Responding to political insinuations that homosexuals "effectively advertise, glamorise and recruit people" to their lifestyle, a handful of creatives used their downtime to develop a tongue-in-cheek recruitment campaign for la vie en gay.
"The Gay Alphabet" is all Sesame Street-inspired eightiesness, cheerfully ticking down an alphabetical list of all the things that WILL MAKE YOU GAY. So yeah, that one time you went out in chaps and confessed to loving Kylie Minogue to a dude who later grabbed your ass? That marked your fall into Sodom -- and one day you will learn to love it.
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And that's cool, because Grease called and wants its moves back. (Better give up the leather jackets, too.) Hostage swap, anybody?
Helpful cultural sidenote: that guy with the big white stuff around his head is not an angry mashed potato. It is God.
"Back in France," produced by Clipit and directed by Cedric Dubourg, is a sugary protest against Burger King's mid-'90s departure from French soil -- a tribute to how we've managed to enrich the developed world (and are working on the pending one) with our seductive meat patties. Also, it was short-listed at last year's Festival de Meribel. (BK, what do you really need Crispin for?)
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- Creatives Chris Yi and Jesse Epstein spent a month and $2000 producing three spots for that Doritos Super Bowl ad contest. Obviously they didn't make the cut, but hey, can you ever have too much material to compare your own to?
- AOL to cut 10% and forgo merit pay increases in '09. Join the club, guys.
- Coca-Cola's contribution to the Super Bowl: Heist. 'Tis cute.
- Print and TV ad tropes invade the online contextual ad space, and this is the kind of crap we get.
- Hey ambitious marketers, here's a radio controlled live beetle. Use it for something magical ... like whispering jingles into the ears of impressionable window-shoppers, Jiminy-Cricket style.
- One reason to spend $9, plus the popcorn fees.
- New energy drink! Syke. No, seriously though.
- Mountain Dew brings the DEWmocracy slogan back for its new flavor, Voltage, which sadly brings to mind the vintage Volt, a green carbonated drink with a funny aftertaste. (It appeared, then disappeared, in the late '90s.) Subsite by Tribal DDB.
- On how Kaplan and Carnival open minds.
- Word on the street is MySpace wanted Facebook way back in '05. All ended much like a more recent unrequited love. Karma bites, bitch!
- Uh-oh: Publicis tries cobbling together some Enfatico-type thing for Carrefour. Squeeze your sphincters! This turd's been turned before.
- On Circuit City and its approaching demise.
To generate buzz for Netherlands-based S&M rag Massad, agency New Message enlisted dour-faced porn star Sofia Valentine to wander fetish parties and brand ass, The Story of O-style.
The so-called "spankvertising whip" -- an apt expression if I ever heard one -- looks suspiciously like a cricket bat but leaves pert white derrieres branded with "Massad, the SM Magazine."
Short and to the point. Sort of like pain. See it in action.
This isn't actually an ad, but oh, it's cute, and good testament to how our parents and friends can fuck us up before (and maybe after?) age five.
With help from Stardust Studios, director Jessica Yu of Nonfiction Unlimited produced "The Kinda Sutra" as an entry to Sundance's Documentary Shorts section. In it, a handful of brave adults admit how they were told babies were made.
"My mom taught me that when dad fell asleep, his seeds would float in the air and if one of them landed on mom, she would have a baby."
Classic.
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Hmm. Leo Burnett must have been taking Motrin when they created their latest Future Trends in Advertising video. As soon as Ben starts talking, WHAM, block type assault you with what Leo Burnett believes will "define 2009."
Something about a New Realism, Human Reassessment, Hyper Reality, Eco Austerity, Thread Marketing and other postulations ensue.
The video is best watched with your eyes closed. Or, better yet, just read the text on YouTube. Even better, run it through Babelizer and maybe, just maybe, something even remotely understandable will be produced.
Ever on the lookout for sensory violations, Brentter's brought us Angry Whopper ads for the UK and Germany.
In case you need refreshing, Burger King recently announced the availability of its Angry Whopper in the US with this bizarre ad, where a farmer physically abuses an onion during its crucial growing stage.
As a result, the onion leaves the earth hotter than Satan's feet. Added to a jalapeno-infused Whopper, it spanks the mouth of any office cog who dares order it.
It turns out the Angry Whopper's been on the market in Europe since May, with ads obviously tailored to each culture. The UK spot is pretty tame -- an anger management teacher, who thinks she can "handle" her rage, doesn't handle it very well after taking a bite.
As for the German one? Well, it's Germany. Add a fetish, slip it in leather and give it a whip.
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The United Kingdom's got this really anal government body called the Advertising Standards Authority. Based on citizen complaints and its own yardstick for appropriateness, it's banned everything from nightmare-inducing Marmite ads to blasphemous haircare messages to mundane (but deceptive!) mascara spots.
But agency envelope pushers, take heart: the UK's FIVER network is working with Celador Productions to launch The Sexy Ad Show, a six-part send-up of some of the "raciest, most politically incorrect and barely-broadcastable adverts to [emerge] from ad-land."
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For its Grease-tacular Disco Pant, American Apparel slays another guileless chick on its altar of unrepentantly exploitative ad banners. Meet Shermine, who loves! disco!
Like our compromised heroine at 2AM, the ad dramatically blacks out with the closing sell: LE DISCO PANT.
American Apparel: sure, it's seedy as all hell. But if you've followed it as long as we have, then you must admire its unwavering loyalty to a single brand persona: rain or shine, in sickness and in health, in grayscale or by low-budget lamplight.
Even Microsoft can't be that consistent.
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