The right way to mock #KimDavis' ignorant bigotry

I know, I know. She's an easy target. She's been married four times, with at least one marriage ending because of her infidelity. She has old-fashioned hair. And her husband dresses like the Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz. (OK, I've been guilty of that one too!)

But if you really want to tell Kim Davis off for the hypocrisy of her so-called Biblical literalism, you need to knock off the personal attacks and take that literalism at face value.

That's how Planting Peace did it:

Twitter

I'm not sure they got the parallel right, though. If they are referring to Exodus 21:7 (“When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do") it's more about slavery or indentured servitude than what we would call marriage. However, a DailyKos writer describes the same verse as "selling your daughter as a slave to be given to her owner or owner's son for sexual exploitation as a 'wife,' so I could be wrong.

There are lots of horrible definitions of marriage in the Bible, but perhaps this one was chosen for the pure absurdity of it in the modern west. But as far as I know, there is no real consistency of how marriage is defined in the Bible. Parts were written when polygamy was still standard, and others exhort married couples to ensure "the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral."

Of course, all of this is moot because Kim Davis doesn't have a legal leg to stand on. But it's such a shame that people like her have become the face of American Christianity in the 21st century. I'm not a believer, but I still believe that Jesus the philosopher was all about love and acceptance.

G20 climate change ads rejected by Australian airport #onmyagenda

A billboard that was supposed to greet G20 leaders as they arrived for their next meeting in Brisbane, Australia, has been rejected by the airport authority.

The Guardian reports that the ad, featuring a farmer whose vineyard was destroyed by extreme high temperatures, was turned down because climate change was deemed "too political" for posting inside the airport.

A related article notes that the Australian government was reluctant to but climate change on the G20 meeting agenda, but reluctantly did so only after pressure from the United States and the European Union.

The rejection is a bit of a scandal, too, as it was revealed that two directors on the board of Brisbane Airport Corporation have interests in fossil fuel companies. (The BAC says they had no influence on the decision.)

Australia has been particularly hard hit by rising global temperatures, but Australian PM Tony Abbott has been accused of being a climate change skeptic. So perhaps this issue is "political" insofar as politicians are making it so.

Another billboard will be erected on the road to the G20 meeting. It features firefighter Dean McNulty against a backdrop of damage representative of the increasingly common bush fires in drought-ravaged areas of Australia.

The #onmyagenda campaign is a partnership between Oxfam, Greenpeace, 350.0rg, WWF, Earth Hour, GetUp, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and 1 Million Women.

Can we retire the term "politically correct" now?

What does it mean, anyway? I first heard the term back in high school, in the late '80s. A feminist guest speaker was talking to us about sexual harassment and rape. In an open session, I mentioned that I thought it was a good idea for a guy not to walk right behind a woman stranger on a dark or empty street, but rather cross to the other side so she wouldn't be scared. For this, I was pronounced "a very politically correct young man."

That was then. The term was at first applied in a positive manner by late second-wave feminists, to describe a person who was on-side. However, with the backlash that inevitably came during the '90s, the term was appropriated as derision. Today, when someone calls me "politically correct," they're dismissing my opinion as overly-sensitive "politics" (as opposed to reality or common sense).

And that's what American Apparel is doing here, in this billboard shared by Sociological Images' Lisa Wade.

What this says is that when people complain that AA ads are encouraging the sexualization of schoolgirls, fetishizing sexual violence, or just plain exploiting people for fun and profit, they are just sucking up to feminist "politics." The fact that AA is sweatshop-free excuses all this, because their manufacturing is "ethical." Never mind that their founder, Dov Charney, was fired by his own board for "several instances of alleged misconduct" with female employees.

"Politically correct" is dead. This cynical advertising is just flogging its corpse. Time to move on.

Climate pseudoscience is OK for Calgary billboards, anti-oil ads not so much

Via Huffpo

You've probably seen this message, either outdoors, online, or in print. It's a clever line used by Greenpeace to promote solar energy over oil.

Their latest media plan had it going up two years ago in Calgary, close to the Alberta legislature, in the wake of the Plains Midstream Canada oil spills. (The company was just fined $1.3 million after pleading guilty in two pipeline spills that sent almost five million litres of oil into Alberta rivers.)

