The Hardee's Flat Buns commercial has caused an uproar in Tennessee with Tennessee Education Association President Dr. Earl Wiman (who you've got to hear) saying, "It is unbelievably demeaning." The ad shows a female teacher dancing seductively in front of a class that raps about the positivity of flat buns which the teacher, of course, does not possess. The commercial is part of a campaign launched earlier this summer which included the Flat Buns website.
Wiman wants concerned citizens to complain to Hardee's, saying, "I am asking that all of our members and the public who care about children and their education to contact their local Hardee's to voice their concerns."
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- Calling AMC's Mad Men, Dr. Ernst Dichter's The Hidden Persuaders and current motivational research "mostly bullshit," George Parker manages to get himself into Advertising Age and promote his new book, The Ubiquitous Persuaders which, if his past book, MadScam, is any indication, won't be bullshit at all.
- Magazines and newspapers aren't doing anything wrong. It's just that the ads inside them all suck.
- Hyundai's new campaign leaves behind the brand name hoping to leave behind associated cheapness.
- Has anyone else noticed how "bloggy" Advertising Age is getting and how it's now OK to "print" words like fuck and bullshit? We just thought we'd wonder publicly a bit about that.
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What makes a website or an ad campaign EGGciting? Don't come here to find out. The music will appall you, the animation and imagery will bring you feverish memories of your attempts to build a site on GeoCities and AngelFire, and even the font makes us angry for some odd reason.
Shortly after asking in a manner most slow what makes a site or campaign EGGciting, a little mouth appears and screams in our faces to demonstrate, we don't know, the element of surprise. Thankfully we were already distracted by then so the full effect was lost on us.
Rob, whoever you are, leave the gurus to Axe and Tanqueray.
Virgin America has launched a campaign with a self-deprecating look and feel, slightly a la Perrier. By poking fun of its own neurotic clientele and unique flight experience (the vibrating chairs, the plugs, the as-you-order food), Virgin demonstrates it can laugh at itself while laughing ever-more-loudly at the competition, which just doesn't promote in the cool-as-shit way it does.
The animation used in the campaign was popularized by jaded kids floating shorts from Sick Animation or episodes of Adventure Time, which use the medium that first taught us about society to bitchslap it across the face.
Our favorite spot is "Plugs." The campaign was created by Anomaly, our new heroes for the next 10 minutes.
To draw more impressionable minds to its bonfire, Temple University launched T Means More, a campaign that turns the "Temple T" into a symbol of character, integrity, commitment, etc.
We are bored by this campaign and think that Temple gratuitously abuses the color red. Might be a good idea to just mail all potential students a copy of this book.
There's one sure thing that can be said about Britney Spears' performance at last night's MTV Video Music Awards. She delivered exactly what everyone expected; a horrifically embarrassing performance that had to have Kevin Federline rolling on the floor laughing uncontrollably. Practically tripping over herself throughout the limp, lifeless, lip-synced performance, Spears began the performance looking as if she'd just stumbled out of a bar drunk searching for something to hold on to so she wouldn't fall over.
From there, it didn't get any better. Several years ago - before Federline, before kids, before physical and emotional meltdown - Spears would have been all over that stage exploding with high energy dance moves. But at least twice last night, she had to be hoisted up and down from a riser like an overweight kid trying to climb out of a swimming pool.
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Steve Portigal from Portigal Consulting notes this ad for UK health club Cannons with the headline, "Because a new girl has started at work and she's hot," wouldn't play so well in America or Canada because we're a bit more politically correct than our forefather nation. While the ad is harmless enough, we agree. No doubt, an army of cause groups would be all over this one as soon as it hit the streets.
Have you ever felt your baby was just not bulletproof enough? (If you are 50 Cent's mother, probably - or not, depending on how you look at it).
Visit Bulletproof Baby for bulletproof cribs, strollers, vests, toddler tasers and disturbing product-test videos, all meant to ensure that you, the discerning customer, have a happy bundle of steel.
Actually it's a stunt for New Line Cinema's Shoot 'Em Up, which is linked pretty prominently on the homepage. Even so, a PR person still saw fit to shoot us at least three emails this morning about how it was dramatically unveiled as a promotional effort after a long and controversial internet run. (We have serious doubts about this.)
And while we have no idea what that movie has to do with babies, we know it has plenty to do with bullets. And Clive Owen.
Tampon maker O.B. has left all the crap about comfort and simplicity behind and zeroed on the product's main benefit: it absorbs a shitload of liquid. Enough said. I mean really. What else can be said about this ad? It's truly brilliant. Maybe a bit gross but brilliant none the less. That is, of course, if it is, in fact, a real ad.
We're a little confused about this new game, dubbed Hunger Strike, for KFC. At first we thought it was like Pac-Man, but there don't appear to be any enemies to either run from or eat. Then we thought maybe it might be more esoteric, like this game, but no; the graphics don't really do anything, and the music is frozen in a hellish loop.
We just know we keep losing, and we don't understand why, so now we feel resentful toward chicken.
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