Last week New York City unveiled its first automatic pay toilet. For $0.25 and at a limit of 15 minutes per use, you could hit a streetside loo that automatically self-cleans.
The effort to promote the APTs (as they're so trendily called) was called First Flush. The automatic public toilets were unveiled last Thursday.
"City big-wigs," as WCBS TV calls 'em, say this is "a truly historic occasion."
Bravo for progress, especially when it's in the ass-wiping arena.
To introduce Sony's ultra light VAIO TZ, Los Angeles-based agency Ignited has taken the light-as-paper metaphor to heart with new print, outdoor and TV work, part of the brand's ongoing "Like No Other" campaign. While we're not sure we'd be fond of our laptop suddenly fluttering off in the wind or getting snagged and carried off by a flock of doves, we do think the metaphor is beautifully crafted. Besides, we still have faint memories of high school physics and realize that, even at 2.5 pounds, the TZ isn't likely to stay aloft for too long.
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Yup. we're ready for it. Ready for everyone to tell us we're reading way, way too much into this Target billboard that places a certain area of a woman's body highly targeted by men right in the middle of its signature target logo. But you can't tell us not a single soul at Target or its agency looked at this and didn't see a certain interpretation that could be construed as objectifying to women. There's just no way.
Would it have been that hard to place the image of the woman so her upper body was in the middle of the target rather than her...um...crotch? Seriously. Perhaps the initial concept had her playfully face down in a pile of snow emblazoned with her ass in the middle of the Target logo but someone at Target said, "We don't do doggy style at our organization. Flip her over please."
In yet another example of what constitutes acceptable advertising in countries outside the United States, we have this billboard in Denmark with a decidedly blunt message. Promoting the alcoholic energy drink Cult Shaker, the events the company hosts and its "Cult Girls," the board asks us to "fornicate" the naked girl shown on the billboard because she is famous.
Hopefully, nobody takes board's message too seriously and starts humping it like a frustrated boy at a high school prom who, for the whole night, has been maddeningly titillated by his date's protuberant prom dress cleavage and, as a result, is nearing both an embolism caused by his throbbing heart rate and the onset of another imminently explosive, uncontrollable bodily event.
Whoa. Where did that come from? Well, hey, the board is pretty blunt so why not some blunt editorial to accompany it?
Before Flickr, we'd actually have to get off our asses and travel the globe in search of interesting advertising. No longer. Now we can just sit on our ass and scroll through hundreds of ad-related images provided by budding photographers who love advertising. Here we have an ad for breast implants which Flickr user poecile05 thought was oddly placed.
He writes, "A billboard seen in the middle of nowhere between Morongo Valley and 29 Palms. I stopped the car, scratched my head, and snapped a photo. We finally decided the target demographic must be soldiers on their way to and from the many military installations in the desert?"
Yes, indeed. After defending your country, don't expect a parade but do be ready to open up your wallet and get your lady a nice set of 34DDD's. Whacked.
On the streets of East London, plastic heads are rolling. Blame the Decapitator, who is mutating ads for his/her own statement-making ends.
That image at left? It once was a cavity-sweet spot for High School Musical 2. And we can't even talk about what happened to that little bee from Bee Movie.
Headless bloody variants of smiling ad protagonists are applied to public posters with wheat paste, wethinks. Wired compares the work to that of New York's Splasher, who was eventually suspected of working under contract for American Apparel.
There's something romantic about street appropriations of ad messages. But marketer-on-marketer violence? That's just bitchy.
It's cool that snakes can stretch to accommodate their prey, but it's not really something we like to think about after seeing this image.
Florida is a truly fucked-up place.
Anyway, ABSOLUT VODKA is promoting its PEARS variation on 10,000 TouchTunes music systems from December 20th to January 4th. The creative will be comprised of alternating billboards: The one at left, and this one.
We want it on record that if snakes didn't creep us out, and if we happened to own one, it wouldn't eat pears. It would eat spider monkeys.
OK. Ha, ha, fuckin' ha. Maybe Wonderbra is running out of ideas or maybe we're just bored (bored with breasts? is that even possible?) with their whole "we hold big boulders" approach to bra advertising. Did we just say that? Bored with bra ads? Damn. Excuse us for a minute while we go stare at our intern's 34G breasts...
OK, all better. We love bra advertising! bring us more! How about little placards placed in between the balloons you seen hanging on people's mail boxes when their kid has a birthday party or they're trying to clear some shit out of their basement? how about two giant hot air balloons floating aloft next to each other with a giant Wonderbra over the top of them?
How about a girl jumping up and down like a gorilla while playing the drums. Oh wait. Been there, done that. OK, here it is. How about an Asian chick playing tennis proving the power of the Wonderbra?
For World AIDS Day, Escala Comunicacao e Marketing unveiled a self-standing billboard with AIDS spelled in yellow condoms. The client was the Health Secretariat of Rio Grande, Brazil.
Something like 500 condoms were distributed. All told, this promotional collage says more than 8000 pedestrians "interacted" with the poster.
We always get a little sketched-out about the word "interact." If only 500 condoms were available, how did thousands interact with the billboard? Did they lean against it? Take pictures of it? Yell at kids or beat up cops in front of it? Sell their freely-acquired yellow condoms to peers?
The world may never know.
Update: A representative for Escala explained that the condoms were replaced everytime AIDS vanished from the board. That's kind of poetic.
Butternuts Beer & Ale has taken its farm-themed campaign to Times Square with two new pieces of creative which will appear through New Year's Eve on the CBS SuperScreen. You can view the creative here. Number nine and ten. It's amusing enough and appropriately crafted for outdoor style viewing.
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