yandy.com launches its annual Halloween viral outrage earned media campaign

This year's earned media campaign leads with Huffington Post's coverage of the "Sexy Deadmau5" costume. I'm contributing to their marketing as well, just like I did in 2011, 2012, and 2013.

Let's be honest with ourselves: Outrage is the currency of social media. Marketers offer up new outrages with every passing season, and we predictably rage about it to anyone who will hear.

Sure, the advertiser will take some heat, but the people who will get angry with yandy.com and their ilk are not the ones buying "Sexy Mario" or "Sexy Racist Native American Stereotype" costumes. And the negative publicity will just add to the edginess of choosing to go to a party dressed as a sexualized teenage private school girl.

It's a win-win clickbait strategy for sleazy marketers and internet social justice warriors alike. And girls lose. Like always.

I'm sorry. Feel free to lament my hypocrisy below:

Dutch suit brand brings "Blurred Lines" douchiness to retail

What does it take to sell a suit these days? Undressed women, of course!

Huffington Post's Alanna Vagianos quips, "While sex may sell, it's almost impossible to determine what SuitSupply is even attempting to sell here."

I won't go so far as that. Suit Supply, a Dutch retailer, is selling the "sizzle," which is that a well-dressed man is more attractive to — and sexually successful with — women. It's a facile view of masculinity embraced by many young men and the shitty media they consume. But it's hardly new or confusing. It's just intellectually demeaning to both the women and men portrayed.

Ironically, the "uncensored" version keeps the bikini bottoms on. The sexualization of this brand apparently has limits, and those limits involve genitalia.

But using topless women to accessorize douchey male models in suits is clearly just fine.

No, I'm not surprised by this. It's just one more example of brands cheapening sex and female sexuality to sell crap. What I'm really wondering is if the target audiences will ever get sick of being treated like idiots who think with their dorks.

Toys 'R' Us: Screw nature, buy more toys!

My kid loves nature. It didn't happen entirely by accident. While he comes by it honestly, surrounded by interesting Canadian landscape, flora and fauna, I've also done a lot of work to encourage this interest. By getting a kid to understand nature, you build an understanding of the more practical issues behind environmentalism.

That's why I think this Toys 'R' Us ad (from last summer) is really unfortunate:

If I had seen this on The Simpsons, I would have appreciated it as ironic commentary on how we teach our kids to want an endless supply of stuff. That's what made that show great — that it showed us our bad side with humour and understanding. But it acknowledged that it was, indeed, bad.

This, on the other hand, is not satire. It is an ad for a toy store. That tells kids (and parents) that buying a bunch of foreign-produced plastic shit destined for our landfills is better than learning about trees that just stand around making oxygen.

I'll take my Christmas spending somewhere else.

h/t Huffington Post

Vogue Netherlands shoots Ymre Stiekema breastfeeding, internet howls "NSFW"!

Vogue via HuffPo

My only concern is whether or not this pic features her own baby. Ms. Stiekema gave birth to a baby girl last December, but the one in the picture looks rather young.

I don't know why I'd think that a mother deciding to objectify her own baby is better than objectifying someone else's. But the idea of breastfeeding portraits is quite well established, from the Virgin Mary to Kate Hansen. And I think they do a society good, no matter how pretentious. (I'm looking at you, Erwin Olaf.)

Nonetheless, The Huffington Post shared the pic with an "NSFW" (not safe for work) warning, and The Cut's headline was "Have You Seen Naked Breast-feeding Vogue Model Mom?"

The baby was unavailable for comment.

Thai Dunkin' Donuts ad brings back blackface

Huffington Post reports that Human Rights Watch has called this campaign "bizarre and racist" and has insisted on its withdrawal.



The CEO for Dunkin' Donuts in Thailand, Nadim Salhani, sees nothing wrong with the campaign, insisting "Not everybody in the world is paranoid about racism."

But is it paranoia? Not when you consider the old "black skin, bright lips" cliché that remains a cultural embarrassment and harsh reminder of our racist history in the west:

Via imgur

So it's just a matter of cultural differences, right? Why would people in Thailand read an Asian woman (actually the CEO's teen daughter) painted black as a racist image?

Maybe because they have closets full of "Black Man" cleaning products?

Via imgur

Yeesh.

Delhi Police drop 'chop onions, not heads' campaign

Delhi Police have apologized and withdrawn an ad promoting vocational training for street children, after criticism that it promotes child labour.

The Huffington Post reports that the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights found the ad "in bad taste and diminishing the 'dignity and worth' of children, who are our future citizens.” They added, “This advertisement depicts a vulnerable child as a future criminal... besides, teaching a child how to chop an onion does not really do justice to a child.”

Child labour is a huge problem in India, but some saw even worse things in the ad. Juvenile justice expert Ananth Asthana told Indian Express, "It only shows the trivial thinking of Delhi Police on child rights. The authorities have a very wrong perception about juveniles, and this particular ad associates them with murder."

