Ads about periods too much for MTA

I don't really like these ads much, but I don't see anything offensive about them. The media agency for Metropolitan Transportation Authority (NYC) however, has issues with the imagery, and even the word "period." (MTA itself was not involved in the decision.)

From mic.com:

According to Veronica del Rosario, Thinx's director of marketing, the representative was concerned that children would see the word "period" in the ad and ask their parents what it meant. When Thinx later submitted the ad with the word "period" in the copy, the agency told them they could not run the copy "as is." 

"I stated [to an Outfront rep] that it was extremely disheartening that [certain other ads] could fly, but something for women that speaks directly to women isn't OK by them," del Rosario told Mic. "He replied, 'This is not a women's issue. Don't try to make it a women's rights thing.'"

Apparently, they were also concerned with the amount of skin showing in the Thinx ads, as well as the  cheeky use of a grapefruit and the contents of an egg.

MTA has run some rather obnoxious breast augmentation ads before, but apparently children are going to be more traumatized by being reminded of the very organs that made them.

PornHub's "SFW" billboard removed from Times Square

PornHub, the internet sexual content provider recently known for dabbling in music, managed to score an earned media hit by getting their new billboard forcibly removed from Times Square, NYC, within 24 hours.

Gothamist writes, "though an advertisement for a porn site would have fit in on 42nd Street a mere 20 or so years ago, the city's long since swapped out the peep shows for a Ripley's Believe It Or Not, and sadly, Pornhub's billboard was removed only hours after its first appearance. We can't have anything fun anymore."

Apparently, a neighbouring hotel managed to get the billboard yanked (so to speak).

Seems like a silly controversy to me, considering competing porn site Brazzers had a rather saucy "get rubber" billboard up there four years ago, complete with sexualized models.

You could say that the PornHub billboard was promoting even safer sex... at least for the viewer.

Self-promo video gives new meaning to "food porn"

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.



Did the chocolate banana make you squirm?

Source: Gawker

Update: Cindy Gallop tells me that the video was inspired by her "Make Love Not Porn" site.

Storage advertiser embraces equal marriage

Weird art direction, but their heart's in the right place. Via @guerrillafutures on Instagram (as seen on Boing Boing)

Cute Cheerios ad incites racist flamewar

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.

New NYC anti-salt campaign takes a more level-headed approach

According to Huffington Post, the above is part of New York City's new campaign to make citizens more aware of hidden sodium in their diets. It's a pretty modest little message. Especially considering what they were doing three years ago:

Via nutritioulicious

Via Diets in Review

Those ads drew the ire of the Center for Consumer Freedom (the lobby group for the fast food, meat, alcohol and tobacco industries). Stating that "the 1,300 milligrams of salt in a can of chicken and rice soup is actually less than a teaspoon," they produced this parody ad:

This is the problem with exaggerating the harm in a public health campaign. If you overstate your case, detractors can have a field day undermining your credibility.

That's why I'm happy to see a reasonable approach to salt awareness. The only problem is that the ad, as pictured up top, has no conceptual or visual appeal. It's as if, after the PRmageddon following their recent teen pregnancy campaign, the city's communication heads have dialed it back a little too much.

NYC shames teen parents to battle unplanned pregnancy

It seems that scaring and shaming people just won't go out of style in social marketing, no matter how much research proves it's ineffective.

These ads are from NYC's Human Resources Administration, and they feature "with hard-hitting facts about the money and time costs of parenting, and the negative consequences of having a child before you are ready".

Think Progress points out that New York's mandatory comprehensive sex ed curriculum, as well as better teen access to contraception, have seen the teen pregnancy rate drop by 27 percent over the past decade. But they compare this campaign to abstinence-only education, "a misguided approach to sexual education that teaches adolescents to be ashamed of their bodies, rather than equipping young people with the tools they need to safeguard their health" and expect that the campaign by itself will be no more effective.

But worse, the negativity heaped on kids born to teen moms is unconscionable. Just because the statistics are there, doesn't mean you have to be so insensitive to real children and their parents.

