 Junky Babes: Connor, Lena, Ana, Sara, and Maddy On a random day after school, Max got together with his sister and her friends and they came up with this spoof of the anti-drug "Truth" ad campaign.
When I asked Max what inspired him to create this spoof with his sister, Ana and her friends Taylor, Sara, Connor, Maddy, and Lena and whether he was trying to convey a particular message, he said it "was for fun. Not really to make a better message. The whole spoof ad campaign thing came about when my little sister and her friends stuffed their stomachs to look pregnant. From that, we made a spoof abstinence campaign."
It seems Max has started a spoof ad agency. With insightful headlines like, "When you do drugs, you get swept away like white trash" and "When you do drugs, you get beat up'" Max's Truth campaign humorously amplifies the seriousness of the real Truth campaign.
Even though he spoofed the campaign, Max does like the real Truth campaign. However, some others are not so good. "I really do like the truth ads. I think that they're much better than any other anti-drug campaign, actually, because they I guess are truthful. They're shocking. There are some anti-drug ads that I think are a bit stupid, for instance, ones that say 'tobacco is whacko if you're a teen,' because for one thing, it says 'wacko', which I think is just people trying to 'communicate' with kids by using childish lingo, and also, it says 'if you're a teen.' If it says 'if you're a teen,' it sort of implies that it's bad only for teens, but one reason that younger people do drugs in the first place is to act more grown up. I suppose I chose the 'truth' campaign's style for these particular spoofs because I thought that their design fit the look of the images."
One ad (pictured) asks, "Can you spot the junkie?" and has the "junkies" in a sort of Dating Game line up sitting on stools with boxes to check of which "contestant" is the actual junkie.
See all the ads here.
As a guy, do you really want the temptation alluded to with these urinals when you are simply trying to empty your bladder? Said temptation really isn't what you want going on during this particular activity. No matter, Virgin Atlantic has placed these urinals in their new clubhouse at JFK airport in New York.
Seemingly, it won't be long before all we are "allowed" to watch on TV is Sunday morning broadcasts of bible-thumping church services. The FCC has issued a $27,500 fine to Infinity Broadcasting and a $55,000 fine to Clear Channel. The Infinity Broadcasting fine is Howard Stern-related. For the full story on how Janet Jackson's boob baring incident has insanely catapulted this whole thing into a political hot potato, read Jeff Jarvis' blog. It's all there.
Donald Rumsfeld has been made to look pretty stupid in this ad by MoveOn asking for censure of President Bush. In the spot, Rumsfeld denies ever having said Iraq was an immediate threat only to have a citation read back to him saying almost exactly that. He then squirms, searches for words and looks buffoonish.
Granted, he may wish he had never said that but why can't politicians just admit what they have said, explain why they said it and move on. Trying to gloss over or cover these things up just makes politicians look like idiots. I don't know much about Kerry (other than having sat near him on a plane to NYC a couple years ago) but based on all the bad press Bush is getting combined with Howard Stern's bashing of him, Kerry looks like a lock come November. [via BushOut.tv]
We all know Japan is wildly into their sex. One Japanese ad exec got a bit carried away though and has been arrested for running ads for a Tokyo brothel on his Media Line agency web site. Koji Fujimura is said to have broken Japan's Anti-Prostitution law. Even if he is sent to jail, he'll have plenty of bail money and money to live on once he gets out having raked in over 100 million yen since last February.
Some say Eyewonder is late to the game with its recent introduction of six new video ad formats. This introduction follows related video offerings from MSN, Unicast, Macromedia and Viewpoint. Eyewonder CEO John Vincent says these new ad units are more flexible and load faster than other offerings. With "only" 30% of consumers saying in a recent study that online video ads are not annoying, expect this space to see a flurry of activity as companies and advertisers clamor for first-mover advantage.
Nielsen is having a bit of a tiff lately with ad agencies over its provision of television ratings. While the majority of ad agency execs want commercials rated, not the shows they air within, Nielsen claims they have already offered those ratings to agencies. Agencies have countered saying those ratings, 60-second unit measurements, do not adequately serve what's really needed, the measurement of actual commercial ratings. The way the 60-second unit ratings are taken do not align exactly with when commercials actually air. That is the sticky point agencies have with this offer from Nielsen.
This new method of commercial measurement, if it sees the light of day, could foster some radically different methods of television commercialization. If it's commercials that are measured and not the containing programs, all of the promotion that goes into hyping a television show to viewers in order to achieve high ratings could now go towards hyping commercials to viewers instead. Imagine NBC, faced with radically lower ratings because of ad-skippage, bathroom breaks, etc. The network would have to insure a high level of commercial viewership to maintain its ad rates. Conceivably, NBC would have to do whatever it could to make viewers watch commercials.
In theory, NBC would have to offer incentives to viewers to watch commercials. These incentives could be monetary in nature or come in other forms. Aside from possible Nielsen ratings that would "count" commercial viewership, embedded within the commercials (or before or after a commercial break) would be some sort of code or proof mechanism for the viewer to redeem. This would be necessary, not to prove viewership (although it could serve as a form of comparison to Nielsen ratings) because Nielsen would provide that proof with its new commercial ratings. It would be needed simply to get viewers to watch so high commercial ratings would be achieved for the network, then reported back by Nielsen, then used by networks as a basis from which to set rates for advertisers.
This could dramatically alter the definition of a commercial. While consumers might be swayed financially into watching a commercial, after a time, if commercials remain as boring as they currently are, no amount of money will get consumers to watch when they can so easily skip commercials. Commercials will have to take on elements of what I think is one of the better forms of promotion, the movie/TV trailer. Trailers, whether for good programming or bad, always seem to create the sense that you absolutely positively have to watch the movie/show being promoted. Does any current commercial today come close to that? Yes, promoting content is very different than promoting and ad but we're talking theory here.
That's just one idea. There could be many additional means to make commercials a "must watch" activity. A series of commercials could take on the form of a soap opera or serial drama where viewers would have to watch from day to day/week to week to either follow the story line or to receive other "incentives" for financial redemption. In this sense, commercials become a form of the programming.
In essence, this new economic model would compel networks to pay (or compel in some other very powerful way) viewers to watch commercials so that they can continue to sustain their current ad supported business model. Extrapolating this further, the current model is flipped on its head. Advertisers become producers and the programming becomes the commercial.
As Nickelodeon unveiled its new lineup during its upfront presentation yesterday, the kid focused network announced new shows developed to reach the tween demo. One new show, produced by Whoopi Goldberg, will focus on an all girls soccer team. A second will headline Jamie Spears, sister of clothing-challenged diva Britney Spears. A third, called "Unfabulous," will star Emma Roberts, cousin to Julia Roberts, and illustrate how music helps her get through life.
Dustin Hoffman has reprised his role from "The Graduate" to hawk the Audi A6 and a new ad. It's been banned from airing in the U.S. When will marketers, handler and stars themselves realize it is impossible to prevent the spread of these things. Of course, half the time it's planned that way. And becasue it's been promoted as "banned," the poor servers are working overtime at Ad Age to serve this thing to the whole world that isn't supposed to see it.
With an estimated half-million college students on Spring Break from mid-March through mid-April in Panama City, advertisers are taking note. Namely, the Army. The U.S. Army's Goodwill Ambassadors' elite parachute team, The Golden Knights, are making jumps down on the students as a recruitment effort.
I can envision the conversations. Army officer to drunk hot babe in tiny bikini: "Would you be interested in hearing about a career in the Army?" Hot babe responds: "Sure, after you show me your weapon and let me size it up."
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