Greenpeace said it arranged with Pattison Outdoor on June 13, 2012, to place the billboard for a month at a cost of $2,800. Two days later, Greenpeace was told the artwork had not been approved. They were not given an explanation.

Fast forward to 2014, and here is the kind of billboard that is running in Calgary:

Via Huffpo

"Friends of Science" is an ironically named Canadian organization that denies any human involvement in climate change.

According to NASA, 97% of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities.

"Friends" is funded anonymously through an intermediary, the Calgary Foundation, although it is accused of being an organ of the petrochemical industry.

Pattison will not comment why the Greenpeace ad was unacceptable to their advertising standards, and the FoS one was, leaving us to form our own conclusions about who is calling the shots in Calgary outdoor media.

Thanks to Kerry for the tip!

Toronto Yellow Pages billboard celebrates multiculturalism by negating it

Facebook friend Audra Williams shared this photo of a Yellow Pages billboard in Toronto.

Funny, eh?

If you just answered "yes" I want you to look in the mirror. Are you a white person? A man? Of "generic" (primarily British or Northern European) ethnicity? Are you from the 1950s? Do you live in a goddamn bubble?

Because let me tell you, I'm pretty sure the creative team who thought this up, and anyone who approved it, were at least two of those things.

This billboard, posted publicly in one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world, is a problem for me. It reads as a conversation between one white guy like me and another, and in doing so it casts everyone who grew up with Vietnamese, Cuban or Central/South American food into the category of "others".

In rattling off a joke about multiculturalism, the ad actually negates the very people who make Toronto multicultural: "Vietnamese restauranteur, we love your exotic soup, but you're not really one of us."

I have no doubt that the agency team meant well, or at least thought they did. They were just so out-of-touch with the reality of Canada that they thought is was OK to have a major brand jokingly exclude a large number of the people who walk by its billboard, just because they didn't grow up on peanut butter sandwiches.

I won't even get into the sexist implications of "mom" making all the food, because it's just a lazy cliché.

UPDATE: Audra got them to agree to pull it

Church billboard quotes Hitler on children

The Columbus, Georgia, Ledger-Enquirer reports that this billboard was placed by Life Saver Ministries, a Christian organization that promises "to reach the weakest and the forgotten, the 'at risk' children from the roughest areas," apparently with the wisdom of Adolph Hitler as well as Proverbs 22:6.

The billboard went up last Friday in Auburn, Alabama, and has since been removed. "We are pulling the billboard and certainly never intended to cause confusion," Life Saver Ministries founder James Anderegg told the Ledger-Enquirer. "Herbert Hoover would have been a far better one to quote when he said, 'Children are our most valuable resource. We are a children’s organization and had honorable intentions and nothing less."

Umm... sure.

"Jesus is Muslim" ads provoke Ohio Christians

According to Yahoo! (via Fox News, obviously) these boards are posted in Ohio. Who could possibly take issue?

 In a press release sent to Christian Newswire, [Christian radio host Dave] Daubenmire wrote, “Although we support the Islamic community's right to free speech, as well as their right to post messages on billboards, we do not support the hi-jacking of the name of Jesus Christ in their attempt to lure uninformed Christians into their religion.” Operation Save America was less diplomatic about the rally, writing on their website, “It appears that the Muslim community in Columbus, Ohio, is becoming increasingly arrogant in spreading its monstrous religion, with its false book, and its false prophet, right in the face of the Church of Jesus Christ in Columbus. It has purchased space on three billboards around the city spreading lies about the Gospel of Christ.”

Dave, you may want to look up "free speech". It's the same concept that lets "Operation Save America" spew their intolerance.

Ironically, the Ask A Muslim campaign is all about unity among the Abrahamic religions. On its web site, it says "Adam, Abraham, Jesus, Muhammed: One Message, One God". (However, later in the slide show, it also states rather exclusively "Islam: The Religion of The Only God".)

The Ask a Muslim site claims to invite discussion, saying "We believe that clearing up the many misconceptions about Islam will make this world a better place. A place with less violence and hatred, filled with mutual respect and understanding."



