Being banned from Facebook and Instagram sends "honest" bra ad viral

Some ads are made to be "banned." This one, from the Australian division of underwear brand Berlei, pushed the bounds of breast portrayal and was subsequently taken down from the brand's Facebook and Instagram pages for being "offensive."

News.com.au's Angela Mollard writes:

Berlei’s ad is not gratuitous. It’s not sleazy or even sexual. Rather, it’s a fistpump-worthy piece of advertising that addresses women’s body concerns head or, rather, breast on. Yes there’s boobs bouncing under a sports bra and women trying to cover their nipples and prod or poke bits of flesh back into an unsatisfactory garment, but that’s life with breasts.

I'd have to agree, although the ad is certainly provocative in a very deliberate way.

As of this moment (10:30 EDT, Saturday September 9, 2017) the ad has almost 225,000 views on YouTube. Expect to see many more as the earned media does its job.

Are people interested in this ad because it's about breasts? Of course! Is that a problem? Perhaps to some prudish American social media moguls. But it seems pretty feminist to me.

If you have any thoughts on the ad, please feel free to comment. I'll be ramping up this blog again over the next few weeks, so expect to see more posts. Let's talk about ethics in advertising!

Weren't we supposed to stop using captive great apes in ads, Google?

Business Insider just published Ace Metrix's list of top-performing ads in 30 categories for the first quarter of 2015. Among them is Google's "Friends Furever" spot for Android:

Wait a minute here: Didn't the US Ad Council announce that it no longer supports the use of great apes in ads back in 2008?

PETA has been lobbying the ad industry to stop using apes as props for years. As a result,  Omnicom Group's BBDO, GSD&M and Merkley & Partners; Interpublic's McCann Erickson, DraftFCB and RPA; Havas' Arnold and Euro RSCG; WPP's Grey Group, Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam and JWT; and Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett all agreed to stop using great apes in ads in 2011. The Google ad was created by Droga5, who apparently didn't get the memo.

I'm not PETA's greatest fan, but as a human (and having the Jane Goodall Institute as a client) the exploitation of our closest cousins by my industry troubles me.

The challenge with using any animals in advertising is their treatment, since they are not willing performers. The most intelligent social animals, such as great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans), elephants, and whales/dolphins, are wild animals that suffer from anxiety and depression when removed from their peers — even if captive bred. (Dogs are domestic animals, so they're a little bit of a different issue.)

The Google ad has representatives of all three of these animal groups performing for your amusement, and that of 16 million of your closest friends.

Jane Goodall is asking people like us, who create ads and entertainment, to sign a pledge not to use captive great apes in our work. I think it's time we stopped treating our cousins like props.

Google's celebration of Jonas Salk makes a timely point

Google Doodles are well-known for hot political and social issues. A couple of years ago, their July 4th homepage was all about internet freedom. During the Sochi Winter Games, they doodled their defiance of Russia's anti-gay laws.

Today, they ran a comic that celebrates the 100th birthday of Jonas Salk, father of the polio vaccine.

So, what's controversial about that?

When my mom was a kid, polio was one of the biggest fears of every parent and child. One of her best friends, and next door neighbour, caught the disease. The disease could cause paralysis, sometimes permanently, and could result in being confined to an iron lung. In the worst cases, people died. Neil Young is among many celebrity survivors.

Although the disease is making a comeback in some parts of the world, polio is one of those diseases, like smallpox, measles, diphtheria and pertussis, that were no longer considered common threats to childhood health by the time I was growing up. And that was thanks to vaccines and public immunization programmes.

But the "anti-vax" movement, a loose conglomeration of people who have religious, pseudoscientific, or other non-medical objections to vaccines, has been gaining steam. No thanks to celebrity non-scientists like Jenny McCarthy, preventable outbreaks of things like measles are on the rise.

Dr. Salk, by the way, is also celebrated for his selflessness. He forfeited billions of dollars by refusing to patent the polio vaccine.

Now that another flu season is on its way, the push is on to vaccinate as many people as possible against it. Each year, approximately 3,500 Canadians die from the flu. But the flu shot can prevent up to 80% of flu infections in healthy individuals.

