Van rental company makes sexist jokes part of its marketing plan

Via ABC

An Australian company that calls itself "Wicked Campers" has pissed off thousands of people with its on-vehicle slogans, prompting a massive online petition and complaints to regulators.

The campaign was led by Paula Orbea, who reacted after her 11-year-old daughter told her about the "little slut" slogan she had seen on a Wicked Campers van.

From Change.org:

It is inconceivable that Wicked Campers choose to not only write the misogynistic 'joke' but also then publicise it through their moving, billboard vans.  

Disgustingly they have also promoted that, 'Fat girls are harder to kidnap.' 

Shame on them. 

Adult females are also degraded into sexual objectification and disrespect - with slogans on show for people of all ages to indiscriminately see and absorb:  

'A wife: An attachement you screw on the bed to get the housework done.''A blowjob is a great last minute gift!''I wouldn't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die!' 

Racism has also played a part with slogans such as:'Save the whales, harpoon a Jap.'

The company, which markets mostly to young backpackers, has gotten in trouble with Australia's Advertising Standards Board before. Many, many times. But according to Marketing Mag, they have failed to respond to any rulings, whether for or against, since mid-2010.

This time, however, the company seems to have rolled over, and Ms. Orbea declared victory:

Wicked Campers have apologised, and committed to removing all misogynistic slogans from their vans within six months. Nothing has shifted them in the past. Complaints. Fines. But after initially responding to the petition saying they "didn't care about the uproar" – after your massive support for my petition, they've apologised and will re-spray the offensive, sexist vans.

The worst road safety shock ad you will see this week

Spoiler: They all die

Redditor JamieDrogheda shared this really dreadful PSA two days ago, for the Department of The Environment in Northern Ireland.

The Belfast Telegraph calls it "more closely resembling something like Sharknado than a traditional road safety ad." The ASA won't let it be shown on TV before 9 pm.

I'll simply call it overwrought, manipulative and misguided:



This kind of shock ad should stay in the 1970s, the golden age of driving school snuff films. Nobody, absolutely nobody, is going to drive more slowly because of this ad. Instead of seeing it as a symbolic slaughter of all the children killed by speeding, they're more likely to see it as almost comical.

Just look at the "special effects":

The teacher doesn't seem too concerned by the flattened children.

Dope-smoking Jesus hawks cheeseburgers

Adland's Kid Sleepy shared this dumb little attention-getter from Seattle with the comment, "Ads like this are designed only to shock. but that's the funny thing about shocks. The shock wears off quickly.. And shock value in terms of advertising equals a dingleberry."

I don't care much about the blasphemy, but is that cheese on that burger? It's Passover for God's sake! At least let Yeshua Ben Yosef eat kosher.

And now, we can forget we ever saw this.

This ad for "feminine wash" gets attention, but not the good kind

Via Ads Of The World

From Indonesia. The English translation provided is "Hygiene on the go." (Google gives a literal translation of "wherever hygienic.")

I don't really know what to say, except that Betadine (povidone-iodine) is an antiseptic douche used for serious vaginal bacterial infections, and probably isn't something women want to be using for regular "hygiene".

Bad message, creepy execution.

That's some f#cking bold pizza branding... #PizzaChingona

As ad controversies go, this one's pretty harmless. The Laredo Sun reports that Dallas-based pizza chain Pizza Patrón is upsetting people (and generating massive earned media) by naming their extra-spicy pie after a common Mexican expression — "La Chingona" —  which is politely translated as "the badass".

Those of you with even a passing knowledge of Mexican Spanish slang will, however, note that  "chingo"and its derivatives tend to be used as a Hispanic version of "fuck". The context is not always sexual, however, as in when we say "bad motherfucker". Which might be a more honest translation of this pizza's name, from what I can tell.

Swearing in another language (even in a country like the United States that pretends it's still unilingual) is a risky yet potentially fruitful strategy. On the one hand, older Mexican-Americans could be offended by it, and the FCC could even potentially fine the advertiser. (Which is why Spanish radio stations refuse to air the product ads uncensored.) On the other hand, the youth market could be quite drawn to such badassery.

