Groupon celebrates "the man who gave birth to you" #FdAdFriday

(Buzzfeed)

I'm really glad that Groupon's digital designers know how to cut and paste. I just wish they'd proofread the damn things.

Either that, or they are appealing to a very narrow market of FtM transgender dads. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

An oldie but still a good one

F'd Ad Fridays: Happy F'ather's Day!

Stupid banner ad, I hate you so much.

Happy #@¢%ing Father's Day

Everyone is familiar with the stereotype that men are really bad at preventative health. Hell, I just had my first physical exam in many years, and that was only brought on by a combination of turning 40 and having a scary family history. So I assume that is the rationale behind the shock tactics employed by The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ):





Will it work? Probably not on the men who are the worst offenders. Attempts to shame have a habit of backfiring in social marketing because they push the brain into defensive processing (otherwise known as "denial").

This campaign was launched on Father's Day, too. Ouch.

There are two more commercials you can view on the campaign web site.

Double Down at the Dirty Bird

No, it is not consumer-driven fast food mashup like the Mcgangbang. Nor an obscure sport-eating food from the This Is Why You're Fat photoblog — like Ottawa's own gravy pizza.

This is an actual meal marketed by Kentucky Fried Chicken:

[via AdFreak]

Note that I called the chain by its old name, as opposed to the euphemistic "KFC". That was on purpose.

Years ago, the Colonel's troops got on the healthier food bandwagon and started offering grilled chicken and other low-fat options. Their corporate site still claims, "We believe eating sensibly, combined with appropriate exercise, is the best solution for a healthy lifestyle."

[via AVClub]

Made of two slabs of boneless fried chicken, bacon, double cheese and mayo-based sauce, the Double Down has 540 calories, 32 grams of fat, and 1380 milligrams of sodium.

So, an "appropriate exercise" to work the Double Down into anything resembling a healthy lifestyle would be to Running for an hour at about 8.4 km per hour (burning 531 of those 540 calories) or if you actually want to lose weight, biking for an hour at about 25 kph (590 calories). Of course, this assumes you didn't get a combo with a pop and fries...

Oh, and Health Canada recommends that adults do not exceed 2,300 mg of sodium per day. Per day.

While McDonald's keeps toying with portion control in an attempt to appeal to more health-conscious family consumers, Kentucky Fried Chicken has obviously decided their future lies more with young adult males. To this big-eating, big-drinking, burn-it-off-somehow generation the Double Down will provide a tempting alternative to heart-busting treats like the Burger King Quad Stacker and the Wendy's Baconator.

[via wikimedia]

Don't get me wrong. I love a good "bad" meal as much as the next guy. But this idea of competitive junk food eating being embraced by more and more international brands in their everyday menu items kind of turns my stomach.

My Father Likes....

My son made me a card for Father's Day. It was cute as hell, but it also got me thinking about one I made for my Dad, more than 30 years ago, that almost got made into a social marketing campaign.

Here's the cover:



That's right — Dad likes to smoke. Like many 1970s parents, he saw nothing wrong with smoking around kids. And strangers were hardly more concerned. We Gen-X kids just got used to the fact that we had to breathe in smoke at home, in the car, at restaurants, even on trains and planes. Second-hand smoke was just a fact of life. And if I got the occasional ear infection, well that was too.

How times have changed, eh? Polite society is mostly smoke-free now, at least in public enclosed spaces. You can go to a bar without smelling like an ashtray, and pretty much expect that your kids won't be subjected to smoke. (Even Dad goes outside now to smoke at home... thanks Dad!)

But the situation is not all roses. Despite the fact that Ontario has passed a law against smoking in a car with kids, I still see it happening all the time. I know that there's not much I can do personally, but professionally I've always wanted to do an effective anti-second-hand-smoke campaign. (I've worked with a partner Aboriginal advertising agency to do targeted campaigns for Health Canada, but they were a whole different approach.)

So I worked with the team here at Acart to mock up an approach for a pitch where a modern dad gets his Father's Day card from his child, sees that the smoke is marring his parental image, and decides to smoke away from his kids from now on. The client didn't buy it.

Maybe I should have pitched it to the tobacco companies. After all, when I was a kid I seem to have had a real knack for branding:



So, does anyone want to buy a slightly used social marketing concept?