When will the rest of the world get a cool genital jingle?

When I was a teen, I stumbled upon an old book about sex education in Sweden in a used book store. To be honest, I probably bought it for the boobies. But I was also impressed by what I saw as an attempt to give kids and teens positive messages about their bodies, their physical autonomy, and their right to choose what was right for them.

I was reminded of this when the "Snoppen och snippan" video appeared in my newsfeeds.



Catchy, isn't it? With dancing penises and vulvas.

According to Metro, as made for Swedish children’s programme Bacillakuten, using childish words for the organs, ‘snipp’ and ‘snopp’

Some of the lyrics translate as: ‘Here comes the penis at full pace’, and: ‘the vagina is cool, you better believe it, even on an old lady. It just sits there so elegantly’. (They reportedly sound much less weird in Swedish).

I don't think it's weird, and I'm not even Swedish.

The admin of the DosFamily Facebook community explains further:

This is the trailer song from a children's Tv show currently showing in Sweden at the moment. The show is about the body and things that happens with it. Different doctors explains about what happens when you get ill or how do the food system works or colds or what happen when you break a leg... Every episode get an own song for the things they talk about and apparently soon it will be about Snoppen & snippan.

You can see the original post and discussion (in Swedish) at the SVT Barnkanalen page.

Now I just wish they had something like this for English-speaking kids.

(Thanks to Bé for sharing additional info)

Using sex to train the next generation of sexist techies

Think the tech industry isn't sexist enough already? Now a company called "CodeBabes" wants to teach you marketable internet skills while you watch women strip.



The company uses teaser videos to provide "free" starter lessons, in which women with prominent breast implants read a script and try to act nerd-sexy:



According to Salon:

The site has obviously prompted good deal of outrage. Silicon Valley is riddled with sexism — from a dearth of women engineers, to allegations of harassment at GitHub. CodeBabes has a litany of issues. For starters it turns women’s bodies into a commodified reward, and codifies the structural idea that men should make money in tech and women do it by being sexy. Though they have announced that CodeDudes will be rolling out soon, the objectification of both sexes hardly makes either OK.

No, it doesn't. And the feedback, in terms of both outrage and reactionary support, was as predictable as ever.

The idea behind CodeBabes does not sit well with us. http://t.co/P0IC64YTih
— HuffPostWomen (@HuffPostWomen) April 30, 2014

By a woman who codes: RT @ruhee_ I wrote a quick thing about why CodeBabes and sites like it are really harmful http://t.co/yY7JgKF9Pd
— Allison Sparling (@Allisomething) April 26, 2014

We can't tell if "CodeBabes" is fake. But we hope so. http://t.co/RM8Jb9oOuK pic.twitter.com/rW2BEVQKV7
— Fast Company (@FastCompany) April 25, 2014

Well, that escalated quickly
— CodeBabes (@CodeBabes) April 25, 2014

Obviously those that give @CodeBabes only negative feedback lack a sense of humor.It's just a fun new way to learn😉👓 http://t.co/I6fQB1y3rw
— Veroni©a LaVe®y™ (@VeronicaLavery) April 28, 2014

I find it funny the backlash @CodeBabes is getting. It was fun & I'd do it again! Lighten up, people.
— Cami Li (@CamiLiModel) April 28, 2014

People hate us so much that we've streamed 9.23 TB of lesson videos in 2 days ;)
— CodeBabes (@CodeBabes) April 28, 2014

Of course they did. Because no matter how many naked women get objectified on the internet for free, there is always a buck to be made by adding more.

Ironically, studies show that sexual arousal on does not help learning. In fact, it makes you stupid. But then, we already knew that, didn't we?

You can criticize me for giving CodeBabes further attention if you want, but I'm a believer in sharing information with people so they can decide what they want to do with it.

Ontario Catholic schools play "holier than thou"

Update: The video has been removed from the official YouTube channel. The replacement embed is from the Globe and Mail.

Whenever I get into smug internet arguments with Americans about their religious craziness, I am always afraid they'll trot out an obvious problem with Canada's secular la la land. That problem is publicly-funded Catholic schools.

The reason for their existence is complex, and has to do with Canada's history as a state of compromises. In our early days, both the Anglican and the Roman Catholic churches received land and special rights — including separate education systems. This was partly because Canada was essentially a French colony conquered by the English, and religious, linguistic and legal accommodations had to be made to keep the place together. As well, Canada had large populations of Anglophone Catholics who regularly fought with their Protestant neighbours.