I'm pretty sure the latter will be the case, and the advertiser isn't budging. Andrew Gamm, brand director for Pizza Patrón, told Pizza Marketplace, "When the Real Academia Española, the world's foremost authority on the Spanish language, defines 'chingón' as a very positive characteristic, it makes us feel confident in our position and in our decision to move forward without apology."

Aldo Quevedo, principal/creative director for Richards/Lerma, says the controversy north of the Mexican border is really a matter of cultural ignorance:

"In Mexico, people make fun of everything: pop culture, international events and even catastrophes. We are used to it and nobody really gets offended. We have thicker skin and there's a reason for that. That's why it's more shocking to me that the name is being censored here in the U.S.," he said. "I understand that the name of the product could be controversial. But really, after you try it you will understand that it's the best descriptor. To me, it's the only name that fits: La Ch!#gona."

Paddy Power provokes with "Oscar" ad, succeeds

It's not easy to be a more insensitive and offensive advertiser that PETA, but online betting outfit Paddy Power does it on a regular basis.

This time, it's an "Oscars" ad that features accused murderer and elite athlete Oscar Pistorius. And oh, did they get what they wanted:

Paddy Power's controversial ad campaign featuring Oscar Pistorius, which offers "money back if he walks", is to be investigated by the UK's advertising watchdog after receiving nearly 50 complaints. 

The adverts, which offer refunds for losing bets if the South African Paralympian is found not guilty of the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, has been criticised for being in bad taste. 

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) received 46 complaints in two days and has now decided to launch a formal investigation.

Now there's a Change.org petition to "please remove your offensive betting on the outcome of the Oscar Pistorius trial and donate any profits so far to a women's charity fighting violence against women." It has, of this writing, 122,610 digital signatures.

Not that any of the offended are in Paddy Power's target market. In fact, I wonder if they actually get more business from stunts like this (and this, and this) than they ever had the potential to lose.

It's a cynical adworld out there.

13 most popular posts of 2013

Since starting this bog, almost five years ago,  I've been working to find my niche among ad bloggers.

I'm still working on it. As you'll see from the list below, scandal still "sells" the most clicks online. While I don't purposely write for linkbait, I've learned my lesson about the SEO dangers of putting the words "teen," "sexting" and "nudity" in the same headline. I have a feeling I disappointed a few creeps with that one...


#13 This is how you do sex in advertising

I was a little worried at first, with the lesbian fetish cliché of the two women kissing, but when bethonged spokesman Brandon Allen gets in bed with the threesome, the ad achieves a kind of self-deprecating charm and irony.


#12 No, this is not a "real" Russian Tampax ad

This nasty little clip, which is making the viral rounds of HuffPo, LiveLeak, etc., is not a "Russian Tampax Ad". According to its own YouTube "about" section, it's a promotional video for the bizarre mess known as "Movie 43".


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

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

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.


#10 This push-up bra gag has been done before

Seem familiar? You might be thinking of a similar Dutch campaign, starring Andrej Pejić, from a couple of years ago.


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

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.

#8 Billboard celebrating "remarkable women" shows only men

The men are all donors to the campaign. Which is great. And the campaign itself is a good one. But the paternalism of the billboard, even if unintentional, is baffling.

#7 This could be the worst Facebook ad of all time

If you don't recognize the face in the ad, that's Rehtaeh Parsons, a Canadian teen who committed suicide last April after being raped at a party while too intoxicated to consent, and experiencing extreme online sexual harassment and abuse when photos of the crime were circulated among her peers.

Whether the company used the photo accidentally or on purpose is unknown. The web site the ad directs to is no longer online.

#6 Advertising rape culture in anti-rape campaigns

Victim-blaming. It's ugly, it's hurtful, and it's doing nothing to stop people from raping other people.

In the aftermath of the Steubenville rape trial, in which two teenage men were convicted of raping and humiliating an unconscious teenage woman, it's time we had another look at what these supposedly-helpful ads are saying. 

