Anne Taintor sued for using teetotaller's photo on a hip flask

Via Amazon

We're used to the format: Ironic vintage photo with snarky caption. It's a specialty of Anne Taintor, and we see it on cards, mugs, magnets and other novelty items.

Do you ever wonder where these retro photos came from, and whether they're rights-cleared? Well, here's one case where a stolen photo came back to bit the thief.

The flask pictured above, which is still on sale at Amazon and other outlets, apparently features the unauthorized image of a woman named Veronica Vigil in New Mexico. It's her 1970 graduation photo. Oh, and she's a teetotaller.

According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, Ms. Vigil has filed suit against the Anne Taintor company, and a local gift shop carrying the item, stating:

“Plaintiff is an active member of her church and does not consume alcohol or drugs. Given the seriousness of the issues of substance abuse in the community in which plaintiff resides, she has held herself out by reputation for her children and her community, to refrain from abuse or even use of alcohol and illicit drugs and has set an example that the issue is a very serious one that destroys families and lives.”

It really can. Reminds me of the Christian college professor who got fired when his image was used (unauthorized) on beer labels.

Provocative Nunavut FASD posters have a Russian connection

Via Storify

Last week on Osocio, I reviewed an anti-FASD campaign that ran at LCBO stores, and took some heat for my claim that its potentially shaming approach to any drinking in pregnancy wasn't helpful. But that campaign was pretty mild when compared to the new ads by the government of Nunavut:

Via CBC

According to the CBC, these posters are "provoking a strong reaction from residents" — both positive and negative.  They were designed by Atiigo Media Inc., a communications company in Iqaluit that specializes in northern issues.

The ads certainly are intended to provide shock value, showing the fetus literally drowning in alcohol. That's not exactly biologically accurate, but some locals apparently feel the strong messaging is justified by the high rates of alcohol abuse in the north, which has prompted some communities to ban alcohol entirely.

I still object to the unnecessary shaming or scaring pregnant women, even as I have to admit that I am culturally isolated from the communities for which this campaign was created.

Notably, while trying to find a better image of the campaign, I stumbled upon this Russian campaign from 2012:

While it is not uncommon for PSA campaigns to share creative ideas for public good, I wonder if this was a partnership or plain old plunder...

8-year-old NHS PSA causes fresh outrage over victim blaming

Via Daily Mail

Patrick, a reader, made me aware of the latest example of an anti-binge-drinking ad that ends up promoting the culture of blaming victims of rape.

In this case, it's the UK government's National Health Service that is causing outrage.

The Drum reports that the poster actually dates back to 2006,  part of the "Know Your Limits" campaign, but it is still available as part of an online toolkit and posted in some health facilities.

A Change.org petition, launched recently, states:

Two honourable intentions -- to stop people drinking, and to stop rape happening - are being completely deformed. Of course we don't want people to drink so much they make themselves ill, but threatening them with rape by implication is not the way to do it. Of course we don't want anyone to endure sexual assault and rape, but making them feel like it's their fault if they do, is so far out of order. 

It is not consistent with the NHS' own guidelines on 'Help after rape and sexual assault' in which they say 'If you have been sexually assaulted, remember that it wasn’t your fault. It doesn’t matter what you were wearing, where you were or whether you had been drinking. A sexual assault is always the fault of the perpetrator.' This is a much more helpful approach, and we ask the NHS and the Home Office to destroy this poster in all formats. 

It currently has over 62,000 signatures.

There have been a number of prominent anti-alcohol campaigns in recent years that have hit these same triggers, including PSAs by MADD, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, CabWise and West Mercia Police.

The fact that the NHS campaign is an older one shows how far we've come in understanding the cultural issues around rape in just a few years, but it is also a reminder to keep your PSA libraries up-to-date.

Christian college prof appears on beer label, gets canned

Daily Mail

Holy City Brewing is a microbrewery in Charleston, South Carolina. This is one of their beer labels.

Daily Mail

And this is Paul Roof, who until recently worked as an associate professor of sociology at a Christian liberal arts college in North Charleston.

Charleston Southern University apparently told Dr. Roof that appearing on a beer can was "not representative of a Christian environment" and they fired him.

He claims that the picture, which was taken at a beard competition, was used without his knowledge and without compensation. However, Dr. Roof has a longstanding relationship with the beer brand. According to live5news, he founded the Holy City Beard and Moustache Society in 2007, with Holy City Brewing as a name sponsor. Charleston Southern was aware of his relationship with the company, but didn't have an issue with it until now.