Education is under provincial jurisdiction in Canada, and in Ontario the "Protestant" school system evolved into a secular public system, while the Catholic one remained religious. This has caused continuing debate in Ontario, but the provincial parties tend to shy away from addressing the issue. It is interesting to note, however, that in the recent teacher labour disruptions the Catholic elementary school union was quick to accept a deal from the Premier while the public teacher's union fought long and hard. Another compromise for continued support?

I won't get into all the reasons why I believe that separate religious education needs to be ended in Ontario as soon as possible. In skipping over this, I hope I don't cause too much offence among friends who have graduated from the system, and have sent or are sending their children to it. I'm not judging you, I'm just pointing out that the separate system goes against the secular nature of our modern world, and having parallel boards of education is a massive waste of taxpayer money when the government tells us they can't afford the status quo.

This is an advertising blog, so obviously this short rant was inspired by an ad. Here it is:



There are lots of things that bother me about this video, but the worst thing about it is how it directly attacks the public system by claiming the religious values in Catholic schools make them "better."

Michael Barrett, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, is quoted in the Globe and Mail:

“There’s certainly always been a partnership that exists between the two boards, and I think that the message that is being sent certainly would indicate that the public school board somehow does not have a values-based education because it’s not religion-based. I find it hard to believe that the only way you can have a values-based education is indeed within that context.”

Me too. And I'm further annoyed that school systems are spending their funds to compete with each other for students. Yet another waste resulting from clinging to outdated educational separatism.

Disclosure: I am married to a public school teacher.

Girls: Who needs math when you can shop?

Consumerist shared this Facebook photo of a shirt sold at The Children's Place. In the 21st Century.

A customer named Erin Shipp wrote on the company's FB wall:

I dropped by one of your stores over the weekend and was really disgusted by the sexist approach to girls' clothing. It's bad enough that so much of it is pink and purple, but the "best subjects" t-shirt is pretty terrible so is the "this princess is no drama queen" one. What, boys get to have aspirations to do things and girls are supposed to be materialistic wannabe princesses angling to catch a man before third grade? I have a son and haven't paid much attention to your girl clothes before this, but I was hoping to purchase a gift. Not only did I leave empty-handed, but I won't be returning.

Jezebel's Laura Beck adds some context:

By contrast, their boys t-shirts are all about surfing and playing drums and being a superhero. They're by no means perfect, but they paint the picture of a pro-active kid putting himself out there and making things happen. If the company doesn't want to mix all the shirts together —boys and girls basically have the same bodies at those ages, why can't they choose for themselves?

Sexist t-shirt controversy seems to pop up with regularity these days. But the ones furthering anti-academic female stereotypes are among the worst.

In their 2000 paper “Gender Differences in Academic Attitudes among Gifted Elementary School Students”, researchers at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Talented Elementary Students, suggested to parents:

"...expose both boys and girls to activities involving all kinds of skills. They can guard against assuming that boys will like math/science and girls will prefer verbal activities. They can try to ensure that their children’s teachers don’t make these assumptions or treat children differently based on gender.” 

That was 13 years ago. More recently, it has been observed that girls are outpacing boys in later academic achievement, as well as representing more than half of post-secondary enrolment. So these shirts are not just sexist, they're out-of-touch.

I have a young son, and I have shopped at The Children's Place. (It's a little expensive, but they turn over and liquidate stock quickly.) I'll be watching when, or if, the company responds.

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.

Noelle's Gift honours the spirit of slain kindergarten teacher

Noelle Paquette was a substitute kindergarten teacher in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. A graduate of the University of Ottawa and Nipissing University, she was a close friend of a coworker and a former coworker of mine. Last week, through those connections, I received a desperate plea to share a "missing person" story. It was Noelle. She had left a New Year's Eve party alone, and had not been seen again.

Via Facebook

In the days that followed, the worst nightmare of any parent — or friend — unfolded. Sarnia police announced that Noelle had been found. Then that a body had been found. Then the body was identified as Noelle. And with a rapidness that surprised everyone following the case, two people were arrested almost immediately and charged with her murder.

There is a lot of rumour and speculation about this case, specifically about the motives. But it appears that this young woman, said to be beloved of students and certainly by friends, was targeted for no reason other than being momentarily vulnerable.