#5 Pussy Riot appropriated again, this time by Vanessa Hudgens

I've written before, both here and on Osocio, about the appropriation of anarcho-feminist group Pussy Riot's knitted balaclava brand. Here's the latest sighting, from former Disney star Vanessa Hudgens'  '$$$ex' Teaser Video.

#4 Low-fat cheese brand makes fun of diet industry clichés aimed at women 

More and more brands are realizing that the best way to reach women is to make fun of the way everyone else tries to reach women.

The menstruation products industry has been doing this for years. Fashion, too. So low-cal foods might as well get into the action. And who knows cheese better than a cheese manufacturer?

#3 This vintage ad illustration makes photoshopped ads look realistic by comparison

Portraying unrealistic body types in ads and fashion is nothing new.

#2 "You're not the first" to do this awful, sexist concept, either

Aston Martin says in their blog that the ad is fake. But it's been done for real, several times.

#1 Parenting magazine shock advertises with "teen" sexting image (partial nudity)

Don't panic — it's an ad. The models are obviously adults. But is using a titillating image a good idea, even if it's saying "we're against that sort of thing"? It's as if the all-male creative team at Jung von Matt were a little too into this one. As a result, in my opinion, they just end up contributing to the problem of adults fetishizing teen sexuality.

Well, that's it for 2013. Happy New Year, and thanks for reading.

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.

Selling calming tea with zombies and killer clowns

...and Leatherface. From YouTube:

Jung von Matt/Neckar, Tempomedia and director Andreas Roth created this compelling film featuring spectacular underwater images. Organic food producer Herbaria is breaking with the tea industry's conventions by advertising their calming tea with this unusual film. 

From The Simpsons:



Tip via BuzzFeed

Benetton shakes up NYC with a sexy yarn bomb

Via Animal NY

Provocative marketing is nothing new to United Colors of Benetton, but how can the Italian fashion brand break through to jaded New Yorkers?

Animal NY reports that this "tastefully vulgar" sculpture by Erik Ravelo was placed in their new pop-up location in Soho.

Here's a picture with more context, from Gothamist:

An Instagrammer named samhorine posted a shot of the display, taking it viral, where user "oneoffive" made a comment after my own heart:

It certainly is a very confronting image, but I believe our children see things just as confronting on music videos. Unlike a woman grinding her butt in a guys face like on these video clips, most kids won't even realise what they are seeing when they see this display. And if they do, it's probably time to teach them a little bit about the facts of life. And yes, I have kids. @samhorine very interesting feed you have started! I'm sure this is exactly what the store owners had in mind when they put the display up, hundreds of people talking about it!

Exactly. I rail a lot about sleazy sex in advertising, but this doesn't feel like that. It's explicit, but it's a far more naturalistic portrayal of "the facts of life" that I wouldn't be upset for my 8-y-o son to see. (Since he comments on the squirrels doing it on our daily walks to school.)

Cynical shock marketing ploy? Sure. But we've all seen worse. At least this one is actually about the product it's humping.

F'd Ad Fridays: The grossest film poster you'll come across today

According to the Anomalous Material blog (via Buzzfeed) this is a "banned" poster created for the Hungarian release of the well-received dirty Steve McQueen movie, Shame.

Eww.

Do not watch these Swedish horror fest ads

Unless you:

1. Are a horror fan
2. Have a strong stomach
3. Are a psychopath
4. Are a soulless ad junkie, or
5. All of the above

It's a two-part viral promo for Elmsta 3000 Horror Fest, and if you insist on watching them with a functional soul, you will be repulsed and disturbed. Extreme graphic violence, torture, gore and hillbillies disturbed. You have been warned.





**hurk**

The 'shock and ha!' Hyundai ad that you won't see on TV

Ads of The World shared this Dutch "shock and ha!" ad by Fitzroy, which was Hyundai apparently abandoned post-production because it is "'too shocking for our brand'.