The professor told NBC, "I was told that it was not representative of a Christian environment. And for me a Christian environment entails two things: looking out for other people and forgiveness of others who've transgressed you."

Here's the week's worst liquor-related PSA, courtesy Pennsylvania state liquor workers

A similar PSA by Ontario's brewers' retail monopoly to fight against allowing beer in convenience stores took a beating in Canadian media.

But its scare tactics pale in comparison to the epically shoddy writing, acting, and production in this anti-privatization one by UFCW Local 1776, the union representing public Wine & Spirits employees in Pennsylvania:



As Consumerist puts it, "it’s at least good for a laugh while trying to ride out the rest of your Friday afternoon at work."

Here's a non-Flash embed:

A German anti-beer ad? Now I've seen it all!

"It's not just you alcohol ruins" Via Ads of The World

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.

Two more:

"Vaginal" advertising doesn't get much sleazier than this

More than 20 years ago, before I got my first agency job, I recall having a decidedly non-sober discussion with my friends about sex in advertising: "If things keep getting more explicit," I joked, "some day you'll see an ad that just shows a beer coming out of a great big [crude euphemism for a vulva]."

Guess what? It's (sort of) finally happened:

Okay, it's a bar logo rather than an actual beer. But it's just as wrong.

This new low is brought to you by an Australian bar called Mordialloc Supper Club. The obvious plan to get free exposure through bad PR worked without even having to buy any media, as the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation used its licencing authority to ban the image from Mordialloc's web site and Facebook page.

The VCGLR's ruling states, "the promotion is not in the public interest as it objectifies the female body and the commission considers it is likely to offend the ordinary reasonable person" and threatened the bar with a $17,323.20 fine if it didn't remove the image from its digital assets. (It's still archived on their blog, however.)

Yeah, I know. I'm compounding the problem. But I'd rather call out what I see as the worst offences of my industry than just let them fester. This one isn't just conceptually and executionally lazy, it's also pretty offensive to women and the whole idea of childbirth.

Another campaign tells young women "don't get raped"

Image via Ads of The World

You just have to shake your head. No matter how often people speak out against well-meaning social marketing campaigns that unintentionally (or not) normalize rape culture, people keep making them.

This one comes from Calderdale Council in West Yorkshire, produced in-house by the creative team of Stuart Kerray and Dave Follon. The Council told The Mail they hoped their campaign "will reduce crime and shock revellers into thinking twice about how much they drink."

Writing in her Wordpress blog, Karen Ingala Smith saw it differently. I'll let her take it from here:

Though the poster doesn’t explicitly mention rape,  the lines “when you drink too much you lose control and put yourself at risk” together with an image of a dishevelled young woman in a short dress, make clear that the risk is that of sexual violence. The article was picked up widely re-reported including in The Independent and Daily Mail and eventually discussed in a piece by Sarah Vine under the title “Sorry sisters, but girls who get blind drunk ARE risking rape” in which she stated her  refusal to join “the chorus of feminist disapproval” and argued that women need to take responsibility for their own safety, going on to mention “one or two nasty brushes” that made her realise how important it was to not willingly put herself in the path of danger and “stupidly” becoming a victim. 

The concept of a victim of violence ‘willingly and stupidly putting themselves in the path of danger’ is judgemental victim blaming.  Whether though an act of choosing  or not choosing to do something, a victim of sexual violence is never responsible for what is done to them. Rapists and abusers are the only ones responsible for rape and abuse. 

Rapists and abusers use excuses to justify their actions,  to discredit their victims and to shift responsibility for their choices away from themselves and on to their victims.  They use exactly the kind of excuses encapsulated in the Calderdale poster and Vine’s piece, in short: “She didn’t take care. “ or “She was asking for it.”

Is she reading too much into it? Let's look at how the same campaign advertises to male bingers:

Via Ads of The World

Via Ads of The World

Same playful concept, but no hint of sexual consequences. Instead, the ads talk about the danger of hurting yourself and others. Women as victims, men as aggressors. You've seen it all before.

The council’s Cabinet member for economy and environment, Coun Barry Collins, told the Yorkshire Post (in a classic non-apology) that the images "were not intended to cause offence."

We have used images of both men and women to raise awareness of the impacts on anyone of taking drugs and drinking too much. The aim of the campaign is to expose as many people as possible to timely advice to enjoy a safe night out.

He said the same images were used 
last year, with no complaints until now.

So perhaps some progress has been made?

