Stinky PSA campaign causes a real-life gas leak panic

Via NY Daily News

Here's a funny one.

According to the Great Falls Tribune, reports of a major natural gas leak in the Montana city's business section caused the evacuation of several buildings yesterday.

The cause? Scratch-n-sniff direct mailers designed to educate the public about what a gas leak smells like:

Nick Bohr, general manager at Energy West, said workers at the company were cleaning out some storage areas and discarded several boxes of scratch-and-sniff cards that it sent out to customers in the past to educate them on what natural gas smells like. 

“They were expired, and they were old,” Bohr said. “They threw them into the Dumpsters.” 

When the cards were picked up by sanitation trucks and crushed, “It was the same as if they had scratched them.”

Natural gas doesn't have a detectable odour of its own, but has a chemical (t-butyl mercaptan or thiophane) added to give it a foul "rotten egg" smell so that people can detect leaks.

Via Philly.com

Energy West had been distributing the PSA cards to customers as part of a safety awareness campaign.

“In a sense, it worked the way it was supposed to,” commented Nick Bohr, general manager at Energy West, as part of the company's apology for the inconvenience. They also mentioned that there was no public safety or environmental concern about putting the expired cards in the trash.

If you want stinky PSA stickers of your own, you can order them by the thousand here.

Tip via The Consumerist

Iggy Pop makes fun of his label problems to promote new Stooges album

There's a good reason there will unlikely ever be a definitive Iggy Pop box set. And that's because, in the course of an almost 45-year, defiant and rude recording career, he has been bounced from every major label — as well as several indies.



The Stooges were originally signed to Electra. After two albums, they were dropped. They reformed, with help from David Bowie, to sign to Columbia. That lasted one album. (But what an album!) They broke up again, and a few years later David Bowie swooped back in and got Iggy a deal with RCA. Two albums later, and Bowie-free, he signed to Arista. Which dropped him after three platters and left him with no other option than to sign with indie Animal Records.

Bowie came back into Iggy's life, and he signed with A&M. That lasted two albums. Then he was on Virgin for an amazing run of seven, until he got bumped down to their subsidiary, Astrawerx. Then he went to Thousand Mile Inc. for an odd collection of French crooning covers.

All of that to say that the man has seen his share of rock star decadence and decay. (And those are just the mainstream releases.) Now, as he turns 63, Iggy is about to release his long-awaited follow-up to Raw Power with the modern-day Iggy & The Stooges. On something called Fat Possum Records.

Drink milk, have more wet dreams?

Adrants just posted this odd ad for the California Milk Processors Board by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.



That's right. If you drink your milk at bedtime, you will not have your dreams of an Italian sex goddess interrupted by some obnoxious bald guy.

While the ad is certainly attention-getting, it lacks in truthiness. An MIT study determined that the calming properties of milk were purely psychosomatic.

Then there's the "ick" factor, as Steve Hall aptly summarizes:

Drink milk. Get laid. And "finish" your sex dreams. Which, apparently, milk can guarentee if you drink a glass before bed.

As if we didn't have enough unnecessary sex in advertising already.

Mentos does the "cover up" much better

No sooner did I post the magazine campaign by Spain's Jane Pain (I just love writing that), where the naked models had their pudenda hidden in the fold, than Adrants posted this much more fun version of ad peek-a-boo for Mentos.

It's funny, and it makes fun of sleazy magazines in a cheeky way. The first one reminds me unpleasantly of the Scorpions' Lovedrive album cover, but that's just my obscure pop culture mind at work.

All ads by The Martin Agency.

Mary had a little lamb, fries, and a Coke

This was posted on Copyranter today. It's part of a big product launch in Australia and New Zealand. (You can see the whole campaign at The Inspiration Room.)

Made me laugh, anyway.

This type of carnivorous humour is nothing new, of course. And The Saskatoon Restaurant did it best.

"Maybe You Touched Your Genitals" hand sanitizer

Via Facebook

It's a real product!

You can buy it here. It's even on Amazon.

Olympic media coverage channels "unnecessary censorship meme

Via AOTW

Remember that great campaign by Reporters Without Borders, called "Censorship tells the wrong story"?

It's one expression of a meme, in which innocent images are made "dirty" by the power of imagination.