At first it made me wince, but if you don't mind the cartoonish violence its parody of Final Destination is actually kind of amusing.

F'd Ad Fridays: Femen emasculates NZ men (nudity)

Back in March, Ukrainian women's protest group FEMEN protested a New Zealand radio station's contest to "win a wife" in the Ukraine via one of those awful mail-order bride companies.

The winner, a winemaker known only as Greg, was so scared of the publicity that he refused to go to meet his "prize".  With characteristic subtlety, FEMEN celebrated their victory — and gave a warning to all other Kiwi men to stay away from Ukrainian sex tourism — by having this poster pasted all over Auckland:

Millions of men are now crossing their legs awkwardly.

I love the parody of Soviet propaganda.

Femen's statement (via Google Translate):The action served as a clear warning to the New Zealand men that Ukraine is not a country of sex tourism, and the Ukrainian is not a gift!

Me, I'm just trying to stay on their good side.

The ad industry is going to hell.

It's Easter season, so expect to see lots of outrageous campaigns and outraged Christians.

But in a cynical world, how far do you need to push irreverence to even get noticed? For a start, we have a strong contender from Auckland, New Zealand's Hell Pizza chain, promoting their pentagram-decorated "Hell Cross Buns":

According to the NZ Herald, Anglican Church media officer Lloyd Ashton was quick to comment:

"The ad is another example of already over-remunerated ad people getting paid more to churn out 'risque' ads. They've dared here to take a clumsy poke at something that numbers of people hold sacred."

He also commented that "their buns are stale".

Hell Pizza director Warren Powell countered with one of the most disingenuous rationales ever uttered:

"We expected it would spark some debate and some talking between people in the offices. Which is good. It means our marketing budget works a little bit harder.
I do not see how it could possibly be disrespectful to anyone's religion.

First of all, we're acknowledging that Jesus Christ may have been on Earth for a limited time. We may bring them back next year, and everyone's saying that
Jesus Christ is coming back one day. Again, it's a debate. I think if people take it that way then they're being a little bit single-minded."

The Herald does not mention whether Powell was smoking anything at the time, or whether he was able to maintain a straight face.

To set the record straight, I'm not offended by this ad's cheap poke at Jesus. I just find it a dumb, lazy creative idea, that at no time was intended to generate "debate". It's just there to ingratiate the brand among its target audiences of anti-religious students and stoners by freaking out the squares. Yawn.

Plus, it's in bad taste to make fun of a dead guy. Even if he has taken an unholy interest in pizza of late.

"Blessed are the cheesemakers..."

Put yourself in the model's place....

Put yourself in a mink's place.
Don't buy animal skins!
Animals suffer like we do.

Stop pointless attempts to sexualize animal cruelty with us.

German models suffer like we do.

Put yourself in a pig's place.
Stop anaesthetic-free piglet castration with us!
Animals suffer like we do.

Put yourself in a horse's place.
Stop horse branding with us!
Animals suffer like we do.

Put yourself in a monkey's place.
Stop animal testing with us!
Animals suffer like we do.

 

Doesn't PETA give us enough of this already? Such a random assortment of outrages, too. It's as if they started with a group of nude models, and a can of fake blood, and just let the campaign go from there. Although the monkey guy reminds me of Luke Wilson in Idiocracy, and that made me smile.

Found on Ads of The World.

Anorexia Kills (nudity)

Three years ago, Italian fashion brand Nolita shocked Milan's Fashion Week with billboards featuring a nude woman suffering from severe anorexia nervosa:

The woman, French model, actress and blogger Isabelle Caro, has died. News reports say she was just 28 years old.

NO ANOREXIA from SUGARKANE / Leandro Manuel Emede on Vimeo.

Oddly, reports of the original campaign in 2007 stated her age at that time as 27, while other sources say she was born in 1980 — making her all of 30 at the time of her death. This is strange, because if she had really only been 25 when those photos were shot, that fact would have made the campaign all  the more shocking.

