodrama and its high production values. We never see anything this over-the-top in Canada. Our political ads look more like an outtake from Corner Gas.



It sure looks like the American Future Fund hasn't gone bankrupt...

Via rawstory

F'd Ad Fridays: Killer condoms

Found on Buzzfeed, this unprovenanced imgur is captioned "Found it while eating pizza at my Nannas. I almost choked."

The political context of the publication is blatant, but I thought I'd give Dr. Green the benefit of the doubt.

Here's what he really said:

In 2003, Norman Hearst and Sanny Chen of the University of California conducted a condom effectiveness study for the United Nations' AIDS program and found no evidence of condoms working as a primary HIV-prevention measure in Africa. UNAIDS quietly disowned the study. (The authors eventually managed to publish their findings in the quarterly Studies in Family Planning.) Since then, major articles in other peer-reviewed journals such as the Lancet, Science and BMJ have confirmed that condoms have not worked as a primary intervention in the population-wide epidemics of Africa. In a 2008 article in Science called "Reassessing HIV Prevention" 10 AIDS experts concluded that "consistent condom use has not reached a sufficiently high level, even after many years of widespread and often aggressive promotion, to produce a measurable slowing of new infections in the generalized epidemics of Sub-Saharan Africa."

Let me quickly add that condom promotion has worked in countries such as Thailand and Cambodia, where most HIV is transmitted through commercial sex and where it has been possible to enforce a 100 percent condom use policy in brothels (but not outside of them). In theory, condom promotions ought to work everywhere. And intuitively, some condom use ought to be better than no use. But that's not what the research in Africa shows.

Why not?

One reason is "risk compensation." That is, when people think they're made safe by using condoms at least some of the time, they actually engage in riskier sex.

Another factor is that people seldom use condoms in steady relationships because doing so would imply a lack of trust. (And if condom use rates go up, it's possible we are seeing an increase of casual or commercial sex.) However, it's those ongoing relationships that drive Africa's worst epidemics. In these, most HIV infections are found in general populations, not in high-risk groups such as sex workers, gay men or persons who inject drugs. And in significant proportions of African populations, people have two or more regular sex partners who overlap in time. In Botswana, which has one of the world's highest HIV rates, 43 percent of men and 17 percent of women surveyed had two or more regular sex partners in the previous year.

These ongoing multiple concurrent sex partnerships resemble a giant, invisible web of relationships through which HIV/AIDS spreads. A study in Malawi showed that even though the average number of sexual partners was only slightly over two, fully two-thirds of this population was interconnected through such networks of overlapping, ongoing relationships.

So what has worked in Africa? Strategies that break up these multiple and concurrent sexual networks -- or, in plain language, faithful mutual monogamy or at least reduction in numbers of partners, especially concurrent ones. "Closed" or faithful polygamy can work as well.

In Uganda's early, largely home-grown AIDS program, which began in 1986, the focus was on "Sticking to One Partner" or "Zero Grazing" (which meant remaining faithful within a polygamous marriage) and "Loving Faithfully." These simple messages worked. More recently, the two countries with the highest HIV infection rates, Swaziland and Botswana, have both launched campaigns that discourage people from having multiple and concurrent sexual partners.

Don't misunderstand me; I am not anti-condom. All people should have full access to condoms, and condoms should always be a backup strategy for those who will not or cannot remain in a mutually faithful relationship. This was a key point in a 2004 "consensus statement" published and endorsed by some 150 global AIDS experts, including representatives the United Nations, World Health Organization and World Bank. These experts also affirmed that for sexually active adults, the first priority should be to promote mutual fidelity. Moreover, liberals and conservatives agree that condoms cannot address challenges that remain critical in Africa such as cross-generational sex, gender inequality and an end to domestic violence, rape and sexual coercion.

No, I didn't expect the Christian Right to read all that either.

F'd Ad Fridays: What kind of "diving" are they implying here?

I'd love to know what it said in Portuguese. It might just be me, but the context of the ad reminded reminded me of this old joke.

Via Ads of The World

F'd Ad Fridays: The stupid Skittles porn spoof ad you've already seen

And if not, don't bother. It's silly, the audio will get you fired, and the multicoloured money shot is poorly SFXed.


Skittles - Newlyweds - Dir. Cousins [Not affiliated with Wrigley or Skittles. Contains explicit content not suitable for minors] from Cousins on Vimeo.

You watched it, didn't you? Not my fault.

F'd Ad Fridays: Three geeks get jumped by lad mag model

...in a monster truck.



That's Rosie Jones, of  Sun, Nuts and FHM fame.

