Jennifer Love Hewitt Struggles to Find Bra That Fits For Hanes

hanesbra.jpg

If you're a fan of Jennifer Love Hewitt and watch her CBS Ghost Whisperer show on Friday night, you know she loves to wear some of the oddest fashion as well as tease us with her cleavage. In fact, she's always loved the attention paid to her chest and has said, "My breasts have a career of their own. I just accept them as a great accessory to every outfit."

Her breasts are now a featured accessory for Hanes' new Hanes All-Over Comfort Bra with Comfort Straps, a product women of her shape can appreciate. Hewitt has appeared in Hanes campaigns before and been featured in our own spoof story but this one, created by Martin Agency, is, as the press release states, "targeted at women who have specified a need for a bra that offers no-slip straps and no pinching or sliding."

more »

by Steve Hall    Feb-27-07    
Topic: Campaigns, Celebrity, Magazine, Television



Poker Gets Serious. Loses Sex, Bootie, Streakers, Cows, Lingerie

full_tilt_poker.jpg

Here's a refreshingly new approach to online poker advertising. Rather than strangely dressed booth babes, sex-laced silliness, strippers with surprise endings, politically stylized bootie, potentially removed fingers, branded streakers (1, 2), lingerie-clad pillow fighters and painted cows, we have serious poker players actually playing serious poker. Who knew? Full Tilt Poker knows and, in a new campaign created by WongDoody, it leaves all the silliness behind.

Rather than treat poker as some sort of game for retards (can't wait to see who emails me on that slur), the campaign elevates the game to what it is: a game of strategy, intelligence, intensity and skill. The eight television spots in the campaign were directed by filmmaker Errol Morris who helmed The Thin Blue Line and Fog of War. A supporting print campaign accompanies the television effort.

by Steve Hall    Feb-26-07    
Topic: Campaigns, Commercials, Good, Magazine, Television



Perfect Orgasm Not Allowed in Seattle

perfect_orgasm_victoria.jpg

Pity the poor female who, according to the Seattle Times, isn't allowed to pursue the perfect orgasm recently offered by British Columbia's Victoria in its tourism campaign. The city recently submitted an ad with the headline, "Your Search for the Perfect Orgasm is Over," to the Seattle Times' Northwest Life Sunday magazine but the ad was deemed too racy. Ultimately the ad did run but with the much blander headline, "Your lust for fine fare can now be satisfied." The ad is part of a Trapeze Communications-created campaign which created the campaign's theme, "Victoria, B.C, Full of Life."

Come on America! You know need all the relaxation we can get. Let Canada offer up it's fun for all of us to experience.

by Steve Hall    Feb-23-07    
Topic: Magazine, Newspaper, Policy, Racy



Reporters without Borders Poses Press Freedom Question

maldives_reporterssansfrontieres.jpg

Why visit the Maldives? For the lack of air conditioning, professional torture methods and occasional loaf of stale bread, of course. Offer for journalists only.

In its ongoing mission to drive home the importance of press freedom, Reporters without Borders runs this sad set of PSAs that invite watchdogs, travel agency-style, to exotic locales for a taste of the hard knocks. We particularly like Cuba.

The no-freedom-without-press-freedom line has probably been repeated from the birth of unregulated reporting (read: gossip) but takes on a new meaning these days. While the country pores over Britney's latest attempt at relevance and Googles news coverage on Anna Nicole postmortem, we haven't any idea what zany hijinks Bush is cooking up on the regular.

Is this a symptom or a forfeiture of genuine press freedom? Before answering that question, maybe we should work out what exactly it is the press does. There's enough news coverage now to spark any interest, so is it just a matter of mainstream priority what appears on legit news sources?

Does the public indeed determine media coverage, or is the media managed by bourgie-ass interest groups and corporations? What does it actually mean to have press freedom, anyway?

by Angela Natividad    Feb-21-07    
Topic: Campaigns, Magazine, Poster, Social



Sheikh Mourns End of Oil Heyday in Tale as Old as Time

toyota_prius_crying_sheik.jpg

It's no secret that the US's slow divorce from oil dependence is a transition frowned upon by some. But to joke about it? Publicly? Quel faux-pas.

That's why we dig Toyota Prius' ballsiness. This ad, put together by Saatchi & Saatchi in Poland, throws an ice breaker into the discourse. It doesn't make the Prius any prettier, but it certainly makes the brand more appealing.

