AdFreak has encapsulated the hilarious exchange between a man who owns a spa and a woman who dislike the billboard he's using to promote the spa. It's like a Battle of the Sexes Bitch Fight and all because the board happens to shows the image of a good looking woman to illustrate what the spa can do your your body. Taking no shit and refusing to remove the board, the spa owners delivers the final blow, saying, "My next billboard is going to be of a 300-pound woman and it will say, 'Could you help me please?' Then everyone would be after me saying, 'My son is traumatized because you showed me a fat woman.'"
We like to look at beautiful people because we want to be beautiful. It's motivational. We like to look at fat and ugly people because it makes us feel better not being as fat or as ugly. What good would a board showing a average, every day person accomplish? Exactly. Absolutely nothing. And marketers don't like what nothing gets them. Extremes work. Average doesn't.
Though it's hard to believe, people, apparently, still use the yellow pages. Or at least yellow pages publishers would certainly like people to.Or maybe it's just an Israeli thing. Young & Rubicam Israel sends us these outdoor boards which continue the endless creative twists that yellow pages categories offer for fodder. From circumcision to couples therapy, this campaign still finds humor in a decidedly boring category. See all the boards here and a TV spot here.
We're really impressed by the gravity of this outdoor piece, part of the War Orphans campaign developed by Kolle Rebbe, Hamburg for Misereor, a German Catholic charity.
According to AdCritic the campaign won a Black Pencil in the Illustration: Press Advertising category at the 2007 D&AD Global Awards. Only two Black Pencils can be won per year, and it's rare that an Illustration entry makes the cut.
D&AD President Tony Davidson explained that "the simple idea behind [...] 'War Orphans' made the jury's decision easy. Naive family wall paintings they may be, but seeing where shells of bullets have shattered the images is a great and easily understood metaphor."
Laments about typography aside, a low-key but powerful image like this one can both transcend and sober most tongues.
Way to be a buzzkill, guys. Just kidding.
Oh, how exciting. DraftFCB, Toronto has solved the energy crisis, having harnessed the power of sunlight to fuel this billboard. (We always knew agencies could do more than push product.)
Developed for the World Wildlife Fund, its water levels rise when the sun hits it. Text reads, "Ocean levels are rising faster than ever."
Every once in a while you pass by an ad, do a double take and let out a WTF!?!? This is one such ad. Of course, we didn't physically pass by it. Rather, it flashed before our eyes during our daily trolling of Flickr for advertising-related goodness. And this is some goodness. Or weirdness. Of the aforementioned WTFness.
Anyway, we've got jeans. We've got high heels, We've got a green shirt. And we've got a woman with her head stuck in the ground or inside some recessed box of some sort. If we could actually read what language in which the board was written, would could share more but, alas, we'll have to depend on our worldwide readership to help us out here.
Catch Up Lady has a descriptive overview of an ongoing viral campaign for the the upcoming Warner Brothers movie Batman: The Dark Knight. The promotion began cryptically with a site that showed nothing but the Batman logo but then progressed to several other sites that encouraged visitor involvement to reveal the identity of the actor who would play the Joker, Heath Ledger. No less than four sites told the story in a very clear and intriguing manner. get the whole story here.
Is it bitchy to say we think this is kind of funny?
Sorry, it's the whole parochial "Think on this!" vibe this ad for Actionaid India gives off.
We hate to be callous, but when we've finished observing the plight of those less fortunate, what next? Like this other homeless awareness ad, there is no apparent call-to-action to guide us down the right path once we're in the proper emotional state.
Would it be at all possible for some group to start proliferating ads that include calls-to-action for the homeless themselves? Here's a shelter. Here's a number for aid. Here's where you can get food. Here's job training.
You can't always put the burden on one side of the fence. Improving the lot of the common man is a reciprocal process that involves the common man moving his own ass, too.
- The City Desk examines the 60 year history of the Richman Spectacles rich Man iconic neon sign that sits atop the Deputy Tyrone Campbell Building on Pearl Street. The area was once called Squint Alley due to the overwhelming brilliance and quantity of neon signs that once graced the area.
- Virgin Atlantic Airways has put its account in review. Crispin Porter + Bogusky has had the account since 2003 and will not defend.
Catch Seinfeld promoting Bee Movie by jumping off an eight story building in Cannes.
- Oddcast is having fun with its Baby Mail.
- Cynopsis reports, "The CW is planning on not selling traditional commercials in the new trend-watching series CW Now on Sunday nights. Instead, the network will integrate marketers into the show as sponsors for specific segments such as fashion, beauty or music. This fall, The CW will also sell five-second spots called "cwickies" to advertisers, in particular movie studios, three times throughout a show or during the course of a night, followed by a longer-form commercial, like a trailer. "
- Apparently, new research suggest young adults read more magazines, not less.
- Check out the Creativity Award winners.
Let's not revisit that heated gun control debate we stirred up a short time ago but rather appreciate a new 172 john st-created Canadian gun control pro-bono campaign for its stark simplicity and directness of message. Reacting to an increase in gun violence, the online initiative, Stop the Guns, has launched this poster campaign which portrays people with gun range targets on them and the headline, "Gun Crime Affects Us All."
Speaking of bad context, AdFreak observes an awkward instance for wood: at a theme park.
If you've seen Shrek, you know it's possible to incorporate raunchy grown-up giggles into apparently tame kid-fare without looking like a total asshat.
Six Flags Great Adventure in Jersey has yet to learn this subtle art, considering they erected a gigantor billboard for their big wooden El Toro ride upon which is writ "It's good to have wood" - right over the head of the perennially cheerful Bugs Bunny.
While they were at it, they might as well have gone all the way and made a cock-shaped roller coaster in the style of the French. Then El Toro would have been aptly named.
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