This bizarre ad (from 2010) is for Asirom, a Romanian Insurance company. I don't speak the language, but the context and Latinate nouns are easy enough to figure out. If you're into that kind of thing.
If you're still confused, Marketing Paradise explains (loosely translated from the French): This advertisement explains what to do in case of a (sexy) car crash if one (sexy) driver has no insurance. In this case, it is necessary to involve the (sexy) police.
I'm not sure these copy-only ads for Swiss Life, in which life changes mid-sentence, are really doing it for me. But it's a neat idea in theory. And apparently they won Gold at the Epica Awards and Silver Press Lions at Cannes International Advertising Festival.
I wonder if they were better in French, German or Italian?
Nice ads, simple idea, well-executed. But as with many campaigns I see on AOTW that were created for non-Anglophone countries, I scratched my head and wondered how they would work in Spanish.
You see, it's become common practice for agencies around the world to create parallel English-language print campaigns so that unilingual Anglos, as well as ESL people from other language groups, can evaluate and share their ideas in blogs and award shows. Sometimes the headlines are poorly translated. Other times, the agency puts a lot of effort into adapting the concept.
With a copy-based campaign like this, depending so heavily on words-within-words, I assumed the latter — and was quite impressed. But then I tracked down the original-language versions at the Medicus site:
The body copy is in Spanish, but the headline is the same. I guess the client was convinced that every member of their target market read English well enough to get the concept, and wouldn't mind that it was in a foreign language.
A couple of other notes about "international" versions of campaigns:
The client only showed three executions, while the portfolio piece shows five.
The client version has body copy and a call to action, whereas the portfolio piece drops it and goes landscape — billboard version, or just Creative Director's choice to keep it "clean"?
Have you seen other examples of English ads created for audiences within a non-English country? I'd love to see them.
This awful, awful Hebrew-language online infomercial for David Shield (דיוידשילד) insurance showed upin my Facebook feed for some unknown reason:
I have no idea why I watched it all. I guess I'm a masochist. And then I saw this scene, at 2:33:
Oh, L O effing L. Without proper insurance covering you while working in some God-forsaken country without public healthcare, you could end up in the hands of some kind of Native witch doctor.
Appalling. And shameful. Ignorant racism is still a worldwide phenomenon.
In the decades since leaving Montreal for Hollywood, the Shat has traded in his smoked meat for southern fried turkey. (As well as an October Thanksgiving for a November one.)
And State Farm has hired him as the spokesman for a PSA to prevent turkey frying fires:
It's long, but it's worth it to get every morsel of Shat's signature over-the-top delivery.
The Guardian reports that a British insurance firm has been busted by the Advertising Standards Authority for an ad that is "degrading to women".
They post it in censored form, but the ASA paints us a picture: "Underneath was a picture of a woman wearing only men's boxer briefs and holding a D-SLR camera to each breast."
So here's an artist's impression:
([ ])([ ])
The company's defence was the classic "we're equal opportunity exploiters!"
"Versatile Insurance Professionals Ltd (Versatile) said Aaduki were well known in the photographic market for the ‘Aaduki Boys’, a group of male models used to advertise the brand at exhibitions and conventions and who also featured heavily in their marketing campaigns. They said they had run a series of ads across the specialist photographic press featuring the male models in their trademark blue shorts, which were designed to amuse the reader with ‘tongue in cheek’ innuendo much like the Carry On films from the 1970s. Versatile provided copies of the ads in the series, which they believed were suggestive and naughty without being obscene."
"Versatile said the idea behind the “Confused and don’t know where to look ad?” was that they now had a girl wearing the blue shorts instead of a boy, and aimed to engage the male photographer that did not normally find their ads attractive. Versatile said they did not believe the ad was sexist or degrading to women, and pointed out that many photographic magazines featured female models, some of whom would be completely naked and a large number of whom would be topless. They said they believed the ad was no more suggestive than models in the tabloid press. Versatile argued that the ad needed to be viewed in the context of the other ads in the campaign, and that rather than being sexist or degrading to women the ad actually addressed the inequalities of their previous advertising that had focused on the male models."
Whatever. The fact is, there is no downside to this ruling for Aaduki. The target market of "amateur photographers" (don't ever GIS that) would have been unfazed by the nudity and suggestiveness of the ad, and even if they thought it was tacky they'll see the brand as a victim of nanny state censorship now.
This is why censorship in advertising usually has unintended consequences, making heroes out of what are really unimaginative and vulgar advertisers. Better to expose their tactics and mock their cynicism, in my opinion. Education, not bannination.
It was one thing when you let them use "Lust for Life" in a cruise ship ad. That was funny. But look, I'm the adman and you're the Godfather of Punk. I'm the one whose creativity and principles are for sale, not you. You're a streetfighting cheetah with a heart full of napalm. I'm a cynical Creative Director with a belly full of poutine. You should stay away from my world. People will make fun of you. (Naughty language)
Even worse, you plugged an insurance product for a company that wouldn't even cover musicians.
Ig... Or "James", if I may call you that. You've even been accused of false advertising, something I have never knowingly done.
I'll get over this, I'm sure. Because no matter how bad things get, or what you feel you have to compromise to secure your retirement savings, we'll always have the way you were.
Take care of your legacy, Iggy. It means a lot to those of us who sold out before we even got there.