Caro had been battling anorexia since adolescence, and she had said that she allowed herself to be photographed by Oliviero Toscani because:

“I’ve hidden myself and covered myself for too long. Now I want to show myself fearlessly, even though I know my body arouses repugnance. I want to recover because I love life and the riches of the universe. I want to show young people how dangerous this illness is.”

The campaign shocked sensibilities even in naked-ad-saturated Italy, and was eventually banned by the country's advertising authority because it violated a rule that "Marketing communication should not offend moral, civil and religious beliefs. Marketing communication should respect human dignity in every form and expression and should avoid any form of discrimination."

Instituto dell’Autodisciplina Pubblicitaria (IAP) President Giorgio Floridia stated, "The photo is shocking for everyone, particularly those who are sick, and has been set up for commercial ends."

Isabelle weighed just 68 pounds at the time of the shoot. According to Wikipedia, she died over a month ago in Tokyo (of acute respiratory disease) but her family only reported the news to media yesterday.

Ms. Caro back in the day.  Is this so much less shocking?

A sad ending to a sad story.

Have the guts to go guerrilla?

When I first saw the thumbnails for this campaign on Ads of The World, I thought it was for PeTA. Or maybe organ donation.

But on closer inspection, it turned out to be a very gory self-promotion by Der Doctor Guerrilla, an Italian alternative marketing agency that wants to get noticed.

How would you react to receiving one of these nasty little things on your desk? Especially just before lunch?

"Would new ideas be of service to you? [Need new ideas?] Fresh human brain from a male adult (but not too adult)"

"Could a hand be of service? [Need a hand?] Fresh human hand from an adult male (but not too adult)."

"Would heart and passion be of service your agency? [Need more heart and passion at your agency?] Fresh human heart from an adult male (but not too adult)."

What we non-Italian audiences (and readers of AOTW's bad translations) are missing is the pun. In Italian, "servire" isn't just used like English "serve" but also to indicate a need. That's why I provided the awkward double translations above.

Another thing that doesn't really translate is the fourth concept. It's uniquely Italian, and to understand it you need to know that Italy's first civilization, the Etruscans, considered the liver to be the most important organ in the body, the seat of life and the soul. The Etruscans were later so assimilated by Rome that even their language has been lost. But today, Italians use the expression "if you have the liver for it" like we use "guts", "stomach" or "balls" — to indicate willpower, determination, and manliness.

So now you can amaze your friends and frighten your enemies at agency Christmas parties by deconstructing this ad:

"Would the liver to do guerrilla marketing be of service to your agency? [Does your agency need someone with the guts to do guerilla marketing?] Fresh human liver from an adult male (but not too adult)."

UPDATE: The Doc himself left a note on Acart's Facebook page:

Hi Tom, thanks for the post and nice to meet you ... The translation of the concepts you've done is apt, I knew I likely to encounter misunderstanding on the "liver". There is only one small mistake: I am not an agency but a freelancer looking for work as a creative:)

Junk

AdFreak posted this creepy-as-hell PSA intended to combat child obesity in Australia:



I am just as concerned as any parent about the poor eating habits so many people are teaching to their kids. But comparing feeding them junk food to injecting them with... well... junk? It's offensive on so many levels.

He'll soon start mugging people to support his Happy Meal habit.

First of all, the occasional fast food burger is relatively harmless, and does indeed contain some nutrition. Second, heroin addiction is way too serious a social issue to be treated so lightly. Third, as I keep saying, shock and shame advertising is rarely effective in social marketing.

If you're going to call people bad parents for doing something completely ordinary, you are really unlikely to reach anyone who really needs the message. There are better ways to inspire change.

Bad Karma

CharitySA is a South African online listing service where not-for-profit organizations can solicit funds, advertise jobs, and generally make an appeal to the public.

But as Copyranter points out on ANIMAL NY, their ads aren't appealing at all.

(Once you're done dry-heaving over the images, click to expand to legible size)





Sure, these ads have been noticed, and are being talked about. But is this really going to motivate you to "do something good in this life"?

Me, I'm just left wondering what vainglorious admen come back as in the next life.