I like My Fur Covered Kitty
Animal rights watchdog People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has launched a new salvo of anti-fur ads. This time, the group is using cover model Fernanda Tavares as its spokesmodels for the effort. You can view a behind the scenes, making of the commercial here and listen to Tavares bubble on in typical supermodel-speak about how she loves cats and dogs. Apparently, Tavares does not realize they don't make fur clothing out of dogs and cats.
PETA can always be counted on for humorous extremism although nothing will beat an early effort showing a fur-clad model spewing blood off her fur coat and onto audience members as she twirled her way down the cat walk.
I'd Rather Drink Your Curves, Baby
In this week's Ad Age TV Spots of the Week, Coke pays homage to the Latino cultural oddity of comparing a woman's figure to a Coke bottle as a compliment. In the spot, a beautifully curvaceous woman steps off the bus in front of some dudes hanging out of the stoop. As she steps off, all the guys stare, jaws dropped, while one holds a Coke bottle up to her figure matching her curves as she walks across the street. After she crosses and walks up the steps to what is presumably her Mom's house, Mom steps out and scowls at the dudes. Paying appropriate comment, another guy holds up a large liter bottle of Coke that appropriately mirrors Mom's un-curvaceous figure.
Also this week are spots from the Ad Council for the Center on Addiction and Substance making fun of President Bush's mom, an SBC spot showing how fun it is to work for a phone company, a Blue Cross Blue Shield spot using the power of garlic to get coverage, Hong Kong Tourism begs travels to return following SARS, Jack on the Box enlists RuPaul to promote a new sandwich, Russian soldiers salute Corona, and a cutie sells hamburgers for Burger King.
The Schick and FHM Shave and Play
Schick has entered a content deal with FHM magazine whereby the magazine will provide content to the razor manufacturer to help promote its new Quattro four bladed razor. Interactive firm Interevo along with J. Walter Thompsom put a deal together that calls for FHM to provide Schick with content for its Quattro website. Content will include gaming, entertainment, fashion and grooming information.
Acknowledging that no one is going to go to a web site that just includes specifications on an item as mundane as a razor, Schick ad agency JWT put requests for content partnership proposals out to magazines targeting men 18-34. In a bidding war, FHM came out on top. Curiously, Razor Magazine would seem to have been a shoe in for this one. Perhaps the association was one too many blades close for comfort.
The New York Times' Stuart Elliot comments on Subway's new ad campaign which broke last night on the Emmy Awards. The campaign continues with weight loss champion and Subway spokesperson, Jared Fogle along with a bunch of other characters telling consumers it's OK to be bad as long as you are good and eat at Subway.
Creativity That Fills The Corporate Void
If you look towards the top right side of this web site you will see an intriguing looking cartoon. These are "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards" by Hugh MacLeod, a New York City copywriter who has been in advertising business since 1989.
The Guardian's Jonathan Glancy calls MacLeod's work, "as dark and disturbing as a dry martini served with a razor-blade twist, as brilliant as a fluorescent-lit city morgue at two in the morning."
On Hugh's website, Gapingvoid.com, you can check out more of his witty creations as well as check out his copywriting work. He's so good you just might want to hire him.
The Return of Kitty
Garnering mixed reaction, Roxio's Napster is trying its hand at street cred advertising in a new poster campaign that places Napster kitty stickers over the faces shown on faux posters. The sticker includes the statement, "It's coming back," and they have been manually glued over posters depicting fake ad campaigns such as Gour-Mutt, a dog food company and Drop 'n' Go, a child day-care center.
While cool people debate whether this attempt at cool is cool or just a pretense at cool, the stickers are being ripped down because, well, the campaign seems to have caught people's attention. In the article, Nissan's Electric Moyo and MSN's butterfly sticker campaign are put forth as comparative methods used by corporate America to leveraged the cool factor to promote products.
The debate is moot. Cool is never cool once its deemed cool but capitalizing on cool is still possible if done appropriately. Whether or not is resonates with the intended audience is mostly a hit or miss proposition.