Via Ebaum's World

I think you get the point.

Anyway, Buzzfeed's Jack Moore has noted and collected some hilarious examples of accidental "unnecessary censorship" of male Olympic swimmers at the 2012 London Games:

Golly!

See the rest at the original post.

Nicely done, completely twisted viral cartoon ad

The Magic Fun Store is "a small art gallery and  tattoo studio in Tucson, AZ." Now you know who they are. And in a minute, you won't be able to forget them (or unsee these images):



It turns out animation is a side-business at the shop, so they decided to promote themselves with a little ditty about a unicorn who can't get enough dolphin love. This one was done by BAMiAM.tv (B.A. Miale) "a video artist who mashes up her playfully psychedelic visuals in real time on a keytar."

Considering their industry, and the shop's carefree brand, this ought to work out well for them.

Via Illegal Advertising

F'd Ad Fridays: Lad Mag Humour

The first one is funny, the middle two awkward, and the last one kind of scary. (I don't think a laugh and some boobies are going to fix that one.) But together, they paint a pretty good socioeconomic portrait of Nuts Magazine's target readership.

The advertising seems a little misleading, too. The Nuts site ("Britain's number one men's website") is short on haha and heavy on hooters. It even offers to assess readers' (or, presumably, their aunties') breasts by adding them to the mammary menagerie.

Via AOTW

What would happen if Boris Vallejo directed a hamburger ad?

If the the master of over-the-top fantasy illustration were asked to direct a Carl's Jr. ad, it would have some beefy guy in Greco-Roman bondage gear, standing on a mountaintop...

...wielding magical powers...

It would have busty women lolling around in improbable bikini armour...

 It would have mythical beasts...

 It would have even more gratuitous T&A...

And it would look like this:



Alas! Boris did not do this. But it is his kind of epic.

Ad by David and Goliath

Tip via AdFreak

Crappy pizza ad really speaks to its daytime target market

Which, of course, is unemployed young people lying around the house all day who suddenly get an overwhelming attack of the munchies:

Via imgur

If real, this is hilarious. It reminds me of a guy I knew in the early '90s, who would delivery pizza with "extra oregano" if you asked for him by name.

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

White House Twitter feed Rick Rolls some guy

"wiggsd" must be so proud! Rick Rolled by the White House!

(In case they pull it, the link is tinyurl.com/y8ufsnp)

Awesome!

F'd Ad Fridays: So THAT's why they call him "Oral"

Via HuffPo

Anyone can be a hero

Cute ad from Dunkin' Donuts, to promote their  product tie-in to  the new Captain America movie:



Fun concept. But the grand "anyone can be a hero" message is let down by the gross-milkshake-pretending-to-be-coffee kicker.

Via The Uniblog

F'd Ad Fridays: Lipstick Bail Bondspersons

"Kiss jail goodbye!"




Via MTLB

F'd Ad Fridays: Director's reel effs up good and proper

Stephen Reedy is a young Director of short horror spoofs and quirky ads who has also been working as a trailer editor in Hollywood, and is ready for his big break. So what does he do? He makes himself a video resume that makes fun of Hollywood cliches, uses cuss words, and basically self-deprecates all over the place.


BALLS + HEART: Director Stephen Reedy in 1 minute or your money back from Stephen Reedy+ZerofriendsFilms on Vimeo.

Will it work? Reedy says, “I use cuss words in my resume. It’s a 1-way ticket to being turned down by 99.9% of everyone I send it to. But all I need is that 0.01%, that one person of influence to appreciate the craziness and start a mutually beneficial relationship.”

Via Agency Spy

He's a church-goin' man. Ding!

Comic duo Rhett and Link are touring small towns across America, where they develop and produce commercials for local businesses using local talent, for an upcoming reality series on IFC.

Here's a great example:



Yup. That was pretty trashy.

The greatest commercial Walmart never made

Speaking of affronts to human dignity, Break.com posted this video by Jessica French, who has put the best images from People of Walmart to music.


People Of Walmart Song - Watch more Funny Videos

Yikes!

You've got to shop around

Hilarious French ad that was posted today on Adland:

jechange.fr -  Dad / Mom how did you know Dad was the right man? - (2011) France

Ouch.

By Publicis Conseil, Paris.