British ad: "Had a bad day at work? Get drunk!"

My friend Neil Hopkins shared this ad on G+ with the comment:

There's such a cultural issue here in the UK with alcohol and workplace stress, this slightly beggars my belief...

Mine, too. No matter how true it may be, it's not exactly responsible liquor advertising. I have the feeling the ASA will be getting a call about this.

Pro-pot ads address the hypocrisy of legal booze

Don't get me wrong — I like the drink. But since I was old enough to understand such things, in the '80s, I have railed against a legal system in which alcohol and tobacco are perfectly legal drugs for adults and something as soft as marijuana is not.

As a matter of fact, my very first paid writing job was a full-page 1990 op ed in the Kingston Whig-Standard in which I looked at the history of drug legislation as one of socially accepted versus not-accepted drugs. It's a history that often had to do more with racism and industry than with medicine or other sciences.

So I have to admit that I like this bold campaign by The Marijuana Policy Project in Portland, Maine. According to NY Daily News, the organization spent $2,500 on a transit campaign that support's the city's ballot measure to legalize recreational adult cannabis use.

Despite complaints from people who claim the ads will encourage pot smoking by youth, the transit system says they have no choice but to leave them up, because they are genuinely political. “If we’re going to allow one type of political advertising, we have to allow it all,” a spokesperson told the Portland Press Herald. It is also notable that Greater Portland District Transit allows alcohol ads on their buses (but not tobacco), rendering the "won'tsomeonepleasethinkaboutthechildren" argument another double-standard. Medical marijuana use is already legal and regulated in Maine.

But is pot safer than booze? The death toll of alcohol through overdose, liver damage, drunk driving and alcohol-fuelled violence is well documented. Pot's potential harms, besides  are barely understood.

According to the US National Institutes of Health, the problems with alcohol are simple (if sometimes devastating) but well-understood:

Alcohol affects every organ in the drinker's body and can damage a developing fetus. Intoxication can impair brain function and motor skills; heavy use can increase risk of certain cancers, stroke, and liver disease. Alcoholism or alcohol dependence is a diagnosable disease characterized by a strong craving for alcohol, and/or continued use despite harm or personal injury. Alcohol abuse, which can lead to alcoholism, is a pattern of drinking that results in harm to one's health, interpersonal relationships, or ability to work.

The same organization takes a lot longer to explain the harmful effects of marijuana, partly because the research is sparser and less conclusive:

Marijuana use can have a variety of adverse, short- and long-term effects, especially on cardiopulmonary and mental health. 

Marijuana raises heart rate by 20-100 percent shortly after smoking; this effect can last up to 3 hours. In one study, it was estimated that marijuana users have a 4.8-fold increase in the risk of heart attack in the first hour after smoking the drug. This may be due to increased heart rate as well as the effects of marijuana on heart rhythms, causing palpitations and arrhythmias. This risk may be greater in older individuals or in those with cardiac vulnerabilities. 

Marijuana and Driving 

Because it seriously impairs judgment and motor coordination, marijuana also contributes to accidents while driving. A recent analysis of data from several studies found that marijuana use more than doubles a driver’s risk of being in an accident. Further, the combination of marijuana and alcohol is worse than either substance alone with respect to driving impairment. 

Marijuana smoke is an irritant to the lungs, and frequent marijuana smokers can have many of the same respiratory problems experienced by tobacco smokers, such as daily cough and phlegm production, more frequent acute chest illness, and a heightened risk of lung infections. One study found that people who smoke marijuana frequently but do not smoke tobacco have more health problems and miss more days of work than nonsmokers, mainly because of respiratory illnesses. 

A number of studies have shown an association between chronic marijuana use and mental illness. High doses of marijuana can produce a temporary psychotic reaction (involving hallucinations and paranoia) in some users, and using marijuana can worsen the course of illness in patients with schizophrenia. A series of large prospective studies also showed a link between marijuana use and later development of psychosis. This relationship was influenced by genetic variables as well as the amount of drug used and the age at which it was first taken—those who start young are at  increased risk for later problems. 

Associations have also been found between marijuana use and other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts among adolescents, and personality disturbances, including a lack of motivation to engage in typically rewarding activities. More research is still needed to confirm and better understand these linkages. 

Marijuana use during pregnancy is associated with increased risk of neurobehavioral problems in babies. Because THC and other compounds in marijuana mimic the body’s own cannabinoid-like chemicals, marijuana use by pregnant mothers may alter the developing endocannabinoid system in the brain of the fetus. Consequences for the child may include problems with attention, memory, and problem solving. 