Noelle's friends, however, want her to be remembered "for the woman she was and not for the way she died." As some of them work in advertising and the not-for-profit sector, it was natural that they branded and launched an online appeal in Noelle's memory.

Via  noellesgift.ca

After returning to her hometown of Sarnia for a teaching job covering a maternity leave, Noelle "immediately made an impact... taking it upon herself to go above and beyond her assigned duties," according to the memorial site, noellesgift.ca. "She was passionate about helping students grow and ensuring they were able to have a positive experience, often supplying meals, classroom supplies, and clothing to those students in need."

And Noelle, in spirit, will continue that commitment to Sarnia's students in needs. The fundraising site is structured to allow donors to provide children with gifts in $5, $10 and $20 packages, providing classroom supplies, nutritious meals and clothing, respectively. Funds are managed by the Paquette family.

The site also links to the Facebook page, Prayers For Noelle Marie Paquette.

I asked my friends if there was anything to do to help them deal with their loss. The obvious answer was to try to share Noelle's memory and this cause, which was closest to her heart. Please pass it on.

noellesgift.ca

"My Vagina, My Rules" poster is too cool for school

This may be The Year of the Vagina throughout much of the United States, but not at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Animal New York reports that the poster (above), advertising the school’s Progressive Student Awareness club, was swiftly banned after being posted around campus.

Student Brianna Payne was shocked by the censorship, since she had had the posters pre-approved by her teacher, Joseph Kaelin. “He told me that the principal and a couple of the assistant principals saw the posters and they were like, ‘We don’t like them. They’re inappropriate,’” Payne told Animal NY's Andy Cush. “He told me that he agreed with us, and he thought what we were doing was correct, but he couldn’t do anything about it.”

Laura Marquez, Brooklyn Tech's Assistant Principal of Parent and Student Engagement, claims the poster was sensationalist and lacking in useful information. “The poster was passed around to a room of about a dozen administrators, and no person said, ‘Well, you know, lets give them a shot,’" she explained. "Everybody was shaking their heads, or various degrees of annoyed and offended.”

Because "vagina" is a dirty, dirty word. Especially in the context of sexual rights. I can't believe we trust teenage girls to go running around with those things between their legs. Won't someone PLEASE think about the children?

Teachers' union welcomes in the school year with quiz on labour rights

Clearly, no Art Directors were inconvenienced in the making of this ad. But the quiz-style long copy print ad is appearing as a full page in several Ontario dailies.

The Ontario elementary teachers (my wife is one of them) are locked in a battle of wills against the cash-strapped Ontario government. Premier Dalton McGuinty's minority government recently introduced Bill 115 to force a new contract — including wage freezes, clawbacks on bankable sick leave, and removing right to strike — on the teachers without going through the collective bargaining process. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association says it's unconstitutional, however.

I am conjugally biased on this issue, which has lead to a number of internet arguments with friends, family, and journalists. One rather disrespectful comment by the Education Minister made me so angry, I launched a petition demanding she resign or apologize for misrepresenting teachers as lazy and greedy. It has attracted almost 6,000 signatures.

I've never been a member of any union, but I find myself taking sides in this case. So,  Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, if you'd like me to help you develop a more effective PR and social media strategy to get your story across, call me.

This is how they advertise English lessons in Israel #FdAdFriday

Found on FoD, via Reddit

That's pretty sweet. But that black text over Jules' suit is too bad.

The saddest GIS image theft ever #FdAdFriday

In the age of Google, it's not uncommon to find personal or news photos stolen and used for ads in other countries. But what those unethical adpeople don't realize is that the same internet that gives them access to "free" visuals can also make their thefts very public.

Copyranter shared this billboard from India, for overseas study and job placement firm Jubeerich Consultancy.

"The trusted name since 1999"

Whoever designed the ad was obviously looking for a pretty, smiling, fair-complexioned face to represent the West. But they didn't check the story behind the image.

Eve Carson, the woman pictured, was a student at the University of North Carolina who was brutally murdered by Demario James Atwater (and possibly his teen accomplice) on March 5, 2008. In what was apparently a random act of violence, she was killed by repeated shotgun blasts and her car and ATM card stolen.

This act of image theft was not only unforgivably cruel to Ms. Carson's family and friends. There is also a painful irony in using the picture of a murdered American student in an ad for study abroad.