But in the end, this just seems to be an attempt to poke the bear of Christian fundamentalism in the United States by a brand of Islam that is equally intolerant of dissent. Makes me wish both groups would just "let god sort it out," since they're both into fatalism:

Sigh.

Is this ad really controversial?

AdFreak's Roo Ciambriello quips, "Political statement? Plea for tolerance? Maybe in part, but this recently posted Los Angeles billboard featuring a U.S. soldier and a Muslim woman embracing is mostly just an ad for a sleep aid."

That's how I feel, too. The brand wanted to show "couples that you normally don't see in advertising,"t their spokesperson explained, and that diversity follows through in the Snorestop web site:

The funny thing about this, for me, is that it's hard to find concrete examples of this "controversy".

CBC Los Angeles quotes the company spokesperson saying "“People feel that we are trying to misuse the image of military servicemen" but the only person the article interviewed about it was ambivalent.  World Bulletin ran the headline, "LA billboard ad to stay despite offending Muslims" without any specific examples, stating "...the image of a Muslim woman embracing a US soldier in such a way may be upsetting for the Muslim community in LA." An article in 10 News San Diego mentions negative Facebook messages. I can't seem to find any on their page. Nor on Twitter.

As a matter of fact, the "controversy" seems to be entirely a manufactured one, with media accepting whatever the brand says about public reaction to its campaign. An Instagram post of the billboard by stephanianne, who claims to be one of the people behind the campaign, reads "if we can keep this couple together, with their religious and social obstacles, we can keep anyone together."

My first thought was, why would anyone assume the husband does not also follow Islam?
There are thousands of Americans serving in the military who are practicing Muslims. 

The News 10 article identifies the couple as "veteran Jamie Sutton and his wife Aleah, who is Muslim" with no reference to Mr. Sutton's religious views. (Because in America, I guess being Christian is the default faith.) But who cares, really?

I'd love to believe that Snorestop really is committed to treating all couples as, well, just couples. But the lengths they have gone to, to make sure their campaign gets PR for being "controversial",  shows that they are just part of the problem.

Can this kind of teaser campaign still be effective? #smallenfreuden

It's like a combination of the fictional Gabbo! campaign from The Simpsons and early meme site Zombo.com.

As Marketing reports:

Several ominous orange billboards appeared in Toronto last week, posing a strange question: “Do you #smallenfreuden?” 

They feature no tagline, no brand logo and no call to action. Just a question with the term smallenfreuden (an English/German portmanteau meaning “the joy of small”) styled as a hashtag.

Doing some research, the Canadian ad blog found an obscure Twitter account and this video:



So what is it for? I'm not that curious, really. I'm more interested in seeing if such an old-school teaser campaign can still work, without either being prematurely outed or simply forgotten about before it reaches critical mass.

What do you think? Is this approach stuck in the 20th century, or will people pay attention long enough to be a captive audience?

UPDATE: It's Visa

Transactional sex as a student summer job

Ads for "Sugar Daddy" hookup sites are always a little unsettling, but I think this is the fist one I've seen that comes right out and says that keeping company with an older, richer man is a job.

According to Adrants's Steve Hall, the billboard was posted in Los Angeles by ArrangementFinders, which is part of the Ashley Madison internet infidelity empire.

The woman in the billboard is Bree Olson, retired adult entertainer.

Other "Sugar Daddy" campaigns:

Apple iPayforsex?
Sugar Daddy site celebrates Women's Month
Don't let your daughters grow up to date our clients 

Is this NZ beer billboard the right way to welcome equal marriage?

Now that New Zealand has equal marriage, this ad brings up the question of whether the advertiser is taking a cheap shot at same-sex marriage or simply "normalizing" it by including gay people in some rusty old step-parent humour.

According to the brewer:

‘‘Our intention with the current Tui Yeah Right billboard ‘Dad’s new husband seems nice’ was to highlight the common situation or uncertainty experienced when someone’s parent remarries. 

‘‘Given the recent passing of the Same Sex Marriage Bill in Parliament, this ‘Yeah Right’ line is a topical spin at the age-old situation of a parent's new partner.’’

Tui's Facebook page is hosting an impassioned discussion of the ad's intentions, including the (regrettably) inevitable homophobic comments.