I don't know what I hate most about this ad. Is it the blatant sexism? That's pretty standard. Is it that the awkward '80s movie feel of the whole thing?

No, it's this:

Where are their hands?

Seriously, Pepsi. You can do better than this.

Thanks to Adrants for the link.

F'd Ad Fridays: Ashley Madison makes fun of infidelity

 

It can't really count as irony, since they are well-aware that they are comparing their "discrete" adultery services with the idiocy of posting your junk on Twitter. But I still hate them both.

Bonus: Copyranter thinks it's fake.

F'd Ad Fridays: The truth about factory-made hamburgers

Via Huff Post

F'd Ad Fridays: Ass-to-front men's briefs

There has to be some sort of ancient homoerotic code I'm missing here, but I'm sure the front sphincter of these undies served some special purpose I will never understand.

Via Uniblog. Also shared by Copyranter.

F'd Ad Fridays: Awkwardness begins before birth

Adland shared this.

"Baby looking through closed curtain" Link

Talk about starting life off on the wrong... ummm... nevermind.

Real Women of Philadelphia (of Canada)

What makes a "real" woman? Cooking for her family, of course!

At least according to this promotion from Kraft:





Well, okay. It's pretty traditional niche marketing aimed at women: a recipe contest. No different from Pillsbury bake-offs from days gone by, but now socialized on Web 2.0.

The part that makes me uncomfortable is the "Real Women" tag. Real Women of Canada is a social conservative group who have, for many years, positioned themselves as reactionaries to feminism. They believe women should be stay-at-home mothers if at all possible, and the oppose publicly funded childcare. They are also anti-union, anti-human-rights-commissions (?), anti-choice, anti-divorce and anti- same-sex marriage. (As well as wanting softcore "porn" — meaning any "explicit sexual material" — totally banned.)

This is hardly the kind of apolitical, nicey-nice brand association a big wheel like Kraft would want to muck about with. But there it is. Probably an unfortunate accident, when they adapted the "Real Housewives" reality show theme.

On the other hand, though, "Real Women of Canada" have been around since the '80s. I remember them from the time when more and more women were entering the workforce. How could they miss that, when going through the legal and Google hoops copywriters and client legal departments go through to secure a trademark?

RWoC didn't have any issues stealing the U.S. Girl Scouts logo, though...

Maybe they're trying to take back the "real women" tag, but I doubt it. I think it's just lazy research and an unfortunate coincidence between a contest the reinforces women's exclusive role in the kitchen and an organization that wants to keep them there.

That said, the hosts seem like nice non-crazy people:
 

Online and meat worlds are colliding at the Better Business Bureau

JP Moore of Buzzfeed shares these examples of common internet meme faces being used in the BBB's "Top Online Scams" page.

Most originate in social media's darkside, 4chan, but quickly filter outwards to more manstream fora, groups and networks.

I've been trying to convince my clients of the potential for using this kind of borrowed interest (if the target market's right) literally for years. It's nice to see.

Jason Alexander for the Netflix Relief Fund (Flash only)

Forget The Human Fund. Now Jason Alexander is tackling the big issues: like rising rates of Netflix digital video rental rates:

Netflix Relief Fund with Jason Alexander from Jason Alexander

Via Funny or Die/The Daily What

Colonel Sanders ad can be seen from space

So very wrong, even wronger than the Double-Down, is that this KFC ad has been sitting in the ground near Rachel, Nevada, for five years. You can see it for yourself here.

When the aliens come and ask to be taken to our leader, they'll be pretty disappointed that he's been dead since 1980. The invasion won't last long, though, because once they develop a taste for the dirty bird they'll be completely helpless.

My blog about contextual sex trafficking ads ad-tracts a sex trafficking spambot

original post here

How meta... I think I'll leave it up there just for the whole internetness of it all.

White House Twitter feed Rick Rolls some guy

"wiggsd" must be so proud! Rick Rolled by the White House!

(In case they pull it, the link is tinyurl.com/y8ufsnp)

Awesome!

Test your B.Q. (Brotherhood Quotient)

click to read

Via Reddit/imgur comes this awkward attempt at teaching equality to kids in a 45-year-old comic book ad.

Amusing aside: "long-hair music" actually referred to classical composers back then. I recall a joke about it being compared to hippie music in a 1970s Jesus-freak Archie comic.

Hipmunk's expository supers are very un-hip

Not that it was a great ad without them, but if you're going to parody memes let your performance stand on its own merit. You don't need to label and link every one.

The anti-PETA infographic that's going around

I'm not testifying as to the validity of all these claims, as it came from Digg and the source URLs are non-clickable, but DAMN!

