China's LeTV Godwins Apple with Hitler poster

Via The Verge

According to The Verge, this poster for Chinese internet video site Leshi TV (LeTV) is making a rather awful comparison of Apple to a dictator who caused millions of innocent people to be murdered.

LeTV's founder, Jia Yueting, posted the image to his Weibo page. The Verge explains:

The text across the top of the poster compares the attributes of the Android and iOS ecosystems — "Crowdsourced, freedom vs arrogance, tyranny" — while Jia's accompanying post argues that Apple's approach to the smartphone industry is stifling innovation and harming the interests of users.

Apple is certainly worthy of criticism on its proprietary shenanigans, but Hitler?

Dangerous Minds has delved into the strange world of "Hitler Chic" in Asian countries, including China. One quote, from the manager of a clothing shop in Hong Kong that received complaints from tourists about a Nazi-themed window display was especially telling: “This is Hong Kong, and Chinese people are not sensitive about Nazism.”

I suppose it's not that far-fetched to see the Holocaust as something very distant from the experiences of people in China. But does that make this OK? Not for their Western neighbours, anyway.

Fashion brand adopts "will strip for attention" strategy

This could be the sleaziest use of sex in advertising that you will read about today. French fashion brand Vicomte A. hired Fred & Farid, Shanghai, to create an online campaign that allows users to undress a woman (or a man, apparently) by sharing promotions for items of clothing.

The portfolio video claims incredible success: >150,000 Facebook shares; >300,000 Twitter accounts accessed; 150% increase in Facebook "likes" and a fivefold increase in traffic to their e-commerce site:



Hey, waitaminute! Isn't something missing here? Sales figures?

Getting people to share information for a reward — whether is be voyeurism, altruism, or even just looking cool —is easy. The real problem is one of conversion.

Online fundraisers know only too well that you can emotionally trigger a user to share your cause, but you can't make them open their wallets. Using sex in advertising for attention is another part of the same problem. You can get tonnes of earned media and shares by titillating and outraging the internet with blatantly sexualized images of people, but to sell product you still have to brand and convinced based on that products actual benefits. Even a fashion brand, which depends on intangibles like cool factor, has to be able to deliver by providing great looks and a label that will impress peers.

This is French fashion. It looks pretty good. But check out the prices:

I'm going to hazard a guess that this campaign — which owed its viral success to men who had nothing better to do than to show all their friends they were willing to prostitute their social media persona for a peek at online nudity — was not well-enough targeted to people actually willing to shell out $383 USD on a goddamn pair of pants.

Sure, they'll click a call-to-action. But where are the sales?

Tip via Ads Of The World

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.

UNICEF promotes breastfeeding with minimalist mammaries

I'm not sure these really work. But they won two Bronze Outdoor Lions at Cannes this year for Y&R Beijing. 

Perhaps Chinese mothers will respond to the nutrition-labelling copy. But I still find the geometrical breasts (particularly below) a little bizarre.

Via Ads of The World.

Durex China celebrates Obama with racist dick joke

"The difference between Obama and Romney is..."

Twitter is a-twitter with this Durex ad, apparently shared last night by Durex China. (Even though I can't find a Twitter feed for them.) It did, however, appear on beijingcream.com last month, where it can be tracked back to Durex China's Sina Weibo account.

"Weibo" means "microblog" and Sina Weibo is the most popular platform, with about 368 million registered users.

So the ad is apparently real. But it probably wasn't intended to be seen outside China. However, when it started being Tweeted this morning, it lost its provenance as it went viral. (I spotted it on a few friends' Facebook feeds.)

Nonetheless, can we get over obsessing about black men's penises now?

Is this Chinese lingerie campaign "criminally sexy"?

Here in the west, some of us worry about how sexualized ads will influence the attitudes of young people (and society in general) about women.

In China, however, this relatively-tame campaign featuring Taiwanese model/fashion designer Lin Chi-ling has been banned for fear it may "raise crime rates."

According to China News 24, though, the TV ad was actually banned for being "too sexy," while the posters were the ones thought to incite criminal activity.

Can anyone source those? I just have to know.

Tip via Adrants

This movie poster fail probably helped ticket sales #FdAdFriday

The title of this Chinese movie is supposed to translate to "Love in the Buff," but that's not how I read it...

Via Buzzfeed

WHAT-brown pants? #FdAdFriday

Via Buzzfeed

Yes, that's how they described them.

It is not, apparently, a hoax. The offending web site, by an Abercrombie & Fitch outlet that seemed to be in the UK (one would assume, from the prices) has since been taken down. But Google still has it cached, sans image (but with image tags still in place).

And there's this text:

"Abercrombie and Fitch brand has been attracting the young market to the greatest extent. They are in love with these products, for they perfectly suit their looks. The reason of success of A&F is the dedication, which you can see in its stitching, designs, detailing, fabric and color contrasting. It pays attention on each and every detail of the garments and accessories."

Note the bad English. And that's a clue to how this may have happened.

A&F, according to The Daily Mail, has nothing to do with the site and are probably the ones who got it shut down. The site was actually registered in China, where the counterfeiting of famous brand name  clothing is common. The Mail adds, "observers said the racist name given to the clothes could be put down to bad Chinese to English translation software."