This one, however, has the right positive message (in the headline, at least):

Why couldn't the whole campaign have taken this route?

McDonald's wants you to buy your kids' love with McNuggets

It's always been known that McDonald's real brand promise is "buy your children's love". They create this opportunity by marketing so effectively to kids that they think anything tastes better in a McWrapper. Then they sappily remind third- and fourth-generation McParents how great they felt when they went to the Golden Arches.

Knowing all of this, and as cynical as I am, I was still shocked when I saw this print campaign on Copyranter's Buzzfeed blog.

DDB New York has produced what may be the most blatant execution of McDonald's brand strategy by telling parents that even if they suck at making their kids happy, the anodyne is a quick trip to the Mc, where a few bucks worth of sugar, salt, fat and designer flavours will make it all okay.

Yeah, it's supposed to be clever and funny. No, I am not laughing. Especially in regards to the one where a little boy is abandoned in a dark soccer field because mom or dad simply forgot to pick him up:

Show some responsibility already, McDonalds and DDB. Or at least be a little more subtle in your evil manipulation of parental love. OK?

Pastor brings down naked billboard with 4 tweets

Via NY Post

No, this is not a billboard announcing the re-release of Spinal Tap's Smell The Glove. It's the space where Coca-Cola's Vitaminwater ad used to be.

Via allouteffort.com

This is the creative that used to be there. Pretty run-of-the-mill sexploitative advertising. ("XXX" is one of Vitaminwater's flavours, according to AdFreak.) But the giant version was posted across from Gallery Church, where a small group of Baptist Biblical literalists worship with Rev. Freddy Wyatt.

Wyatt tells the New York Post that he was "angered and brokenhearted" by the ad, because it "takes something that’s pure and precious and just strips it of its value.”

I assume he's talking about sex. Or maybe specifically female sexuality. I would agree that hypersexualized ads do diminish the awesomeness of real human intimacy, however not all sex is "pure and precious". Sometimes, it's dirty and cheap. (At least, I hear some people are into that.)

Anyway, Rev. Wyatt sent just sent four tweets to Vitaminwater and parent company Coca-Cola, and miraculously the company removed the ad the next day, unintentionally creating a great outdoor conceptual piece honouring the fact that is was Good Friday.

The Rev. was so thrilled that he served Vitaminwater at his next service, even though he couldn't believe heis voice could be so powerful. “Here’s four tweets from a random pastor," he said "and without even a conversation, they took it down.

Even though I think this kind of sex in advertising is unimaginative and somewhat demeaning, I find the knee-jerk censorship surprising too. Considering the money obviously spent on the execution and posting, this must have been a real panic for them. Was Coke afraid of having its brand dragged through the mud by a man of god on Easter weekend? No idea.

It couldn't have been Vitaminwater that did it. These are the same people who did the Jennifer Aniston "Sex Tape" hoax to promote Smartwater and had her pose completely nude in their print ads.

Or maybe they found Jesus. I don't know. 

There is a male version of the ad as well, by the way:

Via Jason in Hollywood

Would that have offended the Rev as much, do you think?

Thanks to David Gianatasio at AdFreak for the tip.

A Jewish joke? Really?

And it's in Manhattan, too.

This is part of an ongoing campaign to sell cheap vodka by insulting everyone.

But unlike sex workers, Jewish people are not likely to take it lying down. Nor should anyone else.

Update: It's going down.

Augmented reality hits the streets

KIA took an interesting approach to promoting its new Punto Evo. Rather than using QR codes, which are already common, they developed a smart phone app (iPhone and Android only) that reads standardized, well-defined, high-contrast shapes that are all over the urban landscape: traffic signs.



Here's more explanation:

"For example; a STOP sign will tell the user all about the new breaking system, a CURVE ahead sign will tell the user that the car has an intelligent lighting system that guides you in curves. And the list goes on with every sign and feature of the car."

