It's not immediately clear what's going on in this spot for Microsoft's Zune, featuring Common and Afrika Bambaataa. In it, a girl puts Common's Universal Mind Control on the spin. She gives props for it, then Common and Afrika Bambaataa leap out of a cloud of images and start sparring over it.
At first the whole thing rang like a poorer rendition of HP's "Hands" campaign, which does a good job of connecting the essence of a celebrity to the machine he's using.
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Remember The Wolf, the cool operative summoned in Pulp Fiction to clean up the remains of a guy who had his brains blown out in a moving car?
UK-based cleanup firm Clearway riffs off that unseemly scenario with the ad at left -- "No job too big, no job too awful" -- depicting bloody furniture and a distinctly man-shaped stain. Among other things.
The ad was banned for obvious (read: "excessively graphic, offensive and distressing") reasons. Obtusely defensive, Clearway insists the piece is "an accurate portrayal of the work they undertook on a daily basis."
Which I guess is one way of saying Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino -- or their gun-and-butcher's-knife-swinging muses -- get open tab when they're in town.
That's the question my friend Elinora asks herself every time she sees this suspiciously meditative ad for Dove Go Fresh Body Mist, "in the same cool scents as Go Fresh deodorants." Variants include women in flowing dresses or underpants, writhing in harmony as little Dove logos waft around their armpits, tummies and legs.
Then one day, waiting impatiently for Life: Black Friday to return on Hulu, it hit her like a ton of bird-shaped bricks: "IT'S COOCH SPRAY!" she shrieked.
I don't know if she primed me for it or what, but the ad does have that timeless Massengill flair. "Mom, do you ever feel, you know ... not so fresh?"
Tagline on the Dove spot vibes almost like a tip-off: "Go beyond fresh."
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Just how many social networks do you belong to? Well, here's another one for you. It's called Creatives Connect. All the cool kids are on it from Ty Montague to Andrew Keller to Bob Greenberg to Tony Granger to Pete Favatt to Bob Scarpelli to Jeff Goodby to Marie-Catherine Dupay.
They're all laughing and having a such good time. Bob sent me a personal invitation and I think I'm going to join up right away. You should too. Especially if you want to win an ANDY.
It merits saying that there are plenty of countries where people don't get as nuts as we do when ads zero in on race. But I still felt an "arrrg" rise to my throat when I saw these pieces for ChromaWhite TRX Skin Brightener, Dermalogica India.
The text at left reads "America's future looks bright, thanks to a black." Above the caption is the bust of a suspiciously white-washed Obama.
Thanks for the unsolicited commentary on our election, but what the fuck, guys? How does news of the States blackwashing the White House promote your skin whitening product?
Variant: "There are times when black can go to white." Okay, I'm not even touching that one.
Put together by the politically earnest cats at IBD Brands, India.
UPDATE: After this article had been live for a few hours, the guy who sent us this work apologized for any cultural misunderstanding and claimed the creative was just spec. And having sent us the material in the first place, he even tried insisting his agency didn't do it. (The creative credits appeared right below the work in the original email.) In separate IMs, he went on to say he doesn't work for the agency at all, and a mystery person from IBD sent it to him.
Dear IBD Brands Dude: We're typically really nice about this kind of thing, but you've done this more than once. If this was an honest mistake, here's a tip: don't get cocky and send us material your client hasn't approved.
If you simply can't take flak for doing a sub-par job, get the hell out of this business.
OK so here's one of the most unlikely scenarios ever to unfold in real life. Thankfully, this is advertising which has nothing to do with real life and, because of that, we get stuff like this (faux?) Burger King commercial which involves poles, cleavage, flirtatious (goofy sounding) giggling, pole dancing, seductive looks and...erect chicken sandwiches? Clearly, we've been riding in the wrong subway car!
For Park Shore BMW, agency concerto conjured up a sneaky way to get people staring at rows and rows of BMW logos for a long, long ... long ... time. See variants 2 and 3.
"One of these is not like the others," the copy reads. "Find it and we'll not only offer you an incredibly low interest rate, we'll pay your 10% down payment on any 2008 model you want. You have until October 31st. So Go!"
The campaign ran briefly in Vancouver last month, after which Park Shore BMW was asked to pull the ads because they "contravene branding standards."
Wait. There are standards? Guess that sets Vancouver ahead of the pack. $10 and a warm cookie to whoever can score us Van City's Hallowed Book on Logo Etiquette.
- MTV's "Burma Viral," produced by Shilo for Ogilvy & Mather, won a London Int'l Awards Gold Statue for TV/Cinema Animation, and a Silver Shark for Best Int'l Animation at the 46th Annual Kinsale Shark Awards. At left is the somewhat-stunned project writer, Carl Le Blond, clutching the London Gold. Way to goooooo.
- Valleywag watered down, broadened out, folded into Gawker.
- Intel's obnoxious "That guy" is a chick, actually.
- Lego reenacts Star Wars with non-violent games.
- I fucking hate maggots.
- Racing for a hot shower.
- Linda Tripp's mouth-blown, hand-painted ornament store.
- And you thought foreign oil dependence was our problem.
Tearing the chapter in irony out of theTruth.com's tattered playbook, Crowell Advertising brings us Fight the Ugly, home base to a lame-duck action figure named Smokerman.
Um, diggin' the 'stache.
See ads in which the action figure, stopping often to catch his breath, tries saving trains or disarming plastic bombs. The spots -- prepared for the Utah Department of Health -- will air during morning cartoons, where hopefully they stop kids from smoking as opposed to, oh, making the puff-puff seem fun.
- Swedish site Crime Medicine tells the tale of counterfeit prescription drugs using an online drug store front which then break through to the truth behind the lie.
- Google Street View gets some staged action from a group of people in Pittsburgh who wanted to dress up Sampsonia Way.
- Hmm. According to this video, Lowe Manila is an awesome place to work and really difficult to say goodbye to.
- OK. Obviously this a cultural thing but still. This T-mobile commercial is really, really weird.
- Need to waste some time? Check out the Facebook application Ad Battle created by Buddy Media and Atmosphere BBDO's Jason Culbertson. Compare to ads and vote on them. It's that simple.
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