So hopefully, it was not intentional. But it is still unfortunate PR for A&F, since they have been accused of intentional racism (and "lookism") before, including in a $50 million class action lawsuit.

Selling temporary tatts with sexy balloons

These ads by Y&R Beijing use improbably-anatomical balloon shapes to promote the painlessness of applying Ed Hardy stick-on tattoos.

I'm glad they made the "balloon knot" PG...

Oddly, the while the product category exists at the Ed Hardy shop, there don't appear to be any for sale.

Pity, since a temporary tramp stamp today could save a lot of young women expensive laser treatments in later life.

Cool ads though. Both visually interesting and bang-on with the product benefit.

Via Ads of The World.

Nude activism continues to take over the internet

First PETA. Then FEMEN. Then, last month, Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy posted naked pictures of herself online to protest sexist oppression.

Now it's Chinese supporters of dissident artist Ai Weiwei who are dropping trou for a cause.

According to Shanghaiist,  Ai Weiwei announced Friday that Beijing police were now investigating his assistant Zhao Zhao for "spreading pornography online" for posting a picture of the artist with four female models, all nude. (Link)

The site, "Listen, Chinese Government： Nudity is not Pornography" is packed with homemade nudes from both well-known outspoken Chinese cewebrities and well-wishers.

What I really love are the group shots censored with AWW faces:

There is no doubt that this will get attention. Naked people always seem to, no matter how many billions of artistic, scientific and erotic nude pictures are available at the stroke of a Google. But as the shock value diminishes with the increasing ordinariness of seeing other humans in their altogether, will the efficacy of the tactic also fade?

I guess we'll just have to see. But as long as places like Egypt and China (not to mention many Western democracies) continue to harshly fight the normalization of naked displays of the human body, there will still be someone to scandalize.

(Thanks to FEMEN for the tip)

F'd Ad Fridays: Does this look 'shopped to you?

I don't even want to know what this product is supposed to do to the poor girl to make her look like that.

Via PSD

F'd Ad Fridays: Get your free dissident Chinese artist here!

Seriously, though, you can join Amnesty's campaign in support of Ai Weiwei here.

Thanks to Sleeveface's Carl Morris for sharing.

Chinese formula ads make an unintentional dead baby joke

Years ago, when my son was an infant, we used him as a model for an ad. We needed to make it look like he, at 4 months old, had fallen asleep while reading a book on Quantum Mechanics. (It was an economic development ad to attract new high tech companies to Ottawa, with the headline "start smarter".)

I recall that the photographer, Tony Fouhse, was concerned that we would not be able to get an infant to sleep through a photoshoot in the middle of the day. Julia, my wife, knew better. She breastfed the boy on set, and like clockwork he pooped, then passed out.

But then, when we looked at the photos, we were presented with another problem. Babies sleep like the dead. Literally. It's hard to tell the difference. That's why new parents are always freaking out and putting an ear to their baby's lips, listening for the breathing...

Why am I telling you all of this now? Because I just caught this campaign, for Heinze "Golden Sleep" baby formula, on I Believe in Advertising:

It's a Chinese ad, from Invisible Advertising in Guangzhou, China. Yes, China. Where at least 6 babies died and at least 300,000 were sickened by tainted milk powder in 2008. Three more died, and 36 other more became ill just this year as a result of milk tampering.

Are you sure you want this imagery associated with Chinese formula?

"CUT!"

"It's a wrap!"

You think I'm just being morbid? Check out this Portuguese social marketing campaign on drowsy driving from Osocio:

*shudders*

Sleep tight!

Adopt socialized healthcare, America. It's just what them Chinamen want!

Sorry for the slur in the headline, but how else would you describe the key message of this political ad?



Mother Jones posted this ad by"Citizens Against Government Waste" whose mission is to "eliminate waste, mismanagement, and inefficiency in the federal government." This includes ongoing lobbying against "Obamacare".

Calling for political debate is one thing. But race-baiting right with Americans with fears of a Chinese planet is uncalled for. Besides which, it was the decidedly non-socialist Nixon who opened the gates to trade with China to begin with.

The best (and by that I mean "most appalling") part of the video is when the menacing professor shows the lecture hall full of Communist automatons what evil geniuses them Chinese really is. I was almost expecting an "ah-so"...

He would, however, make an awesome Bond villain.

Trust in Advertising

Nielsen's Global Online ‘Trust in Advertising’ study shows that consumer trust in admen is down, and faith in word-of-mouth is still on top:



Compare this to the same survey results from two years ago:




Bad news for strictly traditional advertising, great opportunity for plans that successfully integrate buzz and social media.

Branded corporate communications, however, also made considerable gains. But it's interesting to break this down regionally and compare it to how authoritarian you believe each of these cultures to be:

Brand websites, globally the most trusted form of advertiser-led advertising, hold the greatest sway in China (82 percent). Following China are Pakistan (81 percent) and Vietnam (80 percent). However, brand websites tend to be trusted least amongst Swedish (40 percent) and Israeli (45 percent) Internet consumers. In the US, 62 percent of Internet consumers said they trusted brand sponsorships, placing the United States 21st out of the 50 countries surveyed.

While brands hold great sway in China, it's interesting to note that yesterday the BBC reported a Chinese internet survey showing that prostitution is now considered to be the third most trustworthy "profession", placing sex workers behind only farmers and the clergy.

Admen were not mentioned.