Adfreak's David Kiefaber concludes, "I don't think Tui meant any actual harm here, but the delivery was crap. If you have to explain a joke, that's proof that it bombed. That's not something you can blame on the audience."

Dove launches another powerful campaign about body image

Via Marketing

I've had mixed feelings about Dove's various "real beauty" campaigns, but this new one by Ogilvy Toronto is pretty solid. It's also very, very depressing.

Via Marketing

The campaign press release claims that "6 in 10 girls have quit sports and activities that can play a major role in their future development, because of how they felt about their looks."

It includes this quote from Dove V.P. of Marketing, Sharon MacLeod:

"Women across Canada have more power than they realize to shape a positive future for the girls in their lives. We want to help them realize that girls want them to play this role and to empower them by giving them the tools to start this dialogue today."

"Feminist" Nirvana ends up on sexist radio billboards

I've been observing the latest campaign by Ottawa classic rock radio station The Bear for a few months now. Originally, it showed billboards with two bare-backed women and a hairy bare-backed man, the women with band names tattooed on their skin and the guy with one shaved in. It was stupid, but mostly harmless.

Then I guess they decided to drop the humour, and go straight to the sex:

You can't really expect sensitivity and brilliance from ads aimed at aging Gen-X and Boomer male wannabe rockers. I'm in that market, after all. But I still found it pretty primitive of them.

The use of the Nirvana "brand" however, made me think of the late Kurt Cobain. Wasn't he supposed to have been a feminist hero?

From The Daily Beast:

Female fans detected a humanistic view of women in the lyrics and certainly in Cobain’s public pro-feminist persona. Cobain was an early advocate of Sassy magazine, the late '80s through mid-'90s magazine aimed at teenage girls that had a definite feminist bent. He also enjoyed provoking and mocking American gender anxieties, engaging in previously unheard of behavior in a major rock star—glam rock aside—such as wearing women’s clothes and making out with male bandmates in public, just daring people to have a problem with it. “I really picked up on the sensitivity and girl-positive nature of Nirvana,” explained Kate, a 30-year-old from Toronto, “it was important to me to see a famous, attractive man share some ideas about feminism with me and be unapologetic and forthright about it.”

And then there are Cobain's own troubled words:

“Yeah, all Isms (sic) feed off one another but at the top of the food chain is still the white, corporate, macho, strong ox male. Not redeemable as far as I’m concerned. I mean, classism is determined by sexism because the male decides whether all other isms still exists (sic). Its up to men. I’m just saying that people can’t deny any ism or think that some are more or less subordinate except for sexism… I still think that in order to expand on all other isms, sexism has to be blown wide open…but there are thousands of green minds, young gullable (sic) 15 year old boys out there just starting to fall into the grain of what they’ve been told of what a man is supposed to be and there are plenty of tools to use. The most effective tool is entertainment” 

And now, 18 years after he killed himself, the band he founded is being used as part of a campaign telling the new generation what a woman is "supposed to be": pure T&A, sexually available and enjoying his gaze.

It's only rock and roll, right? Except it's not the '70s anymore. Unironic, unartistic, sexually exploitative  marketing. Weren't we supposed to grow out of this?

'70s punk marketing meets social media

I've written before, on more than one blog, how Chris Frantz, legendary drummer in Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, is my social media marketing hero.

To summarize, while big brands continue to screw up the basics of building a community, Chris simply joined Facebook as himself, accepted all friend requests, and let his network build through word-of-mouth among music fans.

To quote myself:

This was no fanpage, though. It was (and is) just another down-to-earth Facebook presence where the mature rock star shares pictures of his family, his dog, classic music videos, pretty actresses — along with casual updates on Tom Tom Club‘s reunion tour and upcoming album.

Well, that album is out now (at least on iTunes; vinyl launches tomorrow). And it's getting a good reception online.

The opening track is a nostalgic look at the 1970s music scene in New York City that birthed legends like The Ramones, Blondie, Television, and many more, including Talking Heads. The album cover is also a tribute to DIY punk design, from the days of those bands' street-level self promotion.

In a tradition that continues today, local indie bands and their friends paper every available surface with posters like this advertising their next gig. And that's exactly how Chris is promoting the new album. 

