Bud Light's #UpForWhatever campaign raises Congresswoman's ire

Oh, Bud. What were you thinking?

My friend Lyndsay just drew my attention to the marketing line on a Bud Light label that is accidentally(?) anti-consent.

The campaign, which features young people doing stupid things after drinking away their inhibitions, includes beer labels with throwaway lines like "The perfect beer for singing out loud, even if you don't know the words," and "The perfect beer for going without a ticket and still getting into the show."

Unfortunately, one of these lines was “The perfect beer for removing 'no' from your vocabulary for the night.”

As Chris Morran writes at Consumerist,

"Given the role that alcohol plays in many things that would have been a 'no' without a night a drinking — driving under the influence, sexual assault, vandalism, public urination, random “woot-woot”-ing as you ping-pong down the sidewalk — it’s probably not the best idea for a multinational multibillion-dollar business like Bud Light’s parent company AB InBev to publicly acknowledge that its product can lead users down a path to stupid consequences."

A storm in a beer stein? Hardly. The mistake has motivated US Congresswoman Nita Lowey to publicly admonish the brand on Twitter:

RT if you agree @budlight #UpForWhatever campaign should promote responsible - not reckless - drinking. #NoMeansNo pic.twitter.com/EFxwi2nZ4w
— Nita Lowey (@NitaLowey) April 28, 2015

Twitter is lighting up with angry disapproval of the marketing and #nomeansno Tweets.

It's quite possible that this line was simply intended to be about partying without a care, but in today's media environment marketers need to be especially sensitive about miscommunication.

They also have to be responsive to disasters like this. But @budlight has not Tweeted since April 26. Double fail.

UPDATE: BuzzFeed managed to get this statement from  Anheuser-Busch vice president Alexander Lambrecht:

“The Bud Light Up for Whatever campaign, now in its second year, has inspired millions of consumers to engage with our brand in a positive and light-hearted way. In this spirit, we created more than 140 different scroll messages intended to encourage spontaneous fun. It’s clear that this message missed the mark, and we regret it. We would never condone disrespectful or irresponsible behavior.”

UPDATE 2:

@Creativetweets Couldn't agree more. This one's an undisputable facepalm. And here it is - http://t.co/lzd7JGxevc
— Lisa Weser (@LisaWeser) April 28, 2015

US government finally doing something about those Mélissa Theuriau fake news ads

Those fake online news ads for sketchy products that we all hate have finally got the attention of American regulators.

Consumerist reports:

The Federal Trade Commission has filed a suit [PDF] against the operators of several of these sites, for allegedly violating the law by making unsubstantiated weight loss claims, failing to disclose that endorsers were paid for their positive feedback, faking news articles and comments on their sites, and, perhaps most egregiously, using a headshot of an existing French news anchor to create a “staff reporter” out of whole cloth. 

According to the FTC’s complaint, shortly after the Dr. Oz piece — which did not mention any specific brand of green coffee extract — the people behind Florida-based dietary supplement “Pure Green Coffee” began snapping numerous URLs both to sell their product to customers and to provide misleading and unfounded weight loss claims in the form of faked news stories and bought-and-paid-for testimonials.

The "existing French news anchor" is Mélissa Theuriau, whose image went viral a few years ago because the internet decided she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Subsequently, her image was stolen and repurposed on ads like this:

That image is from a blogpost I did more than three years ago.

I'm not sure why the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection only got involved now, but they're hopping mad.

Here's their Director, Jessica Rich: “Not only did these defendants trick consumers with their phony weight loss claims, they also compounded the deception by advertising on pretend news sites, making it impossible for people to know whether they were seeing news or an ad.”

From their May 19th press release:

The FTC charged the defendants with false and unsupported advertising claims, including: 

that consumers using Pure Green Coffee can lose 20 pounds in four weeks; 16 percent of body fat in twelve weeks; and 30 pounds and four-to-six inches of belly fat in three to five months. 

that studies prove Pure Green Coffee use can result in average weight loss of 17 pounds in 12 weeks or 22 weeks, weight loss of 10.5 percent, and body fat loss of 16 percent without diet or exercise. 

that certain websites linked to the defendants’ sites are objective news sites with articles written by objective news reporters and that the comments following the supposed articles reflected views of independent consumers. 

The FTC also charged the defendants with deceptively failing to disclose that consumers who endorsed the supplement had received it for free and were paid to provide a video testimonial.

So fake testimonials and ads presented as news are not OK anymore? Has anyone explained this to Taboola,  Outbrain, and other click-parasites of the internet?

Via Think Progress, of all places.