While we're waiting for that ebola vaccine, maybe it would be a good idea to get vaccinated against a disease that is statistically more likely to hospitalize or kill you. And say a silent thanks to Dr. Salk and all the other scientists who have made modern life much less scary.

Thanks to David for pointing me to this nice bit of public health advocacy.

Google goes gay for #Sochi

It was a busy day, so I only just noticed this now:

Text reads:

"The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play." –Olympic Charter

Way to be less evil, Google!

Microsoft shows Chrome as a bouncing ball of privacy invasion

As Adrants' Steve Hall writes, "You've gotta love these corporate videos that 'leak' their way into the pubic." (I think he meant "public", but Steve writes for Playboy too, so he probably hasn't flagged that typo in his spellchecker.)

Anyway, Microsoft would like you to know that there is an evil behind the über-integration that Google has been steering towards, and that is the fact that their platforms and applications conspire to learn everything about you and use it to sell you stuff.



This is hardly a new tactic, though. Remember this?



From the Associated Press last month:

Microsoft developed its anti-Google ad campaign shortly after hiring former political operative Mark Penn in August as a corporate strategist who reports directly to Ballmer. Penn is best known as a former pollster for President Bill Clinton and a campaign strategist for Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful bid for president in 2008. Penn left his job as CEO of public relations firm Burson-Marsteller to help Microsoft generate more usage of its Bing search engine and other online services.

That's a big challenge, right there. (I never touch Bing myself.) But the points about Google's omniscience are valid, even if coming from a company like Microsoft.

I guess it just comes down to what you're willing to put up with to get free stuff. I'm writing this on the free Google blog platform, will be sharing it on G+, and hope that some of you will find me... through Google.

But then again, I'm an adman. We all like to think we're immune to advertising, no matter how targeted.

Westboro Baptist Church gets a fabulous Google Maps makeover

Search for Westboro Baptist Church on Google Maps right now, and you'll see that their avatar has been, well, rainbowed.

Their "about" page has also been updated with some homoerotic imagery:

I don't know who is responsible for this, but just recently a gay rights centre opened up right across the street from WBC.

People are certainly pissed off with "Rec" Phelps and his ilk right now, as they had planned to bring their "God Hates Fags" protest to today's interfaith service for the Boston marathon victims. (They never showed up.)

Thanks to Marco for the tip!

Kindle ad gives a shout-out to equal marriage

Worth watching:



Nice work. A little forced, but it's progress.

A feather in the cap for Amazon. But Google managed to screw it up.

According to Queerty:

...a Queerty reader tipped us off this morning that YouTube has removed the ad for Amazon’s e-reader because of a “violation of YouTube’s policy against spam, scams and commercially deceptive content.” 

He wrote, “I checked the link, and confirmed that was what happened: no video, but a notice that it had been removed.”...
Fortunately, by this afternoon the ad was back on the site.

Apparently, YouTube reacted to user complaints against the ad as "inappropriate", while allowing several homophobic comments to stand (in a violation of their own policy). Boo.

Tip via Buzzfeed

Google.ca says goodbye to the Canadian penny

Via Google.ca

As of today, the Canadian 1¢ piece will no longer be given in change for cash transactions. In last year's budget, the Government of Canada discontinued production of the copper-plated coin. It remains legal tender for the foreseeable future, but is officially obsolete.

At least it had the correct species of maple leaf...

Related: The last dying wish of the Canadian Penny  [Osocio.org]

Thou shalt not steal gay porn to protest equal marriage

This digital mailer, paid for by the "Committee to Save the Erie County Republican Party," is an attack on a Republican New York state senator who was the decisive vote in the state's gay marriage legislation.

The rest of it reads, "Sometimes they're political whore$. Make sure your Son says, 'Thank you, Mark Grisanti'." Buzzfeed IDs the "committee" as Matthew Ricchiazzi, a Cornell University graduate who ran a failed campaign for Buffalo mayor.

I was more curious about where the committee got the image. It dosen't look like stock photography, and it is unlikely they did a photo shoot. So I put our a query on my social media networks.