Finally, marijuana use has been linked in a few recent studies to an increased risk of an aggressive type of testicular cancer in young men, although further research is needed to establish whether there is a direct causal connection.

In my opinion, every drug — whether recreational or medicinal — has the potential to be good, bad or ugly. It's all a matter of how it is used.

You can read the campaign's own comparative argument for legalization at marijuanaissafer.org.

Dead, teetotaling Bruce Lee resurrected to sling whisky

Design Taxi reports that this ad, for Johnnie Walker Blue Label's China market, took BBH nine months to render Bruce Lee in CGI:

There's something really disturbing about dead celebrities being recreated to sell brands.

Remember this one?

It seems like the ultimate violation of a person's integrity, at a time when they cannot even defend themselves.

It's especially ironic in this case, as Bruce Lee is believed to have been an abstainer.

On the Vimeo link, Director Joseph Kahn says "We got Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter, to come aboard and we really picked her brain to make sure that everything was accurate from look to soul. We wanted to be as respectful to the man and legend as we could."

Except for the whole "using his spiritual philosophy to shill hooch" part, I guess.

Maybe someday, someone will digitally add Mr. Kahn into this scene:

Thanks to Mike Z for the tip.

"Go up to a girl and whisper yo-ho-ho"?

I don't think this rum ad has aged very well. "Yo, ho!" is not exactly a winning line in the parlance of our times.

Via 1960's and 1970's Advertisements on Facebook.

Nasty UNICEF campaign trashes "sluts", "dealers" and "drunks"

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this UNICEF campaign by Prolam Y&R, Chile, on Ads of The World. I can see where they came from — children need a good education to get out of poverty and the cycle of crime, sex work and substance abuse — but is this really the best way to show that?

First of all, the ads show a "negative" rather than a "positive" outcome. I guess the message is, "if you don't help these kids, where will their education come from?" 

But it does it in such a way as to assume that people in poverty end up in the underworld simply because of bad influences around them, rather than because their socioeconomic circumstances leave them few options. To blame the "slut" (I assume they mean "prostitute"), the dealer and the substance abuser in this way is not helping. It's shaming.

UNICEF does good work in education. But if they did actually approva this ad (one never knows, these days) they could do a much better job on educating the public about the political, social and economic causes and outcomes of poverty.

Are liquor gift cards inappropriate teacher gifts?

According to Metro, this on-site promo from Ontario's liquor monopoly is not sitting well with parents:

Parents watching their kids play outside the Waterfront School at the foot of Bathurst Street on Monday afternoon were surprised by the campaign, and felt LCBO ads shouldn’t appear geared to kids. 

“Why target children?” asked a flabbergasted Jackie Allen, who was there to pick up her son Jaden, 7. “Since when is it OK for kids to give liquor to their teachers?”

The response from the LCBO, quite naturally, is that this online seasonal are not targeted to children. It's for the parents.

My wife is an elementary school teacher, and she occasionally gets LCBO gift cards from parents. It's a  welcome gift, and avoids the awkwardness of sending your child to school with a bottle of Chianti.

Perhaps the real scandal here is Metro going out of its way to manufacture outrage.

To review, here is the extent of their research:

Parents watching their kids play outside the Waterfront School at the foot of Bathurst Street on Monday afternoon were surprised by the campaign, and felt LCBO ads shouldn’t appear geared to kids.

That's right. They apparently ambushed some parents, showed them the "ad" out of context, and pressed for reactions. Poor.

This is how you do sex in advertising

It can be done. Just watch:



I was a little worried at first, with the lesbian fetish cliché of the two women kissing, but when bethonged spokesman Brandon Allen gets in bed with the threesome, the ad achieves a kind of self-deprecating charm and irony.

The point is that sex in advertising isn't bad by itself. The problem is when the sex is all about objectifying women's bodies and sexuality for men's viewing pleasure. Sexual humour that treats everyone equally isn't a problem when the context and the audience are appropriate.

There are two other ads in the series. One deals with BDSM:



The other, dope:



These ads are all about brand over product. It's the sort of unpretentious marketing that goes over well with the growing numbers of undemanding new wine drinkers.

Tip via AdFreak

Advertising rape culture in anti-rape campaigns

Victim-blaming. It's ugly, it's hurtful, and it's doing nothing to stop people from raping other people.

