My Top Five Posts of 2012

It's been a weird year for me, but I keep coming back to this blog as a way to think out loud about my complicated relationship with the advertising industry (on which I depend to pay my half of the mortgage). Luckily for me, quite a few people have decided that these thoughts are worth reading. Thank you for that. Here were your five favourites.

#5: FHM presents "The 100 sexiest women in nonexistence"
June 18

This was a silly self-parody of FHM's "100 Sexiest Women in the World" list, but open to user nominations and votes featuring imaginary women of fiction, legend, pop culture and advertising. The contest site is no longer live, so I have no idea who won.


#4: Jesus has a quickie with Lady Liberty in Ukrainian shock ad
November 20

This was a joke ad, by someone named Alexander Bozhko for "Altai Fake Festival" — something akin to the Chip Shop Awards. But that didn't stop it from being taken as real, once it showed up on Ads of The World.

Thanks to my Ukrainian friend Eugene Smirnov helped me get to the bottom (heh heh) of this one. Also to Mark Duffy ("Copyranter") who posted my debunking on Buzzfeed, leading to big analytics.


#3 Classic Venus nudes altered for today's beauty standards
February 7

This was a look at how Italian social issues artist Anna Utopia Giordano put classic Venus nudes under the harsh knife of photoshop to make a point about changing beauty standards in media. The post got a lot of viral lift after being linked on Sociological Images.


#2 Topless Female Trampolining World Championships
September 6



What can I say? Certain keywords always lead to high readership.

In this case, the post was a teaser for a campaign by Britain’s CoppaFeel! and Male Cancer Awareness Campaign (MCAC) about male breast cancer. I followed it up on Osocio.


#1 Train etiquette campaign parodies are "super simple stuff"
June 26

My most-clicked post of 2012 was a bit of a surprise to me, as it had no naked ladies in it whatsoever. It's about how a public transit etiquette campaign by Queensland Rail became a popular parody meme. I guess I need more like that.


Well, that's all for me in 2012. This year, I have give this blog a little more focus on the issues that are of most professional interest to me, particularly ethics. (Which is why the name is changing.)

But what would you like to see more of? I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.

If the world is ending soon, why bother eating healthy?

That seems to be the message behind this ad for a hamburger made with beef, bacon and "rendered pancetta"and topped with bacon and prosciutto, and served on a bacon bun.

According to Burger Business, this $12 monstrosity is being offered by California chain Slater's 50/50 (the name is a reference to all their patties being half beef and half ground bacon). As the copy promises, if the Mayan apocalypse  is coming, you might as well eat whatever you feel like.

Worst case scenario, you die with a belly full of salt and grease. Best case, you have to live with it.

Olympic media coverage channels "unnecessary censorship meme

Via AOTW

Remember that great campaign by Reporters Without Borders, called "Censorship tells the wrong story"?

It's one expression of a meme, in which innocent images are made "dirty" by the power of imagination.

Via Ebaum's World

I think you get the point.

Anyway, Buzzfeed's Jack Moore has noted and collected some hilarious examples of accidental "unnecessary censorship" of male Olympic swimmers at the 2012 London Games:

Golly!

See the rest at the original post.

What the Falklands, Argentina? #FdAdFriday

Oh, my. Argentina really is poking the bear. (Or rather, the bulldog.)

In this new spot for Argentina's Olympic team, field hockey captain Fernando Zylberberg run through the Falklands, and (according to Yahoo! News) ends his workout "on the island's Great War Memorial, which honours British sailors who died in World War I".

The tagline then claims the islands as "Argentine soil"...

For those of you not born yet 30 years ago, at the time Great Britain and Argentina went to war over the desolate British territorial islands off the southern coast of South America. 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel and three Falkland Islanders died during the conflict, which the Brits won.

Argentina has never given up its claim to the islands, however, and has been making increasingly threatening statements about having another go at them.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague was unimpressed by this attempt to politicize the Olympics:

"Of course in Britain we remain absolutely steadfast in our support for the self determination of the Falkland Islanders and we will always support that," he added.