Cheerios spoof ad: "Eat It, Haters"

Remember, a couple of weeks ago, when that adorable Cheerios ad made some racist trolls upset because it showed a "mixed race" family?

Well, somebody named Kenji has produced a spoof ad in response to the haters:



Sure, it's awkward and low-budget. But I love the twist at the end!

According to Huffington Post the video was co-written by Mark Normand and Eddie Lombardi, stars comedians Hollis Witherspoon and Joyelle Nicole Johnson, and features Adriana Barnett as the little girl.

Pussy Riot appropriated again, this time by Vanessa Hudgens

I've written before, both here and on Osocio, about the appropriation of anarcho-feminist group Pussy Riot's knitted balaclava brand. Here's the latest sighting, from former Disney star Vanessa Hudgens'  '$$$ex' Teaser Video (via Huffington Post):



They didn't even bother to change the colour from the Blush lingerie campaign:

By all accounts, the former child actress is trying to shed her innocent image in the new Spring Breakers movie. It's a complete reversal from her concern for her younger image when she had her nude photo scandal six years ago. But careers evolve. It's just too bad she had to "borrow" so shamelessly this time, from women who are currently suffering for standing up for their independence.

Jennifer Lawrence on her Photoshopped self: "people don’t look like that"

Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence may be selling out for fashion, but at least she's honest:

"Oh my god, I haven’t seen this. That doesn’t look like me at all. I love Photoshop more than anything in the world. Of course it’s Photoshop, people don’t look like that." 

Images via Huffpo

Jennifer Lawrence is the new face of Dior handbags. And now the star of this popular fake Dior ad:

About the fall, Ms. Lawrence told reporters, "What went through my mind when I fell down? A bad word that I can't say that starts with 'F'"

So, she's celebrated for being great at what she does, and yet she's self-effacingly funny. That's pretty cool.

Gay hookup site offers Tom Cruise lifetime membership #FdAdFriday

Huffington Post reports that Manhunt, a "gay dating/social networking site," is offering Tom Cruise a lifetime membership as consolation for his upcoming divorce.

It's a shrewd PR move for the site. They don't actually claim to know that the Scientologist/actor is gay (unlike porno actor Chad Slater, whose claims earned him a $100 million defamation lawsuit).

It's the outing that wasn't.

Horrible DM piece of the day (no, make that YEAR)

This is a mailer from The U.S. Senate Federal Credit Union, a member-owned financial services organization regulated by the National Credit Union Administration (a U.S. Government agency).

The message is simple: "Planning a boob job for yourself or your chick? Borrow money! (But do it responsibly.)"

How this thing ever got presented, approved, printed and mailed is a true mystery of (what I assume to be) the internal marketing departments of big bureaucracies.

Complaints were swift and vicious.

"I got home from a nice holiday weekend late last night and found this in the mail," Washington, D.C., resident Amber Wobschall told The Huffington Post. "I've really been a lifelong credit union member. I'm also a feminist," she said." So I was very disappointed to find this in my mailbox."

Ms. Wobschall went so far as to put up a Change.org petition, demanding (okay, 'asking'):

...the US Senate Federal Credit Union to acknowledge the inappropriateness of this mailing and make a public apology. 

And here it is, on the front page of their site:

May 30, 2012
To the Membership of the United States Senate FCU: 

It has come to our attention that the imagery and message in a recent marketing direct mail campaign has offended some of our membership. It was not the intention of this marketing campaign to insult, demean or in any way offend anyone in our field of membership. 

The Board of Directors and Senior management personally apologize to the membership of the United States Senate Federal Credit Union for this action. 

The comments and opinions of our members recently received are very important to the Board. We will always value your opinion, membership, and support of the Senate Federal Credit Union. 

We will also work diligently and constantly to keep your confidence in our leadership. 

Yours truly, 

Christopher C. Dey, Board Chairman 

Susan R. Enis, President and Chief Executive Officer 

I would have liked them to explain who, exactly, got fired over this.

But otherwise: Yay activism! Boo sexist jerk design team!

Time cover features preschooler breastfeeding

Via BuzzFeed

So that was unexpected.

As the United States continues to struggle with the social and health issues around breastfeeding, Time Magazine decides to run a cover photo of a nursing three-year-old.

It's for a piece on attachment parenting, which we practice to some extent at our house (even though the boy weaned himself at about 20 months). I'm sure the picture is meant to shock some people who think breastfeeding a kid old enough to talk is weird or even perverse.

"Supermom" Jamie Lynne Grumet (the woman in the picture) told Huffington Post:

“When you think of breast-feeding, you think of mothers holding their children, which was impossible with some of these older kids. I liked the idea of having the kids standing up to underline the point that this was an uncommon situation.”

But hey — in the struggle to normalize natural baby feeding, such a prominent portrayal can only help.

My only question is, now that breastfeeding is considered "SFW" enough for the cover of Time, can Facebook stop calling it "obscene"?

See more photos from the shoot here.

This would be such an amazing ad for snacks

JAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Cheez Doodles!