Here's the week's worst liquor-related PSA, courtesy Pennsylvania state liquor workers

A similar PSA by Ontario's brewers' retail monopoly to fight against allowing beer in convenience stores took a beating in Canadian media.

But its scare tactics pale in comparison to the epically shoddy writing, acting, and production in this anti-privatization one by UFCW Local 1776, the union representing public Wine & Spirits employees in Pennsylvania:



As Consumerist puts it, "it’s at least good for a laugh while trying to ride out the rest of your Friday afternoon at work."

Here's a non-Flash embed:

Girls: Who needs math when you can shop?

Consumerist shared this Facebook photo of a shirt sold at The Children's Place. In the 21st Century.

A customer named Erin Shipp wrote on the company's FB wall:

I dropped by one of your stores over the weekend and was really disgusted by the sexist approach to girls' clothing. It's bad enough that so much of it is pink and purple, but the "best subjects" t-shirt is pretty terrible so is the "this princess is no drama queen" one. What, boys get to have aspirations to do things and girls are supposed to be materialistic wannabe princesses angling to catch a man before third grade? I have a son and haven't paid much attention to your girl clothes before this, but I was hoping to purchase a gift. Not only did I leave empty-handed, but I won't be returning.

Jezebel's Laura Beck adds some context:

By contrast, their boys t-shirts are all about surfing and playing drums and being a superhero. They're by no means perfect, but they paint the picture of a pro-active kid putting himself out there and making things happen. If the company doesn't want to mix all the shirts together —boys and girls basically have the same bodies at those ages, why can't they choose for themselves?

Sexist t-shirt controversy seems to pop up with regularity these days. But the ones furthering anti-academic female stereotypes are among the worst.

In their 2000 paper “Gender Differences in Academic Attitudes among Gifted Elementary School Students”, researchers at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Talented Elementary Students, suggested to parents:

"...expose both boys and girls to activities involving all kinds of skills. They can guard against assuming that boys will like math/science and girls will prefer verbal activities. They can try to ensure that their children’s teachers don’t make these assumptions or treat children differently based on gender.” 

That was 13 years ago. More recently, it has been observed that girls are outpacing boys in later academic achievement, as well as representing more than half of post-secondary enrolment. So these shirts are not just sexist, they're out-of-touch.

I have a young son, and I have shopped at The Children's Place. (It's a little expensive, but they turn over and liquidate stock quickly.) I'll be watching when, or if, the company responds.

Stinky PSA campaign causes a real-life gas leak panic

Via NY Daily News

Here's a funny one.

According to the Great Falls Tribune, reports of a major natural gas leak in the Montana city's business section caused the evacuation of several buildings yesterday.

The cause? Scratch-n-sniff direct mailers designed to educate the public about what a gas leak smells like:

Nick Bohr, general manager at Energy West, said workers at the company were cleaning out some storage areas and discarded several boxes of scratch-and-sniff cards that it sent out to customers in the past to educate them on what natural gas smells like. 

“They were expired, and they were old,” Bohr said. “They threw them into the Dumpsters.” 

When the cards were picked up by sanitation trucks and crushed, “It was the same as if they had scratched them.”

Natural gas doesn't have a detectable odour of its own, but has a chemical (t-butyl mercaptan or thiophane) added to give it a foul "rotten egg" smell so that people can detect leaks.

Via Philly.com

Energy West had been distributing the PSA cards to customers as part of a safety awareness campaign.

“In a sense, it worked the way it was supposed to,” commented Nick Bohr, general manager at Energy West, as part of the company's apology for the inconvenience. They also mentioned that there was no public safety or environmental concern about putting the expired cards in the trash.

If you want stinky PSA stickers of your own, you can order them by the thousand here.

Tip via The Consumerist

LEGO suffers another PR setback over street harassment sticker

Oh, LEGO... You used to be so cool. You sometimes still are. But too often now,  you're just so far behind the times it's sad.

This puffy sticker set was, according to AdFreak's David Gianatasio, released in 2010 by defunct licensee Creative Imagination. So they had a convenient player to throw under the bus.

But they still screwed it up. At first.

The whole PR nightmare began a little over a week ago when journalist and press freedom organizer Josh Stearns posted a photo of it on his Tumblr bog, Talking To Strangers:

I was stunned. Maybe it’s the fact that I just saw the team at Hollaback speak this month, or maybe it is that this is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, or maybe it is just that street harassment sucks. But chances are it was all three of these things that made me so mad to see a brand I love pushing this sort of thing. 

The Hollaback website notes that street harassment is the most prevalent form of sexual violence for both men and women in the United States. Internationally, they point out, “studies show that between 70-99% of women experience street harassment at some point during their lives.”