Shame on them.

Putting the sexy back in philosophy class #FdAdFriday

Jezebel featured this odd bit of promotion that Philosophy Prof Vincent Hendricks did for his class at the University of Copenhagen:

Yes, those are sexy schoolgirls behind him.

Apparently, the immensely-modest Dr.Hendricks did the shoot for the Danish ladmag Connery when they chose him as their "Man of The Month".  And he thought it was not only entirely professional to imply that he is getting lots of female student ass, but also felt that his actual female students would enjoy being characterized this way.

I do, however, give the man bonus points for out-creeping one of the creepiest ads of 2011, that award-winning Brazilian KIA pedo travesty that caused shitstorms all the way to Korea.

If the timelines were reversed, I would have assumed he actually inspired the ad:

After raising predictable outrage, Dr. Hendricks issued this apology:

"To the Philosophical Community 

Some recent pictures on my website have caused some debate. The intention was that the pictures, as a cover on a forthcoming magazine, might be used to view logic from a somewhat humorous and untraditional perspective appealing to larger audience which the magazine covers. However it had the opposite effect offending various parties in the philosophical community. I truly apologize for this and I stand completely corrected. I have removed the pictures from the website."

 Yeah, whatever.

College Recruitment — it's a snap! #FdAdFriday

This is a real ad from a real technical college in Australia, The Central Institute of Technology. But what starts out as a fairly cheesy recruitment ad goes off the rails pretty quickly into horror, gore, and angst.

In other words, perfect for the target market.



Via Gizmodo. (Thanks, Dave, for the tip!)

"Learn English Abroad" ads hit my communication sweet spot

I really like these Swiss learning travel ads in today's Ads of The World:

The copy reads, "Exciting conversations don't come out of your schoolbook.
Language courses abroad: www.smallworld.ch".

This struck me as such a perfectly true insight. So true, in fact, that there's no way it can't have been done many times before.

It also hits home. As an English Canadian of a certain age, I studied French as a mandatory school course from Grade 3 to Grade 10. Today, I cannot speak French to save my cul.

A few years later, I learned to speak Italian. Not grammatically perfect Italian, but enough to keep my culo out of trouble as I mingled with new friends in bars, clubs and parties — exactly the scenarios shown above.

And this is why I love the ads. Real language immersion is a full-contact cultural experience. You learn what you need to learn naturally, simply because you really want to communicate. And the payoffs, in lifelong beyond-tourism experiences, are immediate and more than worth the effort.

F'd Ad Fridays: Vintage "educational" video warns of homosexual dangers

We keep seeing parodies of the old '50s educational films. It's such a well-known trope that I sometimes wonder if the people making them have ever seen an original.

The thing is, those original films are a really special kind of awful, from a time when conformity was considered so essential to society that they had to constantly program kids through propaganda techniques learned in the recent war.

So watch this clip. You'll either laugh or get angry. But you'll have to admit the medium is still a powerful cultural reference, decades later.

What are we teaching the next generation of creatives?

Student work that makes the blog rounds is very telling. On the one hand, it shows us what the next generation of creatives has to offer. On the other hand, student (and often junior) work tends to be an exaggerated reflection of what these impressionable young adpeople think is great.

This Maxim/Humane Society CSR spec from Miami Ad School, Brooklyn, is a prime example.

It's a digital campaign that asks men what type of woman they want to hook up with, and suggests a breed of dog to adopt to attract her. It also provides stereotype-specific pickup lines.

So, what are we teaching today's ad students?

Well, "sex sells" is a given. But wait!  There's more:

Lesson One: It's okay to sexually objectify women as long as it's for a cause 


Thank PETA for that one.

Lesson Two: Porn is reality

Is any Maxim reader going to meet women like this? No, because they do not exist. They are stereotypes ripped from the hand of a Letters to Penthouse reader, as portrayed by surgically and digitally enhanced models. Hey, look! The smart girl has glasses! (Don't worry, she's taking them off.) Note that most of them are white, and "Latina Princess" has no personality beyond her exotic ethnicity.

Lesson Three: Bitches are disposable commodities


What a great idea. Imagine if you could borrow a dog just long enough to attract a girl like this, just long enough to bed her. Then you can go back next week and get a chihuahua and maybe bang the Latin girl! Because attracting non-committed pet owners is what the Humane Society is all about. And tricking women into sex is what being a man is all about, big guy!