Liam Quin, a follower on Google+ , cropped the image and did a Google similar-image search. Bingo.

The image is from a gay porn movie called Zeb Fucks Wayne (warning: porn link). The photo is from the still on that site. ("I have not actually watched the movie, I'm afraid," Liam adds.)

Stealing is mentioned in the 10 commandments. Same-sex marriage is not. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

"Update" on classic Coke ad actually a sad commentary on the social age

Are you over 30? Then you remember this ad. It's one of the most iconic jingles ever written, and perfectly summarizes the end of the hippie era, when the shrinking world just looked like it needed a hug.

Now, let's bring it into the now:



From I Believe in Advertising:

In Project Re: Brief, we’ve re-imagined Coca-Cola’s classic ‘Hilltop’ commercial for a modern audience, in the digital age. Fulfilling the promise of the original ad, it allows users to connect with strangers by sending a Coke around the globe to an unsuspecting recipient, making the world feel just a little bit smaller. The ad can be experienced on mobile phone apps in Google’s AdMob network, across iOS and Android devices. Made possible through AdMob rich media ads, coupled with custom-designed vending machines, viewers can truly ‘buy the world a Coke’, with a few taps on their mobile phones. A viewer can decide where to send a Coke by selecting one of many machines located around the world, from New York City, to Cape Town, to Buenos Aires. They can then add a custom text message to personalise their Coke delivery. Google Translate converts these messages on the fly, breaking down the language barrier across countries. A dynamic video with Google Maps, Street View, and composite motion graphics shows the Coke’s journey from the viewer’s current location to the vending machine across the globe. Users can wait for confirmation of their Coke’s delivery, or enter an email address to be notified later. Once the Coke is delivered, recipients are not only treated to the generosity of a stranger thousands of miles away, but they can also say ‘thanks’ by sending a message of their own back to the user. That message is delivered to the user’s inbox where they can read the note and view a video clip of the recipient’s surprised reaction upon getting a free Coke. A gallery showcases some of our favourite shareable exchanges between people around the world connecting over a can of Coke. Today’s technology allows us to make good on a promise Coca-Cola made over 40 years ago, and lets users ‘Buy the World a Coke’ from the palm of their hand.

I want to hang with these cats.

Let's think about this. From a group of people on a hilltop, holding hands and singing together about harmony and togetherness, to anonymous interactions with people around the world conducted through smartphones.

This dude, not so much.

Yeah, we connect with more people now, more instantly and with cool graphics and instant translation. But the word "connect" doesn't mean what it used to, does it?


Advertising Agencies: Grow Interactive, Norfolk, and Johannes Leonardo, New York

Google wants you to feel lucky... in love #vday

Google is well-known for its doodles on the homepage. Today's is, appropriately, a sweet little message of love:



And yes, that includes same-sex couples. (Although the princess and the frog would seem to validate some of Rick Santorum's more outrageous views on equal marriage:)

F'd Ad Fridays: When in Romania...

Earlier this week, Marc posted an article on Osocio about a Romanian candy company's campaign to rid Google's search engine of prejudicial stereotypes about their country and their people.

In response to suggested searches like this, which result from disparaging Googles done mostly by other Europeans, the advertiser asked people to do positive searches instead.

Nice, eh? I thought so, anyway.

And then, also this week, I catch this Romanian tourism campaign by Lowe&Partners online:

"Visit Romania, get drunk, get laid and meet Dracula". Not really helpful, is it?

F'd Ad Fridays: The Googlher pings you in the...

This one is pretty naughty, so you'll want to watch with discretion. There are loud moans.



Apparently, it is based on Google Alarm, an application that alerts you every time Google interacts with (pings) your computer as part of its updates and data mining.

F.A.T. explains:

The Googlher is a device which plugs into your computer and triggers a bullet vibrator any time that Google pings your web browser (with the aid of The Googlher Firefox Add-on). By doing so, The Googlher translates Google’s pervasive reach into highly stimulating vibrations for vaginal or anal web browsing. Mistrust and fear Google’s omnipotent ways no longer as the web giant profoundly soothes, touches, and moves you. This is perhaps the biggest thing to happen to augmented reality since the invention of methamphetamine.

