Esteemed President & Creative Director of Advance.net Jeff Jarvis took a look at several of the items here on Adrants over the past few days and, while acknowledging the closely intertwined relationship between advertising and sex, pointed out the obsessive fixation Adrants has with sex. Jeff wrote:
Steve Hall's wonderful Adrants is supposed to be about advertising. But, like advertising itself, it's really about sex: National Orgasm Week, hot-chick hitchhikers in wet t-shirts, Victoria Secret's college hottie-wear, TV cameraman hires hooker in TV van, Molson's pick-up-chick advice, hot marketing director poses in Playboy to get free ink, Christina Aguilera makes shoes hot. Excuse me while I go take a cold shower.
Working in advertising and publishing a weblog about advertising - what could be better?
The U.K.'s got a few things up on us Americans. One happens to be its National Orgasm Week sponsored by sex toy and clothier Ann Summers. This viral video gets the message out that men simply need to end their defiance when it comes to asking for directions. Guys, take the ladies advice. It will benefit you in the end.
Oh, and on the topic of orgams, check this site out. It's a collection of real people, tastefully recorded, pleasuring themselves.
In a Belgien Happy Days ad, two women vie for a hitchhikers attention. One is a wholesome looking girl-next-door with big boobs in a tight t-shirt. The other is a stunning beauty in a red hot dress and high heels. After a little competitive posing, a car driven by a hot guy comes down the road and goes straight for the hot chick in the red dress. Until, that is, the driver realizes what the splash from the puddle he drove through did to the girl-next-door's tight t-shirt.
Can you imagine a transit bus-side making its way to an actual bus with a grammatical error as obvious as the one is this picture? As the Banterist points out and as all of us in the ad industry know, we have some of the most arcane approval processes known to man and to think something like this could slip through is unconscionable. Wait. Who's kidding who, here? We're talking about ad agencies and clients. Not English teachers who actually understand the language.
Like lemmings plodding along to their death, advertisers have glommed onto the successful reality television trend by copying the idea and using it in their advertising strategy. Levis is doing it by soliciting "real people" to appear in their ads. Yahoo did it by crafting a campaign surrounding the selection of the best IM conversation with the losers getting voted of Survivor-style. And the New York Department of Health and the American Legacy Foundation did it in a campaign that followed a guy around as he tried to quit smoking.
Not that this trend is all that new but if done well, it is refreshingly different and a more honest, perhaps, approach to reach consumers who are intensely marketing savvy. It still boils down to a simple reality though, In advertising that uses "real people" or is created by "real people," they're still getting paid to say what they say in the ad. Is there such a thing as un-biased reality advertising? Is it more honest than "regular advertising? What are your thoughts?
 The Drool Squad Team The retailer who's underlying goal is to give women the power to turn men into drooling idiots is about to unleash itself on the demo most likely to do just that - the 18 to 22 year old guy. While officially, the target audience is women 18-22, there's no secret to what's going on here. Victoria's Secret is unleashing its final sortie in the war to gain complete control over men. Promoting a line sleepwear and loungewear (what the hell is that?), the lingerie retailer plans to conquer the earth with model Alessandra Ambrosio leading a pack, called "Team Pink" (no sex jokes, please) of barely dressed college girls charged with becoming spokeswomen in their college dorms. Surely that will be the downfall of higher education. as men storm women's dorms in search of the latest lingerie fashion tips.
To kick it all off, Ambrosio and "Team Pink" made an entrance with some Hummers (no, not that kind. The automotive kind) at the flagship Manhattan location dressed in thongs, panties, t-shirts and bras. The line is designed to be more comfortable and less constrictive so girls can be comfortable in class while they distract the guys as part of Victoria's Secret's grand plan to turn men into lingerie-induced, catatonic zombies leaving them behind as the girls slide into all of high society's power positions.
And we wonder why the East is smarter than the West. See the hotties here.
Public Relations specialist B.L. Ochman has written a summary of ten companies who could have benefited from the use of a weblog. From that LEGO Spiderman video to a line of footwear Tiva made for an elephant to the launch of Newman's Own Organic Dog Food, Ochman contends all of these companies could have achieved greater return on their efforts had they investigated weblogs.
In the category of any publicity is good publicity, Atlanta's CBS 46 can thank station camera man Edward Stephens for its latest appearance in the press. Stephens, in need of the usual male related "release," tracked down a 19 year old street walker hoping to get a little help with his much needed "release." Apparently, as is the case with many men is cases where the need for "release" arises, Stephens forgot he was driving the station's logo-emblazoned news truck while hunting for and picking up the key to his "release."
Unfortunately, Stephens did not get any "release" as he was spotted by police and was arrested for reckless driving and solicitation for an illicit sexual act.
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Suntory, makers of an 18-year-old single malt scotch, has hired the New York office of Dentsu Communications to handle it's American launch. Dentsu organized a media launch party on July 15 at the Rainbow room in NYC's Rockefeller Center. The liquor was made famous in the movie "Lost in Translation" in which Bill Murray played spokesman for the brand.
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