 

Thanks to Casey for the share.

Epic media package

Found on imgur with the caption, "I found this in my country's newspaper. Bad ad placement!"

Ummm... no. They obviously bought the whole page as a **ahem** package and controlled the surrounding fake editorial. It's brilliant, really, if rather cheeky.

McDonald's provides the best unintentional Mac ad ever

You always knew they were a Big Mac supporter. (Groan)

Adland's editor, Åsk, shared this image on Google+ last night, and I was able to track it back to here.

Click to supersize

It is claimed to be an authentic McDonald's wifi setup guide, with parallel Windows and Mac instructions. (Is Linux on the back?)

For all the reasons I have to hate Apple, this is a good reminder why I love them too.

If you know this to be a hoax, or can provide corroborating sightings, please let me know

Lancome ad banned in Britain for heavy-handed Julia Roberts Photoshop

AdWomen reports that the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)  has ordered pulled a make-up ad starring Julia Roberts because "these campaigns don’t show the real results that L’Oreal’s products can achieve."

When did Britney Spears get such a wide mouth?

As I've stated before, despite my objection to many harmful images in advertising, with the exception of really egregious "thinning", photo retouching is not a big issue for me. It's just digital illustration, and should be treated as such. If we can teach that to our impressionable youth, we won't have to worry about them doing tragic post-production work on their own bodies.

I far prefer the Photoshop Disasters approach of exposing and mocking overdone manipulation. In this case, "Pretty Woman" Roberts is not even recognizable as herself.

A Maybelline ad with Christy Turlington was banned for similar reasons.

Maybe she's born with it... maybe it's Photoshop CS5 Extended

The most selfish $68,000 anniversary gift you will see today

Zsa Zsa Gabor has emerged from her coma, but she probably isn't travelling Sunset Boulevard much these days. Which is a shame, because her Prince of a husband tells TMZ that he paid $68,000 to put this billboard up there for a month:

How very romantic of him. Too bad she can't enjoy it.

British reactions to Walmart

This would make a decent ad for the mega-chain, if they had any sense of humour whatsoever:

Lingerie ads poke fun at News of The World scandal

Well, that was quick. The ink hasn't yet dried on the last issue of News of The World following the phone hacking scandal that implicated Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks (among others) and brands are already cashing in on the borrowed interest.

These ads are by German agency Glow for Blush lingerie.

See the rest of the campaign at Ads of The World.

Seinfeld recut as an inspirational film trailer

 Remember "The Human Fund"? Now it has been turned into the summer's must-see weepy date movie. At least, in someone's head...



I laughed. I cried. Yadda yadda...

The ties that bind (women to domestic servitude)

Yesterday, my friends at Sociological Images shared this absolutely appalling peek into the world that our parents and/or grandparents came out of:

click to enlarge and read

I would be even more appalled if the poor guy wasn't forced to wear a tie while sleeping (people were much more formal back then, don't you know), if the ties weren't so damned nifty, and if Madge had not filled his coffee with Drain-o so that she could run away to Paris with her divorced friend Bitsy.

Contextual tourism ad failure

They're sometimes funny, sometimes shocking. But this one is just sad:

Anti-merger AT&T/T-Mobile parody ads: perhaps truth, but poorly told

Via savetheinternet.com, this series of ads simultaneously parody T-Mobile ads and the Mac series that inspired them to protest the AT&T/T-Mobile merger:









Cute writing, but the subpar acting (especially by the men) really detracts from the serious message, which is all about the threats to jobs, innovation, competitive pricing and even free speech posed by a telecom monopoly.

Plus, the faux T-Mobile woman is no substitute for the sparkle of Canada's own Carly Foulkes...

For the love of all that is vaginal, please stop!

Summer's Eve pissed off women and men alike last year with their appalling "deodorize your ladybits before asking for a raise" ad. Then they baffled with their attempted "That's So Vaginal!" viral.

Now, they're continuing their (ironic, in my opinion) celebration of the vagina in this over-the-top epic:



"Show it a little love"? Seriously?  I'm sure that you already know the best way to love yourself below is to keep scented and irritating products the hell out of there.

According to AdFreak, Summer's Eve attempted to stop the bad PR by going on a "listening tour" of the United States. The result is this campaign from The Richards Group that quickly goes from glorifying ancient motherhood and fertility cults to positioning a woman's sex as a possession for men to fight and kill over. And this is supposed to be a step forward?

This unmitigated crapfest follows hot on the heels of a YouTube campaign featuring patronizing talking vaginahands:









Here's an idea: if you really care so much about women's intimate health, stop spreading misinformation about the malodorousness and care of their privates just to sell useless and damaging chemical crap.