What an interesting way to remind people that Google is getting intimate with their personal habits. And nerds will be pleased to know that it's open source.

Hey, look! A great Google ad.

Reminds me of a time when I looked up my hometown in an Italian travel guide. It listed the historic Plaza Hotel (home of Shakers Lounge) as a "small, central, and family-friendly hotel".

So while the concept feels like it has been done before, perhaps it's because to the budget traveller the experience is all too real. Social media may help some these days, but not always.

By BBDO Moscow
Via I Believe in Advertising

F'd Ad Fridays: Android Freud determines whether your son is gay

According to RFl, French Android smartphone users can download an app that will let them know if their son is gay.

It costs less than 2 Euro, and uses just 20 questions to robotically determine who your child really is:

The questions range over a variety of subjects that are supposed to indicate their son's sexual preferences. They include his attitude to personal grooming and dress sense, whether he likes football and reads sports papers and whether he likes musicals and/or divas such as Mylène Farmer.

The questionnaire also puts the parents under the spotlight.

“Are you divorced?” it asks, going on to suggest that there might be “a certain absence of the father” or, alternatively, that the progenitor might be “very authoritarian”.

While mothers whose sons are judged to be gay are told to “ACCEPT IT”, mothers of supposed heterosexuals receive a message that appears to take a much less indulgent attitude to homosexuality.

“You have nothing to worry about, your son is not gay,” it reads. “So you have a very good chance of being a grandmother with all the joys that brings.”

It's hard to count all the kinds of wrong this is, including all the stereotypes and the obsolete Freudian idea that parental conditions made people gay. (Although it should be noted that Freud was otherwise relatively progressive in his attitudes on that front.)

Not to mention the fundamental problem of assuming gayness is some kind of problem. Equality group All Out has a petition to Google to remove the app. As of this writing, it has 34.227 signatures.

The race to the middle

This comic by The Joy of Tech is painful to read because it's so damned true. As technology moguls and social media platform nabobs keep stealing each other's best ideas in a rush of "me too", we're left with a choice between vanilla and vanilla.

Convergence isn't always a good thing. I especially hate it when people post the same update on Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook. Every time I see a hashtag on my Facebook wall, I feel broadcast at. And Amazon, a place where I occasionally buy CDs and books, keeps trying to be Wall-Mart. (Or even worse, to be my friend.)

I like my brands specialized, focussed on doing one or two things better than everyone else. When they all have similar offerings, I don't know who I'm supposed to connect with where. The whole thing loses intimacy in the noise of too many channels and offerings. But perhaps I'm part of a dying breed.

Adult Content?

A couple of things have happened recently that made me go "hmmm..."

Last Thursday, as I waited to board at the Ottawa Airport, I was reading through my favourite ad blogs when I received a strongly-worded pop-up about violating the free Wi-Fi terms of use regarding "adult content". The site? Copyranter.

This morning, I saw that Adland, another favourite, has just lost all of its Google Adsense placements because of "adult content".

I have had a couple of panics lately when Osocio posts that contain nudity (considered completely acceptable in the advertising world) have had embedded images picked up and published on Facebook by the site's automatic updater. (And all we know what a hate-on Facebook has for breasts. Especially non-sexified ones.)

Finally, I have received plenty of "feedback" (most sarcastic, but some sincere) about posts on this blog which contain nudity or sexual contexts.

What a harmless, wholesome and family-friendly ad might look like.

This got me thinking about what "adult content" means. Usually, it is an implied euphemism for porn. But in all of the cases above, sexualized content was usually used in the context of a grown-up discussion about the use of sex in advertising. In many cases, the posts are critiques of lazy, exploitative, and even offensive "sexy" ads.

"Dabitch", the outspoken voice of Adland, faced a 72 hour deadline to "clean up" her site after Google was alerted to an old post criticizing an ad by underwear advertiser Sloggi, which contained an image of bare bums.

Taking the high road, Dabitch said "if we're going to be able to talk about advertising here, some of [the ads] will have butts and boobs in them, and often be harshly criticized because they do."