The issue was picked up by Slate and championed by the group Stop Street Harassment. That got LEGO's attention.

First, Charlotte Simonsen, Senior Director at LEGO’s corporate communications office, told Josh “To communicate the LEGO experience to children we typically use humor and we are sorry that you were unhappy with the way a minifigure was portrayed here.”

That's what we in the communication industry refer to as a "non-apology". So Josh wrote back and got the following reply from Andrea Ryder, the head of the LEGO Group’s Outbound Licensing Department, who said she was "truly sorry" that Josh "had a negative experience" with a LEGO product. She refered him to LEGO's brand values, including the line "Caring is about the desire to make a positive difference in the lives of children, for our partners, colleagues and the world we find ourselves in, and considering their perspective in everything we do." And she concluded, "we would not approve such a product again."

This is progress in brand responsibility, but it does not happen unless people are willing to speak up about the little things that reveal big problems in our society.


Laura Northrup from Consumerist wrote, "Street harassment isn’t the most pressing issue facing women today, but it can be a problem, and certainly isn’t appropriate for a children’s product."

I beg to differ on how serious this "one little picture" really is.

Just recently, I was having a conversation with someone from Hollaback about street harassment and rape culture. When you look at the big picture, the normalization of sexual harassment through bystander apathy is just one end of a continuum that ends with the dehumanization of women as targets of sexual violence.

Egg brand wants you to "get locally laid"

Being a product of the reproductive process, eggs are a natural fit with sexually suggestive marketing. Or are they?

Consumerist's Mary Beth Quirk implants her tongue firmly in her cheek as she writes, "So you know how like, women are sometimes referred to as 'chicks,' and then also so are baby chickens? Well someone has finally had the marketing smarts to unite the two in what is a pretty chuckle-worthy company identity. Of course that company sells eggs that are 'locally laid.' Get it?"

Yes. I do get it. If you go to this Minnesota company's site, you are treated to even more punnery:

Whether you find it clever or stupid, the good news is that the company is actually a small, sustainable, family operation. Jason Amundsen, who gave himself the title "Head Clucker" is the dad in a family of four who claims he was inspired by Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and environmentalist farmer Joel Salatin.

His wife, Lucie Amundsen, calls herself "Marketing Chick" and she "promises never to use the term “Eggs-cellent” in any Locally Laid promotional material." 

The puns may be brutal, but the eggs sound pretty good.

"Are you there, Twitter? It's me, @judyblume"

Ring a bell?

I just read about this bit of celebrity brand-bashing at The Consumerist.

While any dissatisfied customer with a Twitter account is bad news, pissing off a beloved author of frank and thought-provoking coming-of-age books with 76,054 devoted followers is even worse.

We'll have to wait and see if Delta figures this one out.

Unfortunate grocery store context

Via The Consumerist

Or is it? Happy weekend.

Your world, wrapped in Cellophane

When Cellophane was invented at the beginning of the 20th Century, it must have seemed like a miracle. Foods and products once wrapped in ratty old paper and sack could be kept fresh, clean and attractive under wrap.

After all, this was an era in which the discovery of germs had created intense hygienic anxiety (My paternal grandmother used to Lysol-bomb the bathroom several times a day; my maternal one was a bleach fanatic in the kitchen.) The new synthetic packaging was the perfect way to keep contagion out of your cheese:

Bacon:

Smokes:

 And... underpants?

But perhaps those plastic-age consumers were a little too enthusiastic...

These baby ads have been lampooned by Copyranter, among others. I can see what those naive old admen were up to, just using the old standard of using a cute baby to sell anything. But couldn't they at least have punched a few air holes?

Collection via Retronaut

Want to stop the seal hunt? First stop $11 peanut butter in Nunavut

We moved into their land, to get access to valuable resources. We brought the "civilizing" influence of schools, houses and grocery stores to Canada's northern peoples in Nunavut. And now that we've made our case that shopping is better than hunting, we offer them...

The problem, you see, is that almost anything made on a farm or a factory has to be flown in. The traditional diet was mostly meat — mammals and birds from the land and sea, supplemented with fish and berries in season. We're talking caribou, polar bears, seals, whales...

Yeah, that's right. Animals the world doesn't want hunted anymore. But what are the alternatives?

Some Nunavut activists have taken their story to the world, via a Facebook Group called "Feeding My Family". Here, they share their photos of outrageous food prices (the ones above showed up on Buzzfeed) as well as their stories of food insecurity. They have since shown up on The Consumerist,  CBC, The Toronto Star, Huffington Post, and elsewhere.

But what can really be done?