In the aftermath of the Steubenville rape trial, in which two teenage men were convicted of raping and humiliating an unconscious teenage woman, it's time we had another look at what these supposedly-helpful ads are saying. 

Using some of the post-verdict, victim-blaming Tweets compiled on Sociological Images, I've twinned the infamous ads with their real-life counterpart messages.

The ad above is from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. I wrote about it on Osocio, and it was all over the mainstream media. The ad was pulled from the campaign.

This one is from West Mercia police. When called on it by British feminists, they refused to apologize.

This one isn't even about drinking. It's a "safe taxi" campaign by Transport for London, and note that it has the Mayor and the police endorsing it.

To quote You Are Doing it Wrong: 

Christ. Did anyone pause for even a milli-second, and think, ‘Gee, maybe it’s NOT such a good idea to equate not booking a taxi with certain rape?’. Or did the advertising agency just convince Cabwise that it would provoke attention, and controversy?

Which brings us to my longtime prohibition-era nemesis, MADD:

MADD - Unbuttoned from Esparza Advertising on Vimeo.

Interestingly, when the message is being preached to men, the danger isn't being raped but rather having unwanted sex with somebody unattractive:

It's really bad, folks. People actually think that the only thing standing between a woman and her rape is how she controls herself. She must at all times be sober, fully covered, aloof and safely cloistered away from "bad people". Failure to observe any of these rules makes her responsible for anything violent that happens to her, because men — especially drunk men — have no control and will automatically seek to sexually violate her.

There is hope, however:

Sexual Assault Voices Edmonton, via Osocio.

Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, via Osocio

Via Men Can Stop Rape

Teach your children well. 

There's a word for this kind of humour (at least there should be)

That word is "transphobia". And the Global Respect In Education (GRIN) campaign is petitioning Microsoft and the Oxford English Dictionary to recognize it.

Their definition:

transphobia |ˌtransˈfəʊbɪə,  trɑːns-,|                                                 noun [ mass noun ]                                                                                 an extreme and irrational aversion to transsexuality and transsexual or transgender people.

Now, my first reaction was that the OED is a descriptive, rather than a prescriptive source, simply reacting to the mainstreaming of new words according to established standards. (Microsoft, on the other hand, could easily bow to consumer pressure.)

But let's talk about this campaign. It's for an Australian rum, by agency CumminsRoss. The brand, "bearded lady" refers to a sideshow act. And the entire campaign is full of images that are supposed to make men feel uncomfortable about trans people or just manly women:

Australia's ad industry is known for "non-PC" humour, and I get that. But humour at the expense of real people who are targeted for exclusion, ridicule, bullying and even physical attack just doesn't seem right. Not in the 21st century.

But you have to hand it to these guys. They don't just pick on trans people. They also mock fat people, sick people, handicapped people and kids:

Images via Ads of The World

Wishing a most wholesome Thanksgiving to my American readers

Here's how Canada contributed to your awkward family moments in 1936. Keep that creepy uncle of yours off the rye!

Via Sociological Images

Four stupid Thanksgiving ads with the same racist headline

They're not just unoriginal, obnoxious and offensive, they're historically inaccurate. 

Back in the day, it was the pilgrims who drank beer all the time, simply because they had no reliable source of clean water. The indigenous Wampanoag people probably weren't in much of a partying mood, either, since were being decimated by novel diseases brought to their shores by the Europeans.

From a collection of native stereotyped American Thanksgiving ads at Indian Country.  Thanks to Audra Williams for sharing.

Who cares if alcohol marketing uses "adult" branding?

New Hampshire, apparently.

Industry site thedrinksbusiness.com reports that this wine, from Napa Valley's Hundred Acre owner Jayson Woodbridge, has some New Hampshire executive councilors (NH has a unique form of government) crying foul.

“This isn’t the welcome mat New Hampshire should display for tourists,” councillor David Wheeler told local newspaper The Union Leader. “We need to set a higher standard for sales and marketing – the label violates community standards.” 

Never mind that it's a booze brand, intended for adults, and the "if you see kay" gag is pretty subtle.

The State Liquor Commission agreed to move the offending wine "to the back" of state liquors stores, but defended the choice of brands.

“We sold 10 cases last week,” Joseph Mollica, chairman of the State Liquor Commission told The Union Leader. “We don’t want to offend anyone, but we also don’t want to miss an opportunity.”

Especially an opportunity for free PR.

Drinks Business concludes with the quip:

A wine called Ménage à Trois is among the 10 best selling wines in New Hampshire. 

Well played. Well... played.