But that is not the way Big Internet thinks, apparently. The mature attitudes about sexuality of Europeans (and some Canadians, and New Yorkers, and others) are crashing into the wall of America's "won't somebody please think about the children" anxiety.

The argument is that this is a public forum: "There are kids on here, for God's sake!" But then again, these are the same kids who are exposed to the very ads we critique. If they are going to see T&A anyway, at least we provide instructional context on how to tell the difference between sexual exploitation and body-positive normalization. (Plus, I doubt any child would bother to visit an ad blog just for the nudity — there are much better ways to get around a net nanny.)

This might be pornography. I saw "Lawless" in the title.

My six-year-old surfs YouTube, and sometimes Google Images. I filter his searches, but still sit over his shoulder so I can click away or explain any awkward discoveries. (But then again, he's seen his mom and me naked, and it's no big deal to him.) Look: The internet is a rough neighbourhood. Why would you let a little kid wander around it alone?

And then there's the "NSFW" argument. Once again, let's talk about context. If your employer is okay with you taking time at work to read an ad blog, it probably counts as professional development. And ad professionals — whether agency, client, or production — cannot afford to be prudes. We are in the business of playing with powerful human ideas, instincts and emotions. We can't avert our eyes from a frank discussion of one of the greatest and most persuasive forces of all.

So let's take a look at that term, "adult content". If I wanted to be disingenuous, I'd say "makes sense... this is content suitable for a mature audience!"

But we all know what it really means: porn, smut, and at best "erotica". It's part of the unfortunate epidemic of black-and-white, zero-tolerance thinking that rules certain societies these days. Everything is either "wholesome" or "dirty". (Interesting to note how often casual violence and hate ends up on the "wholesome" side, isn't it?)

I simply don't think that way. If today's burning ad issue is something with nudity in it, you may see some skin. I hope you aren't permanently psychologically damaged by it. I'm trying to have an adult conversation here.

Science Rules!

Google's doodle today celebrates Thomas Edison's 164th birthday birthday.

(Go to the homepage. It moves.)

But this is not a great time for science in the United States. Tomorrow is Charles Darwin's birthday. The "father of evolution" is a key figure in our understanding of ourselves as a species and as ourselves. And yet he is still a controversial figure down south.

In an interview with beloved TV science educator Bill Nye "The Science Guy", Popular Mechanics confronted him with the following:

In a recent survey of 926 public high school biology teachers across the nation, only 28 percent of teachers taught evolution as a well-supported fundamental idea of science. Meanwhile, 13 percent openly supported "intelligent design" in the classroom, and 60 percent fell somewhere in-between. This majority presented evolution cautiously—by including non-scientific viewpoints, by limiting discussion to genetics, or by saying that students only needed to learn the material to pass exams.

Bill's response was "it's horrible."

"Science is the key to our future, and if you don't believe in science, then you're holding everybody back. And it's fine if you as an adult want to run around pretending or claiming that you don't believe in evolution, but if we educate a generation of people who don't believe in science, that's a recipe for disaster. We talk about the Internet. That comes from science. Weather forecasting. That comes from science. The main idea in all of biology is evolution. To not teach it to our young people is wrong."

So what went wrong? There are many who will blame fundamentalist religion for the anti-science movement, but as a humanist I can't give religion any more credit than any other man-made form of persuasion — including politics, fashion and advertising.

People aren't stupid. They are allowing themselves to believe that the universe was designed, and is being ruled, by an anthropomorphic, omnipotent king. But there are many others who believe in other unknowable things, too. faith and superstition seem to come along with the human mental package.

No, I think that the reason people turn away from scientific explanations is because they are overwhelmed by the cold complexity of it all.

Which do you prefer?

You are a beloved child of God, put on this planet to serve Him. Submit to His will, and whatever happens to you here, you will have eternal bliss in heaven with everyone good who has ever died.

Versus

You are a product of random genetic mutation, shaped by environmental conditions, that just happens to be self-aware. However, many of your thoughts and actions are probably due to heredity. You live on a tiny, fragile planet in a vast nothingness, and the entire existence of your species is an insignificant blip in time. When you cease to function, your thoughts and experiences will terminate and the only purpose of your life will be the genes and memes that you have propagated.

