This ad, credited to Jung von Matt, doesn't even make any sense. A bottle of beer makes other people angry at you? What?
Plus, I wonder why International Blue Cross (not the American insurance providers, but a group of "independent, non-denominational Christian organisations") would take such a zero-tolerance attitude towards something that most people use without problems.
Don't panic — it's an ad. The models are obviously adults. But is using a titillating image a good idea, even if it's saying "we're against that sort of thing"? It's as if the all-male creative team at Jung von Matt were a little too into this one. As a result, in my opinion, they just end up contributing to the problem of adults fetishizing teen sexuality.
The other two ads in the campaign are also shocking, but for different reasons:
These ads are not designed to sell parenting magazines. They are designed to get attention for the creatives and their agency. Mission... accomplished. You creeps.
Jung von Matt/Neckar, Tempomedia and director Andreas Roth created this compelling film featuring spectacular underwater images. Organic food producer Herbaria is breaking with the tea industry's conventions by advertising their calming tea with this unusual film.
When agencies try to sell clients on social media strategies, we have to do something called "solution selling". It's a bit of a catch-22. To be able to prove your voodoo tactics are going to work, you have to show them that you've already successfully used them for someone else. In a media environment that changes daily, and in which being first means everything, this is kind of an issue.
So I guess that's how temptation got the better of Jung von Matt — or so it seems.
According to Ads of The World's Ivan Raszl, this video case study by JVM, for mattress maker Lullaland, features blog mentions and Tweets that simply never happened:
For Ivan's part, he brings up the screencap of a post he supposedly made, but did not:
He then goes through the archives of every other blog referenced, and can't find those either. Even the Tweets are questionable.
If true, this is a pretty serious breach of social media karma. And odd, too, because JVM hardly need the publicity.
How would you feel if, as a client, someone tried to pull something like this on you. And how would you feel if you were misrepresented as a blogger?
Ivan says, on Facebook, "I don't mind as a blogger, but I do mind as a viewer."
I'm pretty pissed as both. Although as Dabitch on Adland points out, "This story after all, will ensure that everyone in the adblog world spends an afternoon talking about a shit spambot 'campaign'. Well played?"