"It is a rather sad stunt, it won't impress anybody in the world. We are not do going to take any actual action in response to it."

Barbie 2012

Cross-posted at Sociological Images

Barbie is running for President of The United States of America... again.

The candidate as Euro-American.

She even has a campaign Tumblr. But what is her platform?

Okay, so she's not taking any strong stands on the GOP's War on Women's reproductive rights. But she did come up with a totally awesome nickname for her campaign ("Glam-paign"). 

Apparently, however, candidate Barbie will do something no other candidate can: she will bridge the racial divide in America by morphing herself into four different ethnicities!

The candidate as African American, Asian American and Latina(?) American.

Yes, I get that this is a toy. And the Miss-America-style platitudes are to be expected from a company that wants to sell to both sides of the political divide. But it's a shame that girls don't get a chance to see that women really can change the world.

This week, Malawi swore in Southern Africa's first female head of a country. She wasn't elected as such, but as Vice President took the position after President Bingu wa Mutharika died in office. (A scenario that could have happened with Sarah Palin, had John McCain won the Presidency.)

Other women currently heading states and countries are:

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - President of Liberia
Doris Leuthard, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Simonetta Sommaruga - Members of the Swiss Federal Council, Switzerland
Pratibha Patil - President of India
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner - President of Argentina
Dalia Grybauskaitė - President of Lithuania
Laura Chinchilla - President of Costa Rica
Dilma Rousseff - President of Brazil
Atifete Jahjaga - President of Kosovo
Monique Ohsan Bellepeau - Acting President of Mauritius
Slavica Đukić Dejanović - Acting President of Serbia

And:

Angela Merkel – Chancellor of Germany
Julia Gillard - PM of Australia
Yingluck Shinawatra – PM of Thailand
Helle Thorning-Schmidt – PM of Denmark
Portia Simpson-Miller – PM of Jamaica
Kamla Persad-Bissessar – PM of Trinidad and Tobago
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir – PM of Iceland (Appointed)
Hasina Wazed – PM of Bangladesh 

The United States has yet to elect a woman to the position. And while Canada has had two appointed female Vice-Regents, we have yet to elect a woman to the Prime Minister's Office. (Kim Campbell was nominated for the position directly by her party.)

So perhaps it's time for Barbie, who has been in every federal election since 1992, to campaign a little harder. Or for North American countries to catch up with the rest of the world and nominate and elect a woman of substance who isn't seen as just "another Barbie".

Campari's 2012 calendar leaves a bitter taste in my mouth

Ads of The World shared this photoshoot from Campari's 2012 "end of the world" calendar on Facebook. It shows Milla Jovovich in "12 surreal dresses representing some of the possible disasters that will end the world".

Oh, a tsunami dress! How tasteful. I'm sure Japan particularly likes this one.

And floods! Floods are always funny. Especially in Thailand.

This one will go over well in New Orleans.

And a volcano? Superstitious Italians really shouldn't go there.

Yeah, it's all a joke. (They have a 6-armed alien Jovovich in there, for god's sake.) But it seems in poor taste, considering how many of these armageddon situations have come true for so many people. Plus, the copy and shots are kind of tacky.

Britain: What's so great about it?*

(*With a nod to every Irish, Scottish and Welshman/woman who has ever uttered that phrase.)

In advance of the 2012 London Olympics, The UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport has launched a postcard and poster campaign that cranks the nationalism up to WWII-era levels.

This time, however, the propaganda is aimed at the outside world. The campaign was developed by the DCMS on behalf of the Prime Minister, working with colleagues at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK Trade & Investment, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, VisitBritain, and the British Council. 

The examples of "greatness" run the gamut from general themes like environment, scenery, research and technology to modern icons such as Wallace & Gromit, Richard Branson,  serial wife-killer Henry VIII and shoe fetishist Nicholas Kirkwood.

Below I've posted all the postcards (ignore the crop marks, they're converted PDFs). What do you think of Great Britain's newfound public patriotism? Is it just what they need, or is that kind of patriotism a little scary these days?

Thanks to Neil H. for the tip.