And leave the vagina viral marketing to Mooncup. They do it way better.

That may be it for Work That Matters this week. I'm off to the mostly-offline bliss of the cottage. After reviewing a campaign like this, I need a break from being an adman.

Branded breast conquers the Paraguayan soccer market

If you are appalled by sexist advertising, you are going to have a hard time making it through this video case study from Biedermann McCann, Paraguay (the same people who brought you yesterday's childish self-promo ads):



Here are the Cole's Notes: The agency didn't have a large budget to reach male soccer fans during a saturated ad blitz, so they decided to use a pure sex sell. They literally "branded" model Larissa Riquelme by tattooing (temporarily, one hopes) their logo on her left breast. They then marketed her as the "World Cup Girlfriend" on billboards and in public appearances. They proudly add "When people saw Larissa, they looked at her boob. When they looked at her boob, they saw AXE."

It's all very exploitative, and Ms. Riquelme (said to be Paraguay's highest-paid model) is complicit in the objectification of her body. Outside of the AXE promotion, she is also known for getting naked in public to support Team Paraguay.

The use of sex in this consumer campaign is blunt and unapologetic, and the case study treats men as easily-manipulated fools and women as a sensual commodity. My question for you, however, is whether their complete honesty and transparency about their sexploitation makes them any better or worse than advertisers who hide behind a facade of humour or art...

Via Ads of The World

F'd Ad Fridays: Vintage Coppertone ad lies terrible lies

I wonder whatever happened to that model?

I have to assume assume something like this. If she's even alive.

Ad Via Found in Mom's Basement

F'd Ad Fridays: I don't know what disturbs me most about this ad

Is it that it asks you to reach into a hold in someone's body and get unknown goop all over your hands, or the fact that the agency responsible is named "Cooch Creative"?

I know Australia has a real skin cancer problem, but damn that's gross!

Via Ads of The World

F'd Ad Fridays: Childish agency self-promo

It's kind of cute, actually. Here at Acart, we are allowed and even encouraged to bring our kids into work on PD days, etc.

At Biedermann McCann, in Paraguay, they actually let the kids do the agency work:

I can really think of no other explanation for these.

Via Ads of The World

F'd Ad Fridays: Exploiting the death of a rock star's child for fun and profit

click to enlarge and read

"Love All, Serve All, Offend All."

Via Copyranter

F'd Ad Fridays: Premenstrual Edition

Last month, Cannes awarded a campaign that likened men to war heroes for putting up with their partners' periods.

Now the California Milk Processor Board (of "Got Milk?"fame) are getting in on the sexist action:

And this isn't just a couple of ads; it's a huge campaign that includes a branded microsite that very quickly beats the joke to death.

The campaign has been roundly panned on social media, and Ms. Magazine has even started a petition to get it pulled.

From the Ms. blog:

Jeff Goodby, of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, the creative agency behind the campaign, is sitting in that sweet spot where he gets to capitalize on anti-feminist humor about women being too sensitive and/or irrationally angry, and then write off any criticism as women being too sensitive and/or irrationally angry. Despite Goodby’s insistence that women with a sense of humor (i.e. not fuddy-duddy old feminists) will find this hilarious, such stereotypes are in fact anti-women. They’re the same stereotypes cited by those trying to keep women out of good jobs, and those who say we shouldn’t have a woman president because she’d start a war just because it was her time of the month. Additionally, jokes about women’s irrational anger or emotional instability reinforce the idea that men shouldn’t have to work hard in a relationship, a marriage, or at anything, really, because if a woman gets upset it’s because of her hormones and not for any rational, legitimate reason.

I also wonder what another women's advocacy group, La Leche League, will have to say to the California Milk Processor Board — their partner in an ongoing "Got Breastmilk?" promotion.

Tip via AdFreak

F'd Ad Fridays: Vintage phone sex ad

Via Buzzfeed

The best part is the dude talking on it.

"Why yes, I AM calling you from the sex phone!
I am also not wearing any pants."

F'd Ad Fridays: My MILFSHAKE brings all the boys to the yard...

 I stare and stare at this Swedish print ad, and I still can't figure out what they're getting at:

Tip via Copyranter. Thanks to Jakob Magnusson for the hi-res image.

F'd Ad Fridays: The Burger King workout

Copyranter beat me to this one, but I'm sharing anyway because it is deeply effed (and I have lunch on my mind).

"Listen to your gut
Taste is king"

I don't know how things work in Germany, but over here we don't generally associate fast food with physical fitness. The Photoshop work is also creepy as hell.

Via Ads of The World