It's a water bottle. That tracks how much you drink, and glows when you need to drink more. As well as telling your smartphone.
The very earnest start-up, the new-agey feel of the intro, and the over-the-top testimonials all seem like some kind of sophisticated social commentary on the times we live in. But it's apparently a real thing, and people have put up over $80,000 to back it on Kickstarter.
If you look closely at the "rewards" section, it's clear that Kickstarter is being used to pre-sell the bottles. For about $45 a pop.
It's sickly amusing to me that so many people would be willing to pay almost fifty bucks for a bottle that reminds you to drink it. (And it's not even full of single-malt Scotch.)
I guess there is, literally, a sucker born every minute.
I'd probably be really upset at this billboard if I could figure out what it's trying to say. I get the "diversity means" setup, but the jump from that to "Chasing down the last white person" leaves me scratching my head.
I'll take a wild guess that the advertiser, League of the South, is trying to tell people that the real objective of a diverse society is to eliminate its majority population. But that doesn't seem to make much sense, does it? That's like saying the purpose of putting sugar in your coffee is to remove all traces of java in your cup.
Anyway, I suppose putting two sentences together to communicate a coherent thought is too much to ask of people who don't know how hashtags work.
Lots of agencies and production houses use online video as a way to get noticed. But very few are as sharable as the one NYC boutique studio Kornhaber Brown has just unleashed. It's about sex, which always sells, but it's also deliciously, purposefully awkward in the way it represents various sex acts using food (and a few small appliances).
While technically "safe for work" in that no actual human sexual organs are shown, you may want to get the headphones out if you work in a prudish open-concept office.
There was a time, a few years ago, when it was common casting procedure on our Canadian government ads to cast families of different ethnic backgrounds. This was an easy way to show population diversity even when the action took place in a single household. The challenge was always to avoid making it look forced, or turning it into a cliché. We just wanted to show families that more people could identify with, and not feel excluded by.
So it was interesting for me to open up Gawker and read about the controversy surrounding a new Cheerios spot from the United States:
Apparently, Cheerios had to shut down the comments thread in its YouTube post of the ad was flooded with racist hate speech. I can't give you a firsthand account, but AdFreak Editor Tim Nudd describes it as "devolved into an endless flame war, with references to Nazis, 'troglodytes' and 'racial genocide'."
But almost as surprising, to me, is what a huge (positive) deal people on Cheerios' Facebook Page are making, as if depicting families that don't all have the same complexion is some kind of marketing revolution.
I guess both the bad and the good show how far American culture has to go when it comes to getting over its obsession with "race" (whatever that means). When everyone can look at an ad like this and just see a family, then we'll know there's been progress.
By the way, to circle back to my first point, congratulations to Saatchi & Saatchi NYC for achieving an effortless realism in what was apparently a very momentous casting choice.
Oh, the humanity. Gawker was sure to post this "explicit image" that appeared in the Sears online catalogue with a "NSFW" (Not Safe For Work) tag. (While also linking to a large version of the pic for those of you at home.)
Apparently the catalogue designer grabbed the image from the supplier, Escante, and failed to give the model a creepy Photoshop nipplectomy.
First of all, in the days before pixel-by-pixel alteration of models' bodies, Sears print catalogues were an excellent source of nipples and the occasional pubis viewed through sheer and translucent undies. (I'm assuming 12-year-old me wasn't the only boy to notice this.) And then there's that time a male model apparently hung a rat.
Second, and this is for my readers in the United States, GET OVER IT! You have nipples. Your momma has nipples. If you're lucky, she fed you with them once. They're harmless, and actually kind of nice. Why do they scare you so?
Third, this is the opportunity I've been waiting for to link to this awesome New Yorker blogpost about how one of their editorial cartoons got censored by Facebook over two dots that represented "female nipple bulges".
The Sears catalogue was once a famous source of female models in translucent underwear and the occasional accidental penis, but in this pornified age it seems they feel they need to try much harder to get attention.
According to AdFreak (via Gawker), this tee briefly appeared in their online catalogue, before being removed.
This is Krampus, an Alpine demon who "finds a particularly naughty child, it stuffs the child in its sack and carries the frightened thing away to its lair, presumably to devour for its Christmas dinner."
What can I say? Those mountain volk are hardcore.
The specific Krampus tale in question is a stop-motion animation (the old-school technique used in the Rudolph Christmas classic) of the Krampmeister showing up at the home of some naughty kinder, licking them with his foot-long tongue, thrashing the scheiße out of them and carrying them off. Doesn't it just warm your heart?
The short was produced for the holiday edition of Anthony Bourdain's Travel Channel show, No Reservations. According to Gawker, following news of the horrific Penn State child rapes and wide-ranging repercussions, the network felt it was just not the right time to lay this trip on America's parents and pulled it.
This poster, via Gawker, appeared recently in Starbucks locations in France to remind customers to watch their valuables. A group called SOS Racisme complained that it was racist, because they saw the man portrayed as a brown-skinned stereotype of a pickpocket. Starbucks took them down.
A simple case of successful activism?
Depends how you look at it. And whether or not you have seen the other poster in the series:
Do you read this illustration of a smiling woman as a portrayal of a criminal? Or do you see her as a potential victim?
Here's the problem. France, like many other once-homogeneous nations becoming increasingly multicultural, has a serious racism problem. It's so bad that apparently groups who specialize in speaking out against it see even an innocent portrayal of a brown person through a racist lens.
These people are both, obviously, supposed to be customers. The man is presumably a student or a young worker, with his casual attire, backpack, smartphone, wallet and laptop. The woman is perhaps a little older, carrying a purse (although that may be my prejudice peeking through).
There is nothing to see here, really. In context, it is clear that the illustrator, agency and client were just trying to reflect France's modern diversity in positive portrayals of customers. And it backfired horribly.
Should Starbucks have tried to defend itself? Or is this kind of discussion best avoided by PR-vulnerable brands?
