Here it is: The worst ad of the World Cup, via HOOTERS

We call it "soccer" in Canada too, and we have our own version of "football," and yet I've never seen anyone as confused about sports as ESPN NFL Analyst Jon Gruden, competitive eater Joey Chestnut, and pro golfer John Daly:



The writing! The acting! The humour that falls flat! The "dumb blonde" server! If you're looking for something that will make you want to beat yourself senseless with that frosty mug of beer, this ad really has it all.

Plus, the whole gag was already done by KIA.

Via caughtoffside.com

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

Edgy restaurant branding, or terrible new euphemism for "vulva"?

Via skirtsteak.ca

The question is, of course, rhetorical. The web site's feature image shows a woman splayed over a butcher block, hanging an agonizingly vaginal steak by a meat hook. It's about the most awful advertising image I've seen in ages. (Apparently, it's also a billboard.)

The Ottawa Citizen reports that this upcoming suburban steakhouse is owned by the Rooney Group, who also own Tosh Steakhouse & Bar in Arnprior. The Rooney Group would not talk to reporters.

The work is featured in the portfolio of Ottawa's Light Switch Creative.

The restaurant's site is all about hiring right now. Here's how they describe themselves:

Skirt Steak is a steakhouse redefined. The sleek, contemporary atmosphere combined with unique menu selections and cuts of meat, leave guests with little to desire. [...] This sexy and edgy take on today’s steakhouse will keep you wanting more.

 Sexy, edgy... and almost literally dripping with misogyny.

Julie Lalonde, director of Hollaback! Ottawa, told the Citizen, “I rolled my eyes. How unoriginal, you’re using women as a metaphor for meat. If you can’t advertise your business without objectifying women then you don’t have a good business model. It turns people off and it’s offensive.”

Barry Nabatian, director of market research for Shore-Tanner & Associates, added that the location — close to the hockey mecca, strip malls and technology businesses of Kanata — may be right for this kind of approach, saying “a lot of the people are engineers who go out looking for those things.”

Doesn't really say much about the profession, does it?

The women as food cliché is already tiresome. This one is gruesome as well. The woman with the cleaver offers us her "skirt steak," freshly butchered. Are we supposed to want to eat it or...? I don't intend to find out.


Thanks to Paul for the tip.

South African ad puts a white guy in blackface, with predictable results

imeslive.co.za

It was supposed to be a funny concept about air quotes and quality control. But when they put the white guy in blackface for the "African dictator" stereotype, it pretty much guaranteed a bad reaction in post-Apartheid South Africa.



According to Times Live, it only took two complaints of racism to get the South African Advertising Standards Authority to order the Cape Town Fish Market to pull the ad. The ruling stated, "To achieve the desired result of showing a corrupt official, there was no need for the man to be made out to be black."

The Cape Town Fish Market's general manager, Davin Berrill, says the restaurant "never intended to offend anybody," which is a pretty standard non-apology these days.

There is no mention of whether anyone objected to the man dressing as a woman prostitute.

Why is Hooters going after Chipotle?

Arby's talking trash about Subway I can understand. They're both fast food. But why is Hooters — a sit-down, full-service bar and restaurant — comparing itself to Chipotle?



The new campaign, by Skiver Advertising, doesn't have much more to it than the gross-out burrito scene. The rest is just typical chain restaurant product shots (and by "product" I mean both food and branded waitstaff) with happy mixed groups of target audience having conspicuous fun.

As Eater summarizes:

The burrito place is gray, dirty, and full of disgusting, gloppy food; Hooters, on the other hand, features servers that are literally beaming sunshine from behind their Farrah Fawcett-waves, and there are lots of boobs. And also salads, you know, for the ladies.

Why even bother? It's like The Olive Garden saying that it's more like a restaurant than McDonald's. So what? Totally different categories. Plus, in the realm of ethical restaurants, Chipotle rules while Hooters drools.

The other ad, which seems of lower production quality, compares hooters to a sports bar full of overenthusiastic (and, I can't help but note, overweight) fans.



I thought Hooters was a sports bar. I guess the implication is Hooters is for thinner people. #stepintoawesome indeed...

Tip via Adfreak