Copyranter wants to make sure we appreciate the "pure stupidity" of local car dealership advertising by highlighting this print campaign from Massachusetts car dealer Ernie "Come on Down" Boch. in which Boch mimics the famous Coppertone bare butt kid ad. Yes, having worked on a few car dealer accounts, we can attest the segment is rife with stupidity, fat egos and illogical thinking. However, car dealers, more than any other, care only about what sells. If your campaign doesn't do it for them, you're out on your ass faster than a car salesmen can say, "What can I do to make this deal happen today?" We're not sure this Coppertone ad will sell much so we're going to file it under the ego ad category. And, in the auto dealership business, there's no shortage of those.
Some might consider it a good thing to create a company whose business model aims to help advertisers reach a young, impressionable audience early in life. Others might consider the business model of BusRadio, a company that helps advertisers reach young, impressionable minds early by installing a specialized, ad-supported radio system on school buses, to be a horrific abuse of marketing prowess and an indication of an industry gone wild making its last ditch effort to survive while the advertising world crumbles around it. Commercial Alert, and Adrants for that matter, believe firmly in the latter.
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Copyranter thinks this ad for Heads and Shoulders Dandruff shampoo which uses some sort of scalp-based play book diagram with references to starting at the line of scrimmage when the goal is healthy hair is a perfect example of an ad that tires way too f'ing hard. We'd agree.
OK. We like Deep Focus and we like HBO. We especially like HBO's Entourage so when we were sent a link to a promotional site at which you can get get an interview with Ari Gold for a position in his new agency, we had high hopes for the site. Let's put it this way. Can we, as an industry, right now, right this very second, put a lid on any project even remotely similar to Burger King's Subservient Chicken? And, for the love of GOD, can we please stop trying to latch onto something that was over the day after Crispin Poprter + Bogusky launched that site?
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When the latest Netflix envelope arrived in the mailbox, it contained an ad on the inside sleeve promoting some sort of concert broadcast honoring Kiss, Queen, Def Leppard and Judas Priest. We saw that the broadcast was set to air Wednesday, May 31 at 9PM. Maybe we're just dumb, but we had to stare at the ad for several minutes before we figured out the broadcast was occurring on VH1. The logo was tiny and buried in a way that was very hard to see.
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One really has to wonder what goes through the mind of a designer sometimes as indicated by some recent Tyson packaging. Brenner Thomas points out this bit of odd packaging from the food giant for its Sunset Strips chicken strips on which an image of a chicken appears to be eating itself...well...a chicken strip, that is. One might argue it looks like a french fry but we doubt it. Apparently, cannabalism is alive and well in the chicken business.
FishNChimps has detailed the story of how Nike, apparently, stole the logo from Hackney, a poor London borough for use on its World Cup line of sportswear. Hackney, whose logo has been in place for 40 years has asked Nike to share the profits of the line with the borough to fund its schools. Hopefully, this doesn't turn out to be yet another piece of stunt marketing.
In a move that could be described as both the display of good corporate behavior as well as a cheesy effort to leverage natural disaster for corporate gain, MasterCard is lending its "Priceless" campaign to the state of Florida for use in a combined campaign to persuade Floridians to make sure they're ready for hurricane season. On the good corporate behavior side of the story, MasterCard will donate the cost of a print ad campaign in four Florida markets to deliver the hurricane preparedness message. On the not so good corporate citizen side of the story are the lobbying efforts MasterCard may have implemented to get Florida Governor Jeb Bush to sign into legislation a bill creating a tax holiday from May 21 to June 1 on all purchases. Hmm. Lower taxes. Higher purchases. More charge card usage. More money for MasterCard.
Anytime the subject of woman and orgasms arises, everyone jumps on the topic and goes nuts. Everyone's writing about a company called Surprise Parties which hosts parties for women to sell sexual aids and discuss means to rekindle their romance. Recently, Carr Knowledge, an agency with offices in Nashville placed a large billboard buy for Surprise Parties that contained the company's new headline, "Stop Faking It." Nashville outdoor companies CBS and Lamar have refused to accept the buy. The 41 other states Car Knowledge placed boards had no issue with the ad which features company's seven senior managers dressed in pink under the headline. The only skin showing on the board are hands and faces.
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So am I supposed to buy this deodorant because there's hot roller girls in the ad or am I supposed to show this ad to a woman who finds green underwear and fish net stockings appealing so she can buy it? Please. Help me out here. Who is Right Guard selling to here? What's the message? If you're gonna pull the hotties out of the closet for your ad campaign, at least be clear on who's supposed to get excited about them.
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