One thing I love about Benetton: it never knows when to leave well enough alone. "Victims," the current issue of its company magazine Colors, uses the tragedy of the SouthWest China earthquake to try mending the China/Tibetan conflict.
The issue includes 30 shots of quake victims integrated with 30 prayers written for them by Tibetan monks. An accompanying Benetton ad displays a Tibetan monk and a Chinese soldier bowing toward each other, possibly in greeting, apology or shared grief. Readers can send their own prayers over for inclusion in a campaign exhibition.
Provocative as always, but I generally have trouble hating on Benetton (except when they fired Toscani). The "Victims" ad campaign is running in Italian newspapers and in French daily Le Monde.
To supplement its "Impossible is Nothing" spots for the Beijing Olympics, Adidas busts out with a slightly retro set of prints titled "Gold is Not a Given."
Each piece features an Olympic athlete, training in Beijing six months before the game "in sub-zero temperatures." There's also some Nike-esque pontificating on the meaning of "gold." An example from the ad at left (featuring Haile Gebrselassie):
Gold is more than a colour. It's a dream to keep chasing. It's a dream to keep you going. It's a dream that sometimes gets put on hold. Gold is never a given.
Also see:
o Tyson Gay -- Gold can be lost in a flash. (1, 2)
o Allyson Felix -- Gold is not into predictions. (1, 2)
o Veronica Campbell-Brown -- Gold makes you wait. (1, 2)
o Jeremy Wariner -- Gold is the language of fastest. (1, 2)
o Yelena Isinbayeva -- Gold doesn't play favourites. (1, 2)
Totally different style from the Chinese ads, but in keeping with the grit-and-glory feel. Put together by Amsterdam (180\TBWA).
So last week, panties were in a twist over what appeared to be the lightening of Beyonce's skin for an appearance in a L'Oreal ad in Elle magazine. Of course, L'Oreal denies it. However, a look at several past images of Beyonce would run counter to that denial.
The net? Who cares. She's beautiful no matter what color she is.
Under the tagline "Never let their toys die," Energizer UK depicts kids in various states of, uh, toyless engagement. The campaign won top accolades in Press Advertising at the Cannes International Ad Festival.
See the work (helpfully labeled by ME!):
o Merry-Go-Hostage
o Pretty Pretty Puppy
o Not Quite Rain
Put together by DDB/South Africa to support Energizer's "longest-lasting battery" position. Awesome stuff. What'd you guys do, spend a week at the primary school?
You gotta love skinny models. They wear clothes well, improve sales, make other women feel bad. The best part? They don't eat. Think of the savings!
A survey of 194 female college students, aged 18-24, found women feel uglier after seeing thin models. They are also more likely to buy products held in a gamine's claw than from ads with "regular-size models." (Here's a secret: none of us enjoy being characterized as "regular." It's like being called "homely" -- a big fat fucking slap in the face.)
Seeing thin models also made women less likely to accept a snack pack of Oreo cookies offered as a thank-you for their participation in the study. Well, no shit.
You know what a woman does want to do after seeing all those runway waifs? (Second to shopping, that is.) Drink. A lot. And that's why we're so keen on Gawker's coverage of the same survey. It's right next to a banner ad for Sobieski vodka. That's targeting to win!
Riffing on the increasingly fake aspects of culture from implants to injections to extensions, Toronto agency Zig created a print campaign for New York Fries which draws a dichotomy between fakeness and the all natural goodness of New York Fries.
Witty campaign but what's really sad is the fact an actual ad campaign is needed to sell something that is supposed to be fried potatoes and nothing else. Food - and everything else in this world - has become so processed, hardly anything is real anymore.
For example, breasts. Big breasts are great. Every woman seems to want them and every man seems to want to ogle and fondle them. Fine. Nothing wrong with obsessing over big breasts (well, OK, maybe it is a bit degrading to reduce a woman to a body part) but fake big breasts are exactly that. Fake. Not real. They don't look real. They don't feel real. They aren't attractive to look at. They aren't real. And fake isn't fun.
Neither are fake French Fries. Two other fake-focused ads are here and here.
This is sorta nifty. Motivated by the assumption that youth adopt ideals based on how they're presented, Grey/Madrid launched Compra esta actitude ("Buy this attitude") on behalf of the Madrid City Council.
The effort tells people to save energy by twisting up gimmicks we're all familiar with. Ads were inspired by shampoo and perfume ads, and even those totally improbable amateur online videos.
Creative is divided by medium: Internet, TV, Radio, Grafica. Run a barcode scanner over each to see the work. The image at left is from the shampoo spoof, where a woman with lustrous hair swings it in the direction of a lightswitch and flips it off. And here's the online video they're pushing: "The light pong masters," inspired in part by stuff like "Guy catches glasses with face" for Ray Ban. Expect some heavily edited, totally improbable ping pong action. Yeah, baby, yeah.
To make a point about how women make less money than men in the work force, Miljopartiet de grona -- the green party in Sweden -- ran a print ad that compares currency featuring men to lower-value currency featuring women. The tagline: "Different gender, different worth."
Commercial Archive observes the idea's been done before; moreover, income disparity is slightly more complicated than some male-chauvinist exec going "Hey, a girl, I'm gonna SAVE."
On a casual YouTube quest for gender-disparaging videos, I found this clip about penis power. Please watch it. It will make your whole day. (Yes yes, SFW, but plug your headphones in.)
Healthy Food Brands is reintroducing the Sweet 'N Low candy line. Chadwick Communications was selected to spread the word, so it created a print ad campaign that I guess makes the candy look low-fat yet saucy.
"Light my fire" is at left, and here's "Get off my cloud."
"Sweetened with isomalt and acesulfame potassium." LOL.
A couple years ago, we covered Glamour's Stiletto Run, a promotional event highlighting the launch of Dutch Glamour at which hundreds of women wearing heels ran a 75 meter sprint to win $10,000 Euros.
Last year the event was held in Amsterdam. We missed it but this year, just this week, it was held in Moscow and while a member of our vast Adrants reporting staff wasn't in attendance to capture the event first hand, thanks to Flickr, we can share all the glamorous, high heeled hotness with you today.
more »
|
@adrants
@stevehall
|