Aleksander Gamme is a Norwegian adventurer who recently set a world record for cross-country skiing 2260km from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole and back—alone, without airdrops or kites.

On the trip to the pole, he left stashes of supplies (including his favourite snack foods) for the return trip. He says on the description of this video:

"This is day 86 on my full return South Pole Expedition 2011/2012. I`m quite hungry and about to pick up my last cache by my second pulk which I left on the way in. As a part of my motivational plan I have on purpose not made notes on what goodies I have left behind in the cache.. and on this last one, I didn`t expect very much..."

(Skip to :44 if you get impatient)

Clearly, this was one of the better stashes. The video has since gone viral, and has appeared on Huffington Post.

Great news for Wise Foods, makers of Cheez Doodles. Hopefully Aleksander will get a new sponsor out of it.

Me, I just really, really hope this is genuine and not a cynical marketing ploy. I want to believe!

He seemingly also did an "Ask Me Anything" Q&A on Reddit, if you're interested.

Posthumous baptisms countered by posthumous gay "conversion"

Huffington Post reported today that a radical group of Mormons in the Dominican Republic have declared famous Holocaust victim Anne Frank, who was Jewish her whole short life, "baptized by proxy" into their church.

As bizarre and disrespectful as this practice is, it was only stopped by the mainstream Mormon church after an agreement reached with Jewish religious leaders in 1995, and church leaders continue to apologize for renegade baptisms.

That's not enough for one group of anti-Mormon internet pranksters, however. They have set up as site called "All Dead Mormons Are Now Gay"

The site specifically adds, "*Holocaust victims are not eligible for conversion."

The site mines a Mormon database to give you the name of a random deceased Mormon who you can "convert" to homosexuality. Considering that homosexuality is a sin in their religion, this is quite an awkward position to be in.

Personally, I don't think religious intolerance should be fought with religious intolerance. Plus, equating sexual orientation with religion makes it seem that both are by choice — which is exactly how people against gay rights tend to see things.

But hey, I found this link on Fark. So what can you expect?

F'd Ad Fridays: Poorly Photoshopped naked older women for charity

The women's auxiliary of the Lake Helen American Legion Post 127 in North Florida needs to renovate their kitchen. They saw the movie Calendar Girls. One of them has a nephew who knows Photoshop.

Voilà!

Ladies, I salute you.

Shamed be he who thinks evil of it?

Yes, I cover a lot of fashion advertising and marketing here. Because it's so sexually-charged, attention-hungry and pretentious, it usually provides interesting fodder.

Take this campaign from The Lake & Stars:

The anonymous models are mother and daughter. The younger one is 19. And the fashion brand has been accused of promoting incest with this pictorial.

Maayan Zilberman, co-owner of the New York-based lingerie and swimwear label, described it this way:

"...for our viewer to see these photographs, you're confronted with this feeling of 'who's the sexy one?' Because there's always someone who's sexier and there's always some kind of competition going on; there's always a tenderness going on; there's always a tension," she said. 

"We're opening it up to think about: Is it OK for a mother and daughter to feel tender toward each other? And what happens when they're in sexy clothing?"

Which is actually the creepiest thing about the pictures — the way she describes them. That aside, you can see these pictures in many ways: as a non-sexual intimacy between a mother and a daughter, as two stages of womanly beauty presenting themselves in a sexual context to titillate you, or as OMG HOT LESBIAN COUGAR INCEST NYMPHOS.

I really think it's up to where your mind is at in the first place. Where's yours?

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

Via Huff Post

F'd Ad Fridays: So THAT's why they call him "Oral"

Via HuffPo

You're gonna love my nutty infomercals

Working in various agencies (and freelancing) in a smaller market like Ottawa, you get your share of bizarre or disturbing clients coming through the door — like the guy who wanted me to brand a porn version of Netflix, or the domain registration entrepreneur who asked me to create an ad that had a 100% chance of getting publicly banned. But even though I've seen my share of hair-brained entrepreneurs, I've never had to do an ad that would cause me to hang my head in shame.

Which is why I was so curious about the online infomercials featured in Huff Post's The 15 Stupidest Products of All Time. Some I had seen before, like the Tiddy Bear, although I had always assumed it was a joke:



Related products, like the Kush Support, are too dumb to be made up:



And yet others, such as the Aspray and Comfort Wipe, are just plain gross:





But as amusing as these are, you still have to stop and think of the incredible amount of work it is to shoot a TV commercial. I just got home from a shoot in Montreal for a real client. But no matter how ad-hoc or low budget the production, several teams of people still had to sit around through pre-production meetings, video shoots, and offline approvals trying to maintain straight faces while talking about boobies and butts, jiggles and stinks. It must've been like a Kindergarten playground.

How do they do it? One can only assume alcohol is involved, but how depressing would it be to meet with a Creative Director and show her a reel like this? Hell, if you showed her your award-winning work for The Back Up, she might even back slowly away and call security.



So my question is, are there any adpeople out there who have actually worked in the infomercial genre? And how's that working out for you?