Well, when you have the world's attention, you seize the moment. Just last month, UN special rapporteur for food Olivier De Schutter stated that Canada has over 800,000 households that are considered "food insecure" — a shocking statistic for a first-world country. So an Iqaluit resident, Jessica Ann, started a Change.org petition to the Government of Canada, stating:

Over 70% of Nunavut families with children between the ages of 3-5 are food insecure. Poverty, climate change and high food prices mean that many families in Nunavut go hungry. The UN Rapporteur recently issued a report about Canada's 800,000 families who are food insecure, calling food insecurity in our country a "great concern". The Conservative MP for Nunavut, Leona Aglukkaq, shamed Nunavummiut with her immature and out-of-touch response to the UN Rapporteur. 

We, the people of Nunavut, deserve better from our federal government. Please sign this petition to ask for concrete, effective change that will address poverty and food insecurity in our communities.

There was a time, up there, when food security depended on skill, cooperation, weather and luck. Today, it depends on compassion and fairness.

If people really want to save the seals, etc., maybe we should look at providing affordable alternatives first.

ASUS make asses of themselves on Twitter

Some anonymous Twitter admin at ASUS (Taiwanese maker of, among other things, my old lemon of a netbook) forgot that while brands are like people, he was not the brand.

Yeah, I'm going to assume it was a "he".

The problem being that brands, like celebrities and politicians, are held to higher standards on social media than miscellaneous clods like you and me. When someone representing them forgets that and makes an offhand comment (such as in the Arab Spring Kenneth Cole disaster) it will be used against the brand. Pretty much forever.

Via Consumerist

Somehow, I don't think this beer will sell well in the UK #pong

The Consumerist shared the news about this new brand of beer made specifically for American students' drinking games.

Beer pong is similar to the "quarters"game I played in high school, but uses ping pong balls rather than coins. The object is the same: get one in the glass, and your opponent has to drink. (Since your coordination diminishes the more you lose, it's pretty much a guaranteed puke for someone. Lovely.)

According to the Pong Beer site:

"We are beer fanatics committed to providing the highest quality, most flavorful, premium product at a reasonable price.  

Pong Beer is brewed using only the finest natural ingredients to produce an exceptionally crisp, smooth, and refreshing light beer."

 A "crisp, smooth, and refreshing light beer"? Great. But the brand name also brings to mind an unfortunate bit of British slang:

Obscure? The thesaurus entry even has a picture:

Probably not a problem for the brewers, though, since the Brits probably already think most mainstream American beer is pongy...

Best Typo of Valentine's Day 2012

Courtesy Teleflora. As shared by a Consumerist reader, who explains:

"This was not my intended message. I had said she was the best lover in the whole world. I tried calling Teleflora about it, but it seems as though their lines are all disconnected or overwhelmed. Am I the victim of mistyping by someone else, or is this more widespread and possibly a disgruntled employee making everyone pay?"

That must have been awkward.

If you've seen a better one, please post it below.

Chick-Fil-A by no means wants you to eat more kale

That's Vermont artist Bo Muller-Moore, who sells his curious "Eat More Kale" shirts at eatmorekale.com. There, he says "I'm also about eating locally, supporting local farmers, bakers, famers markets, farm stands, CSA's, community gardens and restaurants, sustainable lifestyles, social commentary and community. Most importantly, I'm about printin' Vermont's one-at-a-time orginial design t-shirts. Have fun and remember: eat more kale!!!"

The man loves kale.

But Chick-Fil-A think it's a ripoff of their ads:

They have sent him a cease and desist letter, and are apparently prepared to sue. They even want him to hand over his internet domain. But Muller-Moore has lawyered up and declares, "Our plan is to not back down. This feels like David versus Goliath. I know what it's like to protect what's yours in business."

As does the big chicken chain, which will probably not give up either unless it starts to hurt their PR. Let's hope it does.

Via The Consumerist and Yahoo! Finance

F'd Ad Fridays: Why "try before you buy" does not apply to everything you wear

Ewww.

Also, "Wow! Those are cheap!

(Pic via The Consumerist)

American Apparel's "Next Big Thing" is obviously not "growing a pair"

Last month, American Apparel impressed nobody when it launched it's "Next Big Thing" model search for plus-sized amateur porn fashion models.

But then it got good. Nancy Upton, a size 12 model with a wicked sense of humour, entered the following pictures in an attempt to lampoon the contest with the disclaimer, "my good friend Shannon Skloss came over to take some "booty-full" photos of me... but I just couldn't stop eating."

