Jarlsberg: Fear of a Black Baby

It's an old joke: The white woman with a white husband has a Black baby. It's the punchline of a joke that goes way back in time, and it's awful.



In this case, it's used as a sight gag in a Norwegian ad for Jarlsberg cheese, by TRY/APT, Oslo. As Joe La Pompe points out, the overall ad concept is unoriginal, as it is suspiciously similar to a French paper ad that won a Bronze Lion at Cannes just last year.

The French ad used the comparison of "this is inferior to that" in a comical and fairly harmless way. Now let's look at the same gag in the Norwegian spot:

Jarlsberg is to other cheeses as:

• Football (Soccer) is to Vacuous American Entertainment Shows
• Proper Funeral Attire is to Inappropriate Party Attire
• A Formal Caregiver is to a Male Stripper
• A Nursing Home is to a Mental Hospital

and...

• A White Husband is to an Affair with a Black Man

See the problem? Well, there is more than one, but the black baby gag is the most objectionable.

Enough with the racist jokes, already. This is the 21st Century. Playing on white fears of Black sexuality is old, and it's harmful.

McDonald's Norway's weird puppet love letter to farmers

A marionette McDonald's employee meets an elderly farmer, and what follows is an oddly romantic music video:



I'm still trying to figure this one out. Here's the description by McDonald's Norge:

The film is made by Qvisten Animation and depicts the long lasting bond between the Norwegian farmers and McDonald’s. The relationship is personified by two marionette actors controlled by the amazing Ricky Syers.  

There’s of course no love story without a proper love song. The beautiful interpretation of ”When You Say Nothing At All” by Ronan Keating, says it all. Especially so considering the puppets’ rather restricted ability to express themselves verbally. They show their feelings through body language and as the film shows they’re working hard to convey Mr. Keatings words as accurately as their bodies allow.

So the message is, "McDonald's loves its farmer suppliers and they love us". But the message is played out so literally that it's uncomfortably sentimental. I mean, we're really supposed to believe that this corporation exists because it loves rural life?

This campaign fits in with the basic strategy of other farm-to-fork initiatives in the United States, Australia and Canada. But the execution, by DDB Oslo, leaves me scratching my head. It just asks for too much suspension of disbelief, leaving me more cynical than ever.

Via Facebook

H/T Burger Business

Target audience: ski bums (nudity)

The T-bars are history, read these ads for Norwegian skiers. And if I had ever experienced this kind of discomfort, these ads would have my full attention.

Equal-opportunity nudity done with strategy and humour. I approve.

Campaign by Anti Inc, Oslo, Norway. Via Ads of The World.

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.

Marketing grooming product to real men

Why are men's grooming products so hard to sell? I guess it's a sign that the whole metrosexual thing is long gone that we're now at a point of parodying the "real men" who are supposed to use these products.



This one is from an Argentinian agency agency called (without irony) "Ponce". Argentina is apparently a pretty rough neighbourhood. It's funny, though, and won a Cannes Silver Lion for "best use of music".



This one's  from Los & Co in Oslo, Norway. It's also pretty funny, but may be trying a little too hard. It won a Bronze Lion in the "Film" category.

The moral of the story? Male self-deprecation wins awards. Now let's see if it moved product.

(Both tips via Copyranter)

Turning a blind eye

Have a look at these PSAs from the agency Try in Norway:

Hilarious, aren't they? Yet for me, they bring to mind an issue that always come up when dealing with this kind of campaign: is humour the best way to normalize diversity?

I know that people accuse me of taking some ads too seriously, but in this case I'd like to think it is a smart move to get people talking. And the Norwegian Association of the Blind and Partly Sighted obviously agreed. But at the same time I know that these will rub some people the wrong way. (And others will complai that a real blind person would know exactly what was going on - which to me adds another layer of humour, actually.)

The question is, will those people be sighted people?

Thanks to Ads of The World for the tip, and to Advertolog for the downloadable (although with incomplete audio) files. Hit up AoTW for more complete viewing.

BFs Vs. the Third R

This Norwegian social marketing ad (via Ads of The World) about proper recycling procedures is pretty amusing on first viewing:



But then, of course, the whole "double standard" thing ran through my brain. Can you imagine this ad with the gender roles reversed? With a man handling a woman like that, and discarding her when she's "used up"? It would be torch and pitchfork time in Oslo.



But you wouldn't see that version of the ad, because the fact is it's still okay to pick on "the man". Even in the modern Western World, there is enough perceived power disparity between man and women that men are expected to be able to take a little satirical abuse. Hence all the dufus husbands and boyfriends that are a staple of advertising aimed at adult women.

What do you think? Harmless fun, or sexism against men? Or both?


UPDATE: Adfreak's post of their take of this ad on Facebook provoked one fan to offer a link to this Czech ad that does, in fact, switch the gender roles in a similar situation (but much less violent):