JWT Greece mocks domestic violence victims in mattress ads

Via Ads Of The World

It's a bad year for mattress ads. First there was the appalling Malala Yousafzai one from India. Now it's a Greek campaign that makes light of domestic abuse.

Appearing on Ads Of The World, this campaign by JWT Spot Athens, carries the body copy "Don't let your mattress abuse you. Ask for help at Dimstel."

Considering that the campaign uses stock photography, it may be yet another example of vanity ads that only appear online. But if this is the way Creatives Alexandros Tsoutis, Alexis Alifragis and James Karolos want to get their names known, they clearly lack as much common sense as sensitivity.

According to Greek Reporter, one in three women in Greece is a victim of domestic violence.

Awkward stereotypes sell border security in Dutch PSAs

From a purely digital marketing perspective, this campaign by JWTAmsterdam is brilliant. They use serial online video ads that track the user to create a highly-interruptive, running storyline:



The downside is that the stereotypes of the Asian and Arab merchant are pretty cringeworthy. Whether or not they are based on the creative/production teams' experiences abroad, they certainly take the ethnic clichés to a cartoonish level.

Could the campaign have worked without the send-up? I like to think so. While the stereotypes are played for laughs, the videos would have been just as interruptive and compelling with a little more subtlety (and respect) in the performance.

Tip via Ads of The World

The most disturbing car ad starring Silvio Berlusconi you will see today

Via Ads of The World

Ball gags?!? This is part of a bizarre campaign, by JWT India, for a Ford with lots of trunk space.

The other executions show Michael Schumacher with rival drivers tied up in the back, and Paris Hilton having kidnapped the Kardashians.

Really weird and disturbing. I'm surprised the Ford brand is good with this.

Update: The ads were really created by Ford's Indian AOR, but were not ever approved.

Ford and its ad agency issued apologies for a tasteless Ford Figo ad — in which former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi is shown with a bunch of gagged and crying women in the trunk of his car — that was never meant to see the light of day. 

It turns out a young creative team at JWT India, Ford Figo's agency of record, made the spot and posted it to website Ads of the World without approval. (It has since been removed.)

Ford and WPP Group (owner of JWT) have nonetheless issued formal apologies.

Update 2: Not just the work of renegade creatives, apparently. Adland writes that "Bobby Pawar, JWT India's chief creative officer & managing partner, as well as Vijay SimhaVellanki, creative director at Blue Hive, a WPP unit dedicated to managing the Ford business, have been asked to resign."

Travel campaign offers a brutal take on mob mentality — but is it for real?

The submission on Ads of The World says "JWT, Gurgaon, India" but I have to give the J. Walter Thompson Company the benefit of my skepticism. The campaign is courting controversy in such a ham-fisted and immature way.

Above, the Vancouver Stanley Cup Riot (mistakenly labelled "Football Riot") stands in for what Charles Mackay coined as "the madness of crowds". As an ad concept, it's tenuous at best, contrasting the idea of "individual travel plans" against mob mentality.

But the creative team of Bobby Pawar, Priti Kapur, Sayantan Choudhury, Sumeer Mathur
and Sumonto Ghosh didn't stop there.

They decided to go after American anti-abortionists:

Dog fights:

Toddlers in Tiaras:

Gun obsession:

And racism:

Pretty ballsy social commentary, but what does it have to do with selling travel? All I get out of it is that Indian tourists should avoid North America at all costs. (Interestingly, Chariot India "journeys of discovery to India, Nepal and Bhutan, in South Asia," so maybe that was the idea all along.)

To me, this is another example of belief in the stupid old adage that there's "no such thing as bad publicity".  There is... for brands. It's the creative teams and agencies that really benefit from these "edgy" campaigns, as the ad community congratulates them for convincing someone else to pay for another self-serving attempt at notoriety.

JWT Argentina Halls ads play up the racial and sexual stereotypes

In the world of international brands, everyone can see your regional marketers screw up. Such as when some unknown client at Kraft-owned Halls greenlit this nice bit of premodern racialized humour by JWT Argentina.

It's already weird to see the sore throat remedy marketed as a breath freshener. But the strategic insight, that everything you say sounds better with numbingly-mentholated breath, ends up in the above ad playing out dusty stereotypes about white insecurity and black athleticism.

And then there's this weird one, from the same series.

She says she's Miss Ohio, but her perceives her as Miss California. I guess it's supposed to be a "bragging rights" thing if he manages to date her. Aesthetically, she's the same. Thanks to modern beauty concepts, even in reality I don't see much of a difference:

 Audrey Bolte, Miss Ohio 2012

Natalie Pack, Miss California 2012

The third ad in the series is about a man sounding more impressive to a woman. Does he do it by winning a beauty contest? No, he does it by being a CEO. And the Halls amplifies his status:

All of this casual racial and sexual stereotyping not only makes the Halls brand look bad, when the campaign shows up on international blogs like Ads of The World. It also makes Argentina look backward.

And if that happens, JWT Argentina Creative Chiefs Gonzalo Vecino and Pablo Alvarez Travieso might have a lot of 'splaining to do...

Ford's cane toad snuff porn ad: would PETA approve?

I left out "autoerotic bukkake"

So this is a little weird. But give JWT Melbourne the benefit of some context: cane toads are a blight on their land.



But will it sell cars?

Adverblog quoted a YouTube comment, “Entertaining but I know more now about frog secretion then I do about the new falcon.”

Still, I enjoyed it. I guess I'm just perverted that way.

Every day must be 4/20 at JWT Delhi #FdAdFriday

We were looking at these in a creative meeting today, and a designer colleague said "they look like Dali". I thought she said "they look like Delhi" and I was impressed that she was so well-versed in some of the odder movements in international ad markets.

These are supposedly anti-drinking-and-driving ads. To me, they look more like anti-doing-two-bags-of-grass-seventy-five-pellets-of-mescaline-five-sheets-of-high-powered-blotter-acid-a salt-shaker-half-full-of-cocaine-and-a-whole-galaxy-of-multi-coloured-uppers-downers-screamers-laughers-and-also-a-quart-of-tequila-a-quart-of-rum-a-case-of-Ballantine-ale-a-pint-of-raw-ether-and-two-dozen-amyls-and-driving ads.

Via Ads of the World

I think the creative team behind these anti-drug-smuggling ads was on drugs

Ad by JWT Barcelona

Via Ads of The World

What the hell is in this baby formula?

Copy says, "New! A natural solution that keeps your facial skin revitalized. A better sleep for your baby with Materna's Good Night infant formula."

Does it have Benadryl in it? Gravol? Morphine? According to this source, the secret ingredient is "special composition of carbohydrates, giving the baby a longer feeling of fullness."

What a terrible idea. Babies wake up and cry because they aren't really supposed to be left alone. (Think about it — in a state of nature, they'd be eaten by wolves.)

I understand that not everyone can or wants to breastfeed or cosleep. But an ad promoting a formula that keeps your inconvenient baby quiet so you can get your beauty sleep really irks me. It's playing to selfishness and vanity.

By JWT, Tel Aviv, Israel

Via Ads of The World