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.

"Bro Cruelty" parodies Sarah McLachlan's sappy animal welfare PSA

BuzzFeed posted this pretty good parody of Sarah McLachlan's animal welfare PSA by Socially Awkward:



The original:

PETA wishes Americans a Crappy Thanksgiving

Newser says NBC refused to air this ad. Which is stupid, because unlike PETA's usual shock and T&A tactics, this one is fairly sophisticated:



I am not a vegan, and I am not against eating meat. But I still agree that factory farming and processing of animals is cruel and disgusting.

PETA brings you Bloody Mario

You've got to hand it to PETA. Their creativity is as boundless and their shamelessness.

This time, they're after Super Mario:

"When on a mission to rescue the princess, Mario has been known to use any means necessary to defeat his enemy—even wearing the skin of a raccoon dog to give him special powers.

Tanooki may be just a "suit" in Mario games, but in real life, tanuki are raccoon dogs who are skinned alive for their fur. By wearing Tanooki, Mario is sending the message that it's OK to wear fur. Play Super Tanooki Skin 2D and help Tanooki reclaim his fur!"

In this version of the game (complete with infuriating MIDI-type music), you are the skinned raccoon dog, chasing after a flying Mario, dripping blood from your flayed pelt he has wrapped himself in. Fun for the whole family!

Enjoy the game here.

F'd Ad Fridays: A very scary FEMEN Halloween protest (nudity)

Wasn't this a scene in Heavy Metal?

What's scarier than having FEMEN show up bare-chested and screaming to protest your mistreatment of animals? How about FEMEN showing up bare-chested and screaming, wearing animal masks, covered in blood and flinging raw meat at you?


ZooMorgue from FEMEN Video on Vimeo.


That's what happened to the keepers at Kiev’s ZooPark, where Animal NY reports the animals have been dying from inadequate feeding, shelter from the cold, and vet care.

It's in Ukrainian, as usual, but I'm sure you'll still get their points.

F'd Ad Fridays: Mutilated bunny sells online gambling

Animal rights, gambling addiction, horrible concept and execution... There's something for every hater in this ad!

He still looks like he could bite a knight's head off.

Via Adrants

Dear PeTA...

It's me again. I know we've had our differences, but I think I've found some common ground. So please put your clothes back on, lay off trying to guilt me into being a vegan for now, and do everything in your power to see to it that this psychopath goes to prison:



This is a scene from a Colombian professional soccer league game last weekend, between Deportivo Pereira and Atlético Junior (the home team in Barranquilla). The owl, which lived on the roof of the stadium and was considered a mascot of Junior, had alighted on the field and was accidentally hit by a ball in play.

Angered at the interference, Pereira player Luis Moreno went back and kicked the bird — causing injuries that later proved fatal.

Moreno was immediately confronted by angry opposing players. He left the game under heavy guard and was handed a two-game suspension by the league, as well as a  $560 fine for animal abuse.

Of course, that was not the end of it. Both local fans and animal rights advocates from around the world have risen up against the act, uttering death threats against the player, and establishing numerous Facebook pages and groups demanding everything from his firing to his brutal murder.

Me, I just want to see civilized justice. NY Daily News says that under Colombia Law, Moreno could face up to 3 months in jail.

Why do I care? I eat meat, after all, and the animals I eat are dispatched with pretty much just as brutal efficiency (behind closed doors).

Well, this may sound odd, but it's not just about the animal for me. It's about what this says about people. Humans who treat other living things with such senseless cruelty show a lack of empathy and impulse control that is seen in individuals who are later diagnosed with psychopathy. By punishing the infraction against another animal, we may be able to prevent escalation to human-on-human violence.

So, PeTA... instead of using this incident to grandstand against sports mascots in general, why not recognize this incident as an opportunity to get mainstream support? Nobody likes what Moreno did, because it showed a complete disregard for life and social values. Go after the man himself, and mobilize your troops to demand justice from the Colombian legal system, and insist that he is banned from the league.

And keep it civilized, please. There are already enough death threats and racial epithets being thrown around. When anyone calls for cruelty as retribution for cruelty, we all lose a little something inside.

It's a horse's life...

Glee star Lea Michele has a new campaign for PeTA, targetting the cruelty of using draught horses in New York City traffic:



From the campaign page:

"Imagine for a moment that you're forced to do hard physical labor all day, seven days a week—whether it's sweltering hot or freezing cold outside," Lea says. "At the end of the day, instead of relaxing on [an] easy chair or sleeping in a comfortable bed, you are locked in a tiny closet all night long."

This tortured life is a sad reality for the horses who are used to pull carriages.

During their workday, these horses are forced into dangerous traffic, where they develop respiratory ailments from inhaling exhaust fumes and debilitating leg problems from pounding the hard pavement. They constantly weave between cars and are often spooked by loud noises on the streets. As a result, accidents sometimes occur in which many horses and people are seriously injured or even killed. When not working, these horses are confined to cramped stalls in which they are unable to turn around, stretch their legs, or even lie down comfortably.

That does sound brutal. My only question is, how is that different from the life of the average human New Yorker?