Nancy, in a public tribute to her awsomeness, won the contest by popular vote. But AA refused to crown her as their new booty queen. More than that, they responded with the following insufferable whine:

Dear Nancy Upton,

My name is Iris Alonzo and I am a Creative Director at American Apparel. Along with four other women, I conceived of the Next BIG Thing campaign for American Apparel. Firstly, we are very sorry that we offended you. Our only motive was to discover and celebrate the many beautiful XL women around the globe who enjoy our brand, and to promote the recent size additions to our collection. Nothing more, nothing less. We would also like to assure you that no one is getting fired over your stunt, as you expressed concern about in a recent interview. We are fortunate to have a great boss who trusts and believes in our instincts and ideas, and we are still very excited about all of our Next BIG Things and looking forward to meeting our new XL brand ambassadors.

It’s a shame that your project attempts to discredit the positive intentions of our challenge based on your personal distaste for our use of light-hearted language, and that “bootylicous” was too much for you to handle. While we may be a bit TOO inspired by Beyoncé, and do have a tendency to occasionally go pun-crazy, we try not to take ourselves too seriously around here. I wonder if you had taken just a moment to imagine that this campaign could actually be well intentioned, and that my team and I are not out to offend and insult women, would you have still behaved in the same way, mocking the confident and excited participants who put themselves out there? Maybe you’ll find it interesting that in addition to simply responding to customer demand and feedback, when you’re a vertically-integrated company, actual jobs are created from new size additions. In this case, for the XL women who will model them, industrial workers that make them, retail employees that sell them and beyond. That’s the amazing reality of American Apparel’s business.

Though I could spend hours responding to your accusations and assumptions, this isn’t the appropriate forum for that, so I will only briefly address a few issues here. In regards to April Flores’ “that’s not our demographic” experience, I don’t recall the name of the confused employee credited with saying that, but he or she was sadly uninformed, and our company certainly does not endorse their statement. For as long as I can remember, we have offered sizes up to 3XL in our basic styles, and as far as adding larger sizes to the rest of our line is concerned, if there is the demand and manufacturing power to support it, we’re always game. There are thousands of brands in the market who have no intention of supporting natural - and completely normal - full-figured women, and American Apparel is making a conscious effort to change that, both with our models and our line. If every brand that tried to do this was met with such negative press, we may have to wait another decade for the mainstream to embrace something so simple.

In the past, American Apparel has been targeted for various reasons, many times by journalists who weren’t willing to go the extra mile to even visit the factory or meet the people in charge. Dov is a great executive director and American Industrialist, but there are hundreds of other decision-makers in our company, over half of whom are women. I suppose you have read a few too many negative pieces about us that have helped to form your opinion of who we are and what we stand for, and perhaps this has clouded your ability to give us a chance. I get it. I read some of it too. As a creative who isn’t always the most tactful and tends to stay away from the limelight, maybe I haven’t spoken up as much as I should have over the past 8 years that I’ve worked at American Apparel. Perhaps I could have shed some light on some issues that have been left cloudy over the years. However, sensational media will always need something to latch on to and success, spandex and individuality (and mutton chops circa 2004) are certainly easy targets. And who knows - maybe the PR ups and downs are all part of our DNA as a company. What I do know is that after all the years I have been working for this company I can wholeheartedly say that American Apparel is an amazing and inspiring place to work. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can represent of a ton of people I know when I say that we really like Dov and we passionately believe in his vision for a beautiful factory with sustainable practices. We are the largest sewing factory in North America, after all…10,000 jobs is nothing to sniff at. A lot of people would be very sad if this company wasn’t around.

That said, we realize that we are in no way perfect and that we’re still learning. We want to do better or differently in many areas, and we are actively working on them every day. You’re literally witnessing a transparent, sincere, innovative, creative company go through puberty in the spotlight of modern media. It’s not easy!

Oh - and regarding winning the contest, while you were clearly the popular choice, we have decided to award the prizes to other contestants that we feel truly exemplify the idea of beauty inside and out, and whom we will be proud to have representing our company.

Please feel free to contact me directly anytime. If you want to know the real scoop about our company before writing a story, I’ve got it (or if I don’t, I can put you in touch with the person that does!).

Best of luck,

Iris Alonzo
Creative Director
American Apparel

PS: You suck.

Fancy a McBritishClicheBurger?

They have got to be kidding.

 

Besides the awful copy, can you for the life of you figure out what makes this burger particularly English? Besides which, it brings up memories of a the allarmingly grey patty I got in my Wimpy's burger back in '80s  London, where they charged me extra for ketchup. Or thoughts of my friends who cannot donate blood because they lived in the UK during the mad cow outbreak.

They would have been better off doing something on a roast beef theme. Or even better, curry...

Via The Consumerist

More info at Burger Business