But there is another way. Faith does not preclude science.

Pretty much every religious person is of the "salad bar" variety, picking and choosing what tenets to follow. (If you don't believe me, read this.)

And the entirely rational human being does not exist either. We are all affected by superstition and magical thinking. (If you don't believe me, read this.)

It is not a one-thing-or-another game. Scientific education just makes people more appreciative of the world they live in. In me, and also in my young son, science opens a world of wonder and discovery. Every day, some new secret is unlocked that helps us understand who we are, why we are, and what we can do to make a difference.

The problem for me is education. And it's not the teachers' fault either.

Bill Nye said, "They're doing their job but they're under tremendous pressure. The 60 percent who are cautious—those are the people who are really up against it. They want to keep their job, and they love teaching science, and their children are really excited about it, and yet they've got some people insisting they can't teach the most fundamental idea in all of biology."

But there's more to it than that. And Canadians are not immune. Education has become commoditized. Instead of celebrating teachers who invent creative ways to inspire students about science, we are concerned about standardization and "accountability". These are political solutions, not educational ones.

If we can't fix the curriculum, I think its up to science champions to bring science education to the mainstream media. Behemoths like BBC, National Geographic and Discovery help, but those serve a niche market. Teaching kids about science should be embedded into everyday media experiences. It should be interesting and accessible. It needs to be a Schoolhouse Rock or Hinterland Who's Who for this generation.

Who's with me? I know of a few local museums that could certainly champion this cause. Call me.

Ummm... you're welcome?

As a Creative Director, I really kind of hate Google Adwords. It's as if advertising had been invented by — and for — robots. With all of our training in concept, art direction, copywriting and even font choice, we now find ourselves reduced to writing a text-only haiku with a URL at the end.

Not to imply that Google AW are an ineffective medium. They're quite the opposite, and "smart" or "social" ads like them are here to stay. Which is why I find myself using horrible texting slang and prince-like "4U" language just to get the point across.

Which is why it seems ironic that Google has created this long, awkward and horribly paced "thank you" ad in glorious video for all the advertisers who have made them the reigning gods of teh internets.


Google Adwords - Thank You from PostPanic on Vimeo.

But like Google itself, the ad takes as well as gives.You'll never get that time back.

(via I Believe in Advertising)

The Wilderness on My Browser

Yesterday, Amanda posted a cool link to Acart's Facebook page. It's about a new experiment by Google to integrate some of the company's online assets to create a personalized user experience while watching an HTML5-generated (and Chris Milk directed) video of Montreal band Arcade Fire's "We used to wait" using Google Chrome.

Basically, once you click the link, you are prompted to enter the address of the place where you grew up. The experience then takes over your browser (assuming you're using Chrome, that is!) and:

• HTML5 Canvas 3D engine renders a flocking bird simulation that reacts to the music and mouse.


• HTML5 audio plays music and keeps track of timecode.


• Sequence system controls and synchronises effects and windows to the timecode.


• HTML5 video plays film clips in custom sizes.


• Choreographed windows are triggered by the music and placed relative to screen size.


• Map tiles are rendered, zoomed, and rotated in a scripted 3D environment.


• Animated sprites are composited directly over maps and Street View.


• 3D sky dome is used to render Street View with scripted camera control.


• Procedural drawing tool allows the user to create velocity influenced tree branches.


• Generative typeface triggered by keypress, uses an SVG path reader and individual canvas compositing for each letter.


• Google Maps API for fetching dynamic routes to destination and checking Street View content at points along the route.


• Street detection for animated trees composited dynamically in place over Street View.


• Color correction by combining canvas blending modes to enhance contrast and tint.

Or, in layman's terms: the song plays, birds fly to the beat, some dude runs around on the street and pretty soon you realize he's running towards your childhood home. (Or, in this case, Acart.)

It also asks you to interact:

Pretty cool stuff. For today. But I'll bet a year from now, this will look as lame as pre-Star Wars special effects. Such is the digital age.

Anyway, enjoy.