Housewife, USA, commits brand suicide

Seen on Ads of The World today: Suicide and Isadora Duncan.

There's not much to say about these ads. They claim to be for Etsy scarf seller The Year Of May, but I doubt any money changed hands.

What ads like this really are is promotion for the ad agency. In this instance, the  responsible party is Housewife, USA, a Texas-based virtual agency run by Flor Leibaschoff.

These are typical of the "edgy shit" made by creatives, for creatives, with no real purpose other than to get the makers noticed.

Well congratulations. Making fun of suicide and the grotesque death of Isadora Duncan are certainly attention-getting. Not the good kind of attention, but at least we know what you're willing to sink to.

F'd Ad Fridays: The suicide hotline site that seems to want you to do it

There's nothing funny about depression and self-harm. Nothing, that is, except the official web site of the United States' National Suicide Hotlines.

This was featured today on Cracked's list of 5 Official Websites You Won't Believe Are This Bad. Most were just poorly designed. This one, well...

It is very, very strange. And amazingly dark and depressing, considering people visiting it must be a heartbeat away from their last hope.

It also has well-meaning, but tragically misplaced, rhetorical questions throughout it.

Who on earth was responsible for approving this design and content? I won't ask "who designed it?" because if there's one thing the internet has taught us is that human weirdness is deeper and more diverse than any individual could ever fathom.

Believe me. I do not want to make fun of a suicide hotline. But maybe if a little constructive mockery can get through to the right people and get them to do something... anything... to put this site out of its...

You see what this site has done to me? I did not want to make that joke. 

No! Make it stop!!! I take it all back. This site does not look like it was designed by a teenage girl in 1996. It is a sensitive and appropriate handling of a very delicate topic that it no way should provoke ironic thoughts from cynical bloggers. Okay?

GAHHHH!

I thought I just did. Although I'd love to know where I could get one of those cool vintage phones.

Montreal style social marketing

In Montreal today for some soundtrack work on a TV spot, I was stopped by one of the few posters on St. Catherine Street that was actually safe for work:



The glare and the snow flurries you see are exactly how I saw it, too. And so at first I didn't notice anything unusual about it. But this being Montreal, I knew there had to be more to it. So I stopped and looked:



In case it's still hard to see, the phone cord is wrapped around his shoulder in the shape of a comforting hand. Okay, so you don't see many of those phones anymore, and it could come off a little creepy. But at least it's clever.

The big question is, are ads like this too clever? I stopped and looked because I'm an adman, and Montreal is French Canada's own Madison Avenue. I like to see what's up around town.

Clever visuals have been the bread and butter of Montreal (and Quebec) ads for some time now. The people I know from Quebec seem to enjoy decoding them. But then again, most of the Quebeckers I know are involved in my industry in one way or another.

Part of me wonders if this is an effective approach for reaching the severely depressed. Will they see it? Will they act on it? Someone needs to tell me, because I'm not from here. And I occasionally suspect that the competitiveness of the local industry might be outpacing the ability of the target markets to comprehend the messages.

I hope I'm wrong, though. Because it's kind of a neat ad. What do you think?