We've seen weird shit sell razors before, but we've never seen an angle like this one.
For its Satinelle ice epilator, Philips explores the life of a transvestite. The premise is simple: he has feminine hair removal concerns AND a man's intolerance for pain.
I loved the spot's "tender journey" narrative. But that "Like all men he's not great with pain" jab? It's so wink-wink-nudge-nudge.
Jesus, Philips. You did a cool thing crossing the gender divide, but you screwed it all up with that last ra-ra for the Girls Team. We don't need to be coddled.
UPDATE, 5/19/08: Boinkology scored an interview with Karis, the dancer in the ad. The boobs were fake, and he thinks of himself as less of a "tranny" than a sexually evolved person. Neato.
The MySpace homepage has been invaded by concurrently-running banner ads for the NBA. Each features two different basketball players whose faces are cut down the middle and mashed together. Each player is repeating the same speech about fear and slowly ... sloooowly ... driving me mad.
The banners drive users to MySpace.com/NBA, which tells you nothing about the ads themselves. Too bad; I actually wanted to know, but not enough to dig through all that other crap.
However douchey you say rich media is, you know in truth that you love those interactive executions. If you could, you'd splatter them across the four edges of Internet so everyone can experience the scope of your cool.
Don't be ashamed; Eyeblaster loves them too. To ensure your life's work will never be forgotten, it launched the Creative Zone: a gallery of Precious Moments in Rich Media.
Heaven help your grandkids if this is the scrapbook you plan to bust out with at teatime.
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Volkswagen has broadened its talk show host campaign, featuring Max the talking '64 veedub, with the debut of What the People Want.
The site lets people submit simple yes-or-no polls. When you respond to one, you get to see how many people want what you voted for. Stuff we've learned: 66 percent of the people want free candy and endless sunshine. 93 percent want cars to run on something other than gas. 42 percent want to live forever.
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In tangent with Cat Fancy, Petfinder.com has launched "Cats Rule!", an ad contest that aims to do two things:
- Improve public perception of cats
- Encourage people to adopt homeless ones
Entrants must create a 7x10" print ad that demonstrates "the value and importance of cats, specifically of adopting one." The winner gets a full-page run in Cat Fancy's September issue. It will also appear on Catchannel.com and Petfinder.com.
That's one thing I don't get about this campaign. If its purpose is to alter negative public perceptions of cats, why preach to the saved? Get that bad-boy a full spread in Modern Dog or ... hell, Dwell.
The deadline for submissions is May 23. See guidelines. If after the height of lolcat and Caturday you can't put together a bangin' cat ad, sell your Big Black Pencil and go be an accountant somewhere.
It's not clear why Marc by Marc Jacobs footwear would want to associate themselves with a skunk but that's what they've done with a recent in-store promotion. Megan and Susan, while in San Francisco for ad:tech, wandered into a Marc Jacobs store and posed with the skunk for a picture.
Hmm. Skunk. Shoes. Not two things one would normally see associated with one another but, hey, this is marketing. We do that crazy shit.
Hot women with big breasts always seem to get the bum deal and it makes no sense. Why is it right to label and discriminate against a person simply because of their hotness and bra size? That appears to be what happened with a recent campaign for Gladiators in the UK which features Jemma Palmer in her Gladiator costume.
A local vicar has objected to the campaign. A spokesman for Sky One, the network on which Gladiators appears, said. "We thought it was such a great image that it would be great for the campaign. But it seems the vicar just thought Jemma was too hot and that her boobs were just too big."
OK so the board was to be placed next to a church and she's certainly dresses in less than her Sunday best but would God judge on looks alone?
Well, it's better than Cue Cat. Rolling Stone and Men's Health are testing a program whereby readers take pictured of ads and txt them to a number which returns offer information from the advertiser. Technology from SnapTell enables image recognition so snapped images are matched with the correct offers.
Not a bad idea. After all, it's definitely easier to simply take a picture than text a URL for more info. Nice way to track ad viewership as well.
Cue Cat attempted this years ago with a clumsy device that would plug into one computer and be used to scan a bar code in the ad. A web page with product information was returned. With near everyone owning a cell phone these days, there's no need for a separate device such as the Cue Cat.
OK, seriously. Just what is it about beer that is supposed to make life perfect? How did beer, swill such as Miller Lite no less, become the answer to all of life's ills? Seriously. It's liquefied wheat and barley injected with air. That doesn't sound like a life-altering panacea yet marketer after marketer after marketer insist a sip of beer will get you the girl, turn your life into a posh existence, help you one up your friends and turn you into some sort of superior being with qualities only found in, well, beer commercials.
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Next month's Vanity Fair features "provocative" photos, taken by Annie Leibovitz, of Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus. It would likely have come and gone, relatively ripple-free, if Disney hadn't claimed the firm "deliberately [manipulated] a 15-year-old [...] to sell magazines."*
In allegiance with her corporate shareholders, Miley said the photos embarrassed her and apologized to fans.
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Abusing those who make a living commenting on advertising, the Leo Burnett Brazil campaign that gave us that cockroach on the bottom of a pizza box has been extended to further abuse. By highlighting comments made on a set of fake print ads, the agency extended the campaign adding the tagline, "Advertising needs more doers than talkers." Nice. Kick the shit out of the people you are trying to woo.
It doesn't really matter though because the whole thing is for some shitty ass awards shows called Cannes Young Lions:-)
After whining about lack of a poppin' industry social life, the ad gods smiled down upon Adrants and gave us the chance to cover the One Show Festival next week! (If we're ultra-good, will they also give us Cannes...?)
Dude. ONE SHOW. The event creatives have creamed themselves over for probably longer than I've been alive. I am an orgy of exploding emotions.
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For the Spitzer in all of us, National Lampoon debuts Whore Diamonds, a Hot or Not-type site that uses the Emperors Club "diamond" rating system to, well, rate whores. Whore Diamonds joins the Drunk University Network.
Most images and videos are strays from Eros-Vegas and Adult Friend Finder. The pressie says the site "will expand into a forum for breaking news and daily biting commentary on the underground world of politics, pop culture, and entertainment."
Two cents from Sam Elhag, head of strategy for Drunk University Network: "We don't feel that only politicians and Emperors Club members should have an exclusive on rating today's generation of working girls. This opens up the process to the masses. Who knows, a 'five diamond' girl to a Spitzer may only be a 'three diamond' to the rest of the world."
How noble.
To demonstrate how serious Comedy Central takes comedy, kempertrautmann/Hamburg hand-drew a few classic gags. This is the continuation of a campaign that won Comedy Central some love at Cannes.
See bucket over door and thumbtacks on chairs. Also see how I'm struggling not to yawn.
This is awesome. Jobsintown.de used the "people on display" gimmick (other examples: 1, 2, 3) to drive this point home: "Life's too short for the wrong job!"
Cog-in-the-wheel miserati are trapped inside self-service machines. Catch them toiling away in ATMs, vending machines, photo booths and coin-op washers.
No real people were actually encased; otherwise, this might have been kinda risky.
Part of what I liked about this campaign was the sheer variety in the implementation. It's like somebody saw human hands behind every device we take for granted.
Thanks to the people at influencia for sending it over.
- George Parker tells us why political advertising sucks and why doing shots in a local bar doesn't make on "one of the boys."
- Somehow a boxing glove is suppose to induce sleep according to Sominex sleeping aid.
- Axe is doing its "our smelly deodorant will make you a chick magnet" thing in Japan.
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