A few days ago, he reached out to his Facebook community with a downloadable poster version of the album cover (which I love) and the message:

Hi Friends ! Download this flier and print out and post it on your favorite telephone pole or wall. Take a photo of it and tag me here. There will be prizes for our favorites! 

It's just like asking your friends to help with street-level promotion, except this message is now everywhere:

I happily added an Ottawa shot into the mix (top). You can see them all at Chris' FB timeline.

It's fun, it's authentic, and it's participatory. My marketing friends, this is how it is done.

What's wrong with this vampire ad?

When I first saw this billboard, I thought "cool idea to show the two bandaids on the vampire bite, but they look like nipples".

Then I noticed that the name of the submission to Ads of The World is "boobs". It was intentional.

Which is fine, from a "people will look" point of view. But the concept bugs me.

Here's why — the thought process here is two parallel ideas:

"Trueblood is about vampires, they bite necks, two circular bandaids is a cute way of showing that."

"The bandaids look like nipples, and that says "adult"

The second idea is actually the concept. But it requires us to accept the two bandaids as something so common as to be a universal symbol for vampires, requiring no interpretation.

The second ad is much better:

The "sex" read is instant, and the patches add vampire, so the connection is much clearer.

There was also a novelty outdoor installation, which was quite clever:

CougarLife.com — for mother****ers #FdAdFriday

Spotted on Sunset Boulevard. Via Adrants.

Mexican politician channels FEMEN on campaign billboard

According to Jezebel, Natalia Juarez is a 34-year-old philosophy professor running for Congress as a member of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution.  The headline reads, "I dare you to build a new project for a nation with no prejudices." The other women are also PDR candidates.

Jezebel's Erin Gloria Ryan is a little cynical about the use of "boobies" to get attention, but I applaud any effort in which women take back ownership of their bodies by using our primal fascination to deliver messages of solidarity for social change.

Here's another one of her party's ads, via The Greenwich Diva:

""It's better for one thousand of us to take a step forward than for one leader to take one thousand steps for us."

Ms. Juarez told CNN, "Society is lethargic. We don't seem to be aware of our role. We need to get energized. We need to tell people, 'Hey, wake up because if you don't, sharks are going to eat you up. Wake up, you citizen and politician'" 

Mexico will hold presidential and congressional elections on July 1.

Don't let your daughters grow up to date our clients #FdAdFriday

Via Adrants

Established Men "is the premier online dating service that connects Young, Beautiful Women with Rich, Successful Men!"

But what exactly are they trying to say here?

Steve Hall ponders, "Is Established Men telling established men they better get their daughters to study so they can get a well-paying job and not end up on the very site daddy trolls for dates when he's feeling frisky? Or is it telling fathers they better make sure their daughters are well educated and ambitious so they *can* end up on a site like Established Men (instead of some other crappy dating site) where, seemingly, all the men are hot and she won't have to be seen with a fatty like the guy on the billboard?"

It is truly baffling. Perhaps it's the sugar daddy site's attempt at corporate social responsibility, like when tobacco companies sponsor youth anti-smoking ads?

Nah. It's just effed.

Breasts exploited in the name of cancer (again) #FdAdFriday

The technology is interesting, if it actually works as intended.

Poster before thermoactivation.

"Breast lumps are often discovered by womens partners. As a part of communication launching Breast Unit Prague (clinique for preventing and curing breast cancer) we produced this poster targeting men in male areas. When they placed their hands on the poster a pair of breasts would appear. Headline: ‘Touch them to ensure that they don’t disappear.’"

Poster thermoactivated.

While cause marketers like "Coppafeel,"  "Feel Your Boobies" and "Self Chec" promote self-screening for lumps in humorous and playfully sexy ways, this one seems more lecherous and objectifying. (Even though the creative team of Tereza Sverakova, Lauren van Aswegen and Igor Paleta seems to include at least one women.) And I don't know what it's like on the streets of Prague, but I wouldn't want to be seen feeling up a poster in public. Especially not a cancer campaign.

Ummm... what "thermoactivated" that line below the hands?

Let's hope this ad wasn't literally "F'd"...

Campaign by Leagas Delaney Prague, Czech Republic
Via I Believe in Advertising

F'd Ad Fridays: Effing hilarious media placement

Via Adland and Copyranter