Something about the sheikh's despondent expression brings to mind those sad westerns in which ways of life get torn asunder, and natives cruelly displaced, by the new guys in town. Oh sheikh, don't mourn too long for the past. We'd pat your shoulder, but we probably wouldn't recognize you through the tinted windows of the gold-encrusted Hummer.

by Angela Natividad    Feb-20-07    
Topic: Brands, Good, Magazine



Dolce & Gabbana Ad: Cartoonish Edginess or Gang Rape?

dg_girl_down.jpg

What, exactly, is going on in this Dolce & Gabbana ad and does it really matter? Don't fashion labels get a pass when it comes to raciness and imagery that connotes culturally questionable activities? According to National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy who told BrandWeek, "It's a provocative ad but it is provoking things that really are not what we want to have provoked. We don't need any more violence," the answer is no. Her organization plans to protest the ad and has added to a section of its website that highlights ads it feels are offensive.

One could argue the ad certainly paints a questionable picture and perpetuates an activity that certainly does not need perpetuating. Others might argue the ad, and many other fashion ads, is so over-the-top cartoonish in its desire to be "edgy," that it's a harmless toss off passed over as one glosses through the fake world of fashion magazines. What do you think?

by Steve Hall    Feb-20-07    
Topic: Campaigns, Magazine, Racy, Trends and Culture



Greenpeace Asks Who's Boning Mom on Earth Day

greenpeace_motherfuckers.jpg

We pride ourselves on our unsurpassed potty-mouthage, so we feel a little outdone by this new Earth Day campaign that's kind of sponsored by Greenpeace.

The naughty prints are only "kind of" sponsored by Greenpeace because Exit3a copywriter Tom Mullen admits to AdCritic they haven't told the organization about the print series yet. "It's probably not legal, but there's too much paperwork, meetings and phone calls involved to get the campaign approved in time for Earth Day," he explains. "I figure Greenpeace is too busy getting sued by conglomerates to bother suing a few people who are trying to promote the cause. They can always officially deny the vulgarity."

If fortune favours the brave, perhaps that grace extends to those disinclined to ask permission for slapping mom-fucking ads out into the open and signing it Greenpeace.

We call this the conjure-bonds-by-insulting-the-source technique. This strategy occurs on the playground all the time, except it's done in crayon and usually ends in tears or angry phone calls. We have a feeling Greenpeace will be getting a few of the latter.

by Angela Natividad    Feb-19-07    
Topic: Agencies, Brands, Magazine, Social



Burt Reynolds Gets Naked Again! Send Him A Body Groomer!

burt_reynolds_directv.jpg

Back in the dark ages of the seventies when women thought men with tons of body hair were sexy, the very hairy Burt Reynolds graced the pages of Cosmopolitan with his famed centerfold pose. If only Philips' Shave Everywhere could have been on the scene. My how times and styles have changed. Today, men and women can't seem to get enough hair off their bodies. In the seventies, hair ruled.

Acknowledging hair length and style never stops changing, perhaps DIRECTV thinks it's ahead of the curve here and we should expect some sort of Shave Everywhere backlash with chest and pubic hair making a rampant return after having been tamed for so long. Or, perhaps, as the "Everything should be seen in DERECTV HD. Well not everything" headline indicates, the satellite company just wants to grossly counteract the usual satisfaction one feels when paging through the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in which this Burt Reynolds ad appears.

This hairy seventies freak show comes to us courtesy of Deutsch LA.

by Steve Hall    Feb-16-07    
Topic: Bad, Celebrity, Good, Magazine, Racy



Bye Says Hands Make Good Headgear

bye_helmets.jpg

Bye Helmets is running a print series under the tagline "Change your head." After staring for a very long time, we shook off the impending agoraphobia and concluded they're trying to say their helmets lend the same kind of protection you perceive you're getting when you reflexively throw your hands around your head before an impact.

Later in life a pessimistic teacher told us that strategy doesn't actually work when there's shit falling on you, so the best thing to do is crawl under a doorway or desk. But maybe lots of hands offset the risk. It would be hard to wrap doorways or desks around our heads.

Work by 1861 United, Milan. Clearly the Milanese are more playful with bodies than we are.

by Angela Natividad    Feb-16-07    
Topic: Magazine, Poster



Yoga Ads Put Users in Knots

position2_25.jpg

It's unsettling to watch people do unnatural things with their bodies, which we suspect is why The Exorcist became a horror classic.

This print campaign for Ashtanga Yoga Center uses a similar technique, turning the idea of supple flesh into something more ... elastic.

Leagas Delaney of Milan put this one together. We think it's an effective if bizarre way of demonstrating how yoga brings a willing body to an unwound, even disconnected state. Still, if we wanted our feet and hands to fall in all the wrong places, we'd play Twister. It may not bring us to om but nobody ever outgrows the odd fondle.

by Angela Natividad    Feb-16-07    
Topic: Good, Magazine, Poster