This is a European campaign by Leo Burnett Iberia in Madrid,  so your mileage may vary if you try it on another continent's standard signs. (See full credits at their YouTube link)

Meanwhile, in New York City, new interactive LED signs are reminding drivers who break the new 30 MPH (~48 km/h) that they are significantly more likely to kill a pedestrian in case of a collision:

I like this approach much better than the KIA one. First of all, as I'm an urban pedestrian it's a cause I feel passionate about. Second, I'm a little worried that the traffic sign game by KIA will actually lead to crashes between distracted walkers and drivers.

Defending their right to be asses

Fox News reports that a group of bikin-clad protestors is outside New York City's public transit HQ demanding an end to censorship in their bus media.



These concerned citizens are grieving the MTA's decision to remove an ad for Georgi Vodka from buses that travel through certain neighborhoods in Brooklyn that are primarily populated by Hasidic Jewish communities.



Apparently, the MTA had received a string of complaints about the ads from religious groups.

By this point, I'm sure you've figured out that this is all a cynical and opportunistic PR ploy. As Gothamist reports:

In response to the take-down, Silver fired up the PR machine and hired some models to wear the Georgi bikinis and hold signs that read: "MTA should butt out of bikini ads." This certainly isn't the first time Silver has dabbled in the fine art of publicity stunts—earlier this year he sent Sean "Diddy" Combs a toilet filled with Ciroc vodka.

At the scantily clad scene he created yesterday, Silver told the Daily News, "They hardly gave us any warning. They just took them off the buses. These ads are clearly not pornography... If you don't like what's on a bus, all you have to do is look away and walk past."

Definitely not pornography, and unless they're in violation of previously posted MTA standards, they probably should have stayed up. One group being offended on religious grounds hardly defines community standards in a cosmopolitan city. After all, despite being named as one of "The 10 Worst "Sexy" Vodka Ads" by BNET, the campaign is a lightweight when it comes to sexploitation.

But that doesn't make the Georgi spokesman less of a sexist ass:

“We’re very upset about the censorship,” Georgi Vodka spokesperson Todd Shapiro told Pop Tarts. “We had about 50 girls pointing their backsides at the MTA as part of the protest, basically telling them to ‘butt’ out.”

New anti-obesity ads pretty much ensure I'll never eat again

Look closer. It's shocking. It's gross. It's... veiny. And according to the BBC, these New York City Department of Health ads may be too disgusting to even make an impact:

"These images look so disgusting that it's a turn-off, you look away without taking the message in," said George Parker, an advertising expert and author of The Ubiquitous Persuaders.

It's apparently also triggering a backlash campaign by the Center for Consumer Freedom who are running ads that throw up statements like "You’re too stupid to make good personal decisions about foods and beverages" and “It’s your food. It’s your drink. It’s your freedom.”

The New York Department of Health ad is a hard-hitting one, if you take the time to stare at it and make the connection between unsightly fat and sugary drinks. If. But if you'll excuse me, I now feel like purging my healthy lunch.

Jam this

Adbusters is at it again. In response to what they claim are illegal outdoor ad placements in New York City, a group of them painted over the ads with "delete" keys:



(By the way, I stole the image from their blog. I figure they'd appreciate the irony.)

While this culture jamming is intended to "air our grievances in the court of public opinion and witness our communities regain control of the space they occupy”, the people most interested in their work are probably the admen themselves.

In just about any agency creative department you walk in to, you'll find a copy of Adbusters Magazine lying around. While anarchists may gleefully imagine the headaches and outrage they're causing a bunch of suits on Madison Avenue, the reality is that working ad people are actually pretty subversive too. Anti-corporate culture-jamming may be one of the biggest inspirations for more and more intrusive traditional advertising and guerrilla campaigns.

One of my favourites of these was John St.'s campaign for Girl Guides that used fake sexy ads in magazines with a sticker apparently slapped over it saying "why girls need guides".

This latest culture jam was pretty cool. I'm already thinking about how I can do something like that for one of my clients.