Showing posts with label Royal Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Royal Family. Show all posts

Friday, August 24, 2012

The Sun's latest sleaze — and my 3000th post



The naked Prince Harry scandal has made for some good old internet Schadenfreude, and understandably the British tabloids are all over it.

But, facing a Royally requested "media blackout" on the image in the UK media, the Sun decided that it would be a good idea to recreate the infamous image with Sun reporter Harry Miller standing in for the spare heir to the throne. The woman in the back, however, cause almost as much scandal: she is a 21-year-old fashion intern at the paper.

The Guardian's Lara Whyte wrote:
The image of the 21-year-old intern made me, like many of my female colleagues and friends, feel sickened and sad: sickened by this reminder of the unrelenting male chauvinism of popular media culture, and sad that a young woman was having this early experience of the industry, and that she agreed to do it.
Meanwhile, The Sun decided to publish the real naked prince pics anyway, in the name of freedom of the press. Yeah, sure.

*** 

I noticed on my blog dashboard that this is my 3000th post. Yikes!

I started this blog in 2009 as a way to stay current and relevant in a rapidly changing advertising landscape.

Originally called "Change Marketing", it was an unofficial blog of Acart Communications, the agency where I work as a Creative Director, and focussed on strategy and social marketing. Over the years, it has evolved into more of a column on ad and media trends that either delight me or piss me off. But there are plenty of adblogs like that out there.

I have also become more specialized. Since joining Osocio, I have found that to be a better outlet for reviewing social marketing campaigns. And the official Acart blog, to which I surrendered the Change Marketing brand, has become a better place for me to feature strategy and agency work.

I think it's almost time for a new evolution of this blog. I am planning to spin it off into two distinct brands — one for "advertising news, views and abuse" but more focussed on ethics. The other will be something entirely new.

Stay tuned.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Alison Jackson and the art of faux scandal

Alison Jackson is an artist. And her medium is creating fake celebrity scandal photos and videos:



As you see, she's recreated a number of rumours and scandals, using celebrity lookalikes and a paparazzi style to, in her words, "depict our suspicions".

While her recent Kate and William recreations are on display at London's Ben Brown Gallery, Alison has recently taken an interest in the Duchess' younger sister Pippa, whose well-shaped bum became somewhat of a meme following the royal wedding.

Not one for subtlety, Ms. Jackson went searching for an appropriate body double, then produced a number of videos showing what she imagined to be what it takes "to get a Pippa-perfect posterior".

What is that? I don't even...

The result is... well...





A cheeky commentary on accidental celebrity and media exploitation. But is it art?

There are more vids at AJ's YouTube Channel.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Cardboard Will and Kate, on an Ottawa date

When I made fun of this year's Outaouais tourism campaign, I may have spoken too soon. Apparently the weirdness has spread to my side of the river, in Ottawa:



This video, shared by Nick Iannitti on the Adrants FB page, anticipates the visit to Ottawa by royal newlyweds William and Kate this week for Canada Day.

Fairly harmless, really, until you look at where it's hosted: on the Ottawa Tourism YouTube account.

Yep, it's an official (or at least officially sanctioned) tourism video. Will it offend the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, or perhaps the handful of old people in Canada who still view our Monarch's family with some sort of superhuman reverence?

Whatever. I like to see authorities break out a little bit. Besides which, the cutouts look like they had a much better time than the real Will & Kate can possibly have here.