Lesson Four: You can insult people all you want, as long as it's a joke

If someone questions the appropriateness of your campaign, "Get the sand out of your vagina!" is a proper response. If the critic is a woman, this both reminds her that she is defined by her sexual parts, and outs her as a humourless prude. If the critic is male, it implies he is no man at all (and is probably gay) because he refused to fist bump a bro for putting the hos in their place. Also, he is probably gay.

Lesson Five: To get ahead in advertising, think like a man (with your penis)


If you have already seen this campaign (in I Believe in Advertising or elsewhere) you probably skipped straight to the comments to tell me what an idiot I am. The credits, you see, are "Art Director: Jennine Punzone
Copywriters: Jaclyn Shelton, Kaley Coon".

Young women. Trying to impress middle aged creative directors by selling out their own dignity.

They'll go far.

Sex, lies, and the politics of hate

Remember last week's awful ad (new window) from the "Institute for Canadian Values" about Ontario's proposed sex ed curriculum? With its blatantly anti-GLBTQ message and manipulative imagery, it even got the National Post to apologize for running it in the first place.

Well, there's another one. A pamphlet. And according to Torontoist it was paid for by Ontario's Progressive (ha!) Conservative Party:

The Globe and Mail gives Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak's defence of the publication:

When asked if he supported the message, Mr. Hudak turned the question around on the Liberals and suggested the party was out of touch with mainstream voters.

“My little girl Miller – it’s her birthday today – is just four and she has started JK,” he said. “The notion that Dalton McGuinty thinks a priority in education is sex-education curriculum starting at Grade 1 when they should be learning their ABCs and how to tie their shoes is another example of how Dalton McGuinty has lost touch with mainstream Ontario.”

The Globe has also endorsed the Liberal Premier, Dalton McGuinty, for re-election on Thursday's provincial vote.

Interestingly, the quotes in the ad are not from any proposed provincial curriculum, but rather from a Toronto District School Board booklet on "Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism".

And as CBC points out, the copy is full of misrepresentations and outright fabrications.

The flyer includes one quote from the document —"cross-dressing for six-year olds"— that can't be found anywhere in the TDSB document. The flyer also says the quotes are taken from the K-12 curriculum. But the quotes are not included in the curriculum, only in the anti-homophobia resource guide.

This election campaign was already ugly. Now it's evil, too.

(Thanks to Martha W. for the tip)

Raise your hand if you think schools are underfunded

Here's a cute ad that showed up on Reddit. Looks like someone's spec idea, however the supposed sponsor, A Day Made Better, is a very real teacher-supportive CSR effort by Office Max in the USA.


Here in Canada as well, classrooms are grossly underfunded and teachers (such as my better half) end up spending this much and more out-of-pocket just to make sure their students have what they need to learn in a positive and fun environment. Yet political pressures to reduce school budgets continue to reduce the quality and availability of classroom resources and insult the professionalism of teachers.

So the ad above may well be fake (since it is so tonally different from the "real" campaign) but it certainly expresses a real frustration faced by educators.

The Jennifer Aniston Foundation

The Stiller Foundation (FB link) is a real charity, founded "to support children around the world by providing educational opportunities to help them realize their full potential."

The PSA, however, is just good old fashioned Stiller humour:



The URL is the best part, considering Aniston is one of the more modest and guarded blockbuster actresses out there. (Don't worry/get too excited, it just redirects to FB.)

Via Illegal Advertising

Healthy eating starts on the farm

My God, it's hard to be a good parent these days. Especially when you've got a two-income family and very little time between wrapping up work, getting the kid(s) home, feeding them, and putting them to bed. Soon, the soup cans and KD boxes start piling up in your recycling, and you wonder whatever happened to home cooked meals.

Well, there is an alternative. And it starts with teaching your kids to appreciate real food.



This is a fun little video Acart's Cause Loop (our employee-run CSR committee) did for the Fill-A-Bus programme at the Canadian Agricultural Museum.

Fill-a-Bus sends kids to the Ag Museum's summer day camp, where kids learn more about how the food they eat is grown and raised. It's a first step in getting them to think "outside the box" (sorry) when it comes to mealtimes.

And the little dude in the blue shirt who knows all the answers? He's mine.

Yeah, we've been practising what we preach at Chez Adman.

To donate to Fill-A-Bus, go here.