Sleevefacing other record sleeves

I've written before about Sleeveface, the meme in which people incorporate classic album covers into portraits of themselves.

This UK campaign for Vinyl Exchange does a nice job of sleevefacing... other record sleeves. Enjoy.

Advertising Agency: Propaganda, Leeds, United Kingdom

Creative Director: Mark Williams

Art Director: Mark Williams

Copywriter: Mark Williams

Source: I Believe in Advertising

Sleeveface meets augmented reality

Another Sleeveface sighting! And this one uses classic album covers to augment reality old-school.

Pretty cool.

I would have preferred to see Country Life, though...

There are way too many of these ads, by Leg Paris.

But I imagine it was hard for the creative team to stop, once they got started:

Via I Believe in Advertising

Sleeveface: the greatest photo meme lives on in radio station ads

Long before today's trend of stupid photo memes, there was Sleeveface. Although earlier examples exist, the fad was named and made famous in 2007 by proud Welshman Carl Morris.

Following the success of his user-generated site, in 2008 Morris and his friend John Rostron published a book of Sleeveface pictures. Having fallen in love with the concept from the start, a bunch of us at Acart Communications had submitted our own, photographed by our colleague Rob Wilson. Most of them made it into the book.

So sliiiiide over here, and give me a moment...

I've always wanted to find a way to use Sleeveface in a campaign. So I was a little bummed out when I passed this billboard in Ottawa last week:

It's a little obvious to do it for a classic rock station, but I guess I'm glad that the meme lives on.

Close-ups below:

Jammin' in the cubicle

Sisters are doin' it for themselves?

F'd Ad Fridays: Get your free dissident Chinese artist here!

Seriously, though, you can join Amnesty's campaign in support of Ai Weiwei here.

Thanks to Sleeveface's Carl Morris for sharing.

Bridezilla Yourself

Everyone knows what modern marriage is all about — conspicuous consumption! At least that's the way Brides Magazine sees it. And they've created a new interactive web property, "Stoned and Dangerous" to let everyone experience the fun of spending like a bridezilla.

The first thing the app asks is to choose a photo.

Photo by Robert Wilson

Now, I'm no blushing bride, but with a little help from the late Michael Hutchence (as seen in the Sleeveface book) I can at least be 50% prettier.

Now it's time to SPEND! SPEND! SPEND! You get to choose from a variety of dresses, locations, cars, refreshments, even consumer electronics (???) as your extravagance is tracked as a percentage of what an average bride spends. (I have no idea what they're calculating.)

In the end, you are asked to choose a bridesmaid and share with your friends. I don't think I'll do that, though. I've so far avoided having to untag any pictures of myself, drunk and in drag, from Facebook.

So far, anyway...

So what's the point? To sell magazines, clearly, and to hype their advertisers' product categories. (I still can't figure out why the iPhone was in there otherwise.)

But do we really need to encourage more of this behaviour? We have reached a point at which, even in the face of recession, North Americans are spending money they don't have on stuff they don't need. And while it may buoy our retail and service economy over the short term, we are starting to see the terrible impacts of our unsustainable appetites for consumption — in terms of human rights and environmental catastrophes in the developing world, and in the loss of local entrepreneurship and culture at home.

In my opinion, today's bride needs to be less "Stoned and Dangerous", and instead watch The Story of Stuff.

Sleeve Face

"First you put your hands in the water. Then you get the soap. Then you go like this... then like this... then you turn off the water and dry your hands. THAT's how you wash them, Daddy!"

Yes, I recently got a lesson in hygiene from a four-year-old boy. School and Daycare teach him well. In fact, I recently noticed he even coughs in his sleeve, just like our ads for the Public Health Agency of Canada tell people to do:



When I was riding the bus this morning, I saw two different people do it. I call it "sleeve face", after the awesome Internet visual gag movement that we Acartians like so much, we made it into the book.

Even though the mainstream media are reporting that swine flu is on the wane at "ground zero" in Mexico, and the public breathes an unmasked sigh of relief, the virus continues to spread worldwide. This means increased likelihood of mutation and resurgence in the fall. Our work in infection control social marketing may be far from done.

I'm just happy to see people be more aware of the little things they can do to protect themselves, like washing hands, coughing and sneezing with care, and most of all keeping their fingers out of their mouths. (If I never see someone turn the pages of a book with spittle-moistened fingers again, that will be enough!)

Take care.