My my, it's like Jay Leno knew when would be a good time to advertise on the HuffPo. Hat tip Claymore who was too busy to post his screenshot.

Woody is T.G.I. Friday's latest spokesdude, recently challenging America to become his fan on Facebook, and if a half million folks signed up, they'd all get a free Jack Daniel's burger. Let's see how that's going for them...

That by now infamous Microsoft Windows / "house party" ad has had jaws dropping all over the world (and its own 'censored' version' which makes it seem a lot more like a swingers club)... And as it turns out, even Microsoft people hate it.

If you read Stephanie Smitt Lindberg's account on theMicrosoft 7 blog (google translate english), she hates it.
"As an employee of a U.S. company, I am accustomed to the American style of advertising and every now and then it becomes simply a part of culture clash, between how the Swedes are used to seeing advertising, and how it is advertised in the United States. But this film has gone very far in its American style expression. So far, that even Americans themselves have reacted."

She continues saying that it's sad to have to be joining the chorus of critics "But I am proud of Windows 7 and want to be proud of the marketing we do". I hope she likes Kylie better, or any of the Windows 7 college kids ads that I just posted.

It24 asked Stephanie Smitt Lindberg straight out if "the film is for real", like for serious? I bow to your superior journalistic prowess guys.

The Dognpony was on a mission, he wanted to find out if those Hasbro Play-Doh ads were as 'created to wins awards' as they looked, and managed to get a response from Hasbro USA. Faboo! Wayne Charness, SVP of Corporate Communications explains;

In our research we discovered that the campaign was created by a Singapore-based advertising agency, not employed by Hasbro, as a creative awards submission.
We also found out that an individual within Hasbro Singapore made the unfortunate decision to approve a one time use of the ads without going through the proper channels.

I'm confused, a person that works for Hasbro said yes to it, but this doesn't count? Am I reading that right?

The campaign seems to have appeared first at UglyDoggy: A Campaign With an Edge - whose friend in Singapore found it in a mag and thought it was funny; "the whole campaign appeared in one of those small free magazines that you can pick up at the coffee store" - that also sounds like cheap media. Read: what the agency could do in order to ensure they followed award-submitting rules.

And I suppose it is nice that a global brand now says "More importantly as a result, we are putting in place a global policy to help ensure an issue of this nature does not occur again." even though that should have been in place before, and it sounds like what they mean is "we'll only do adaptation from now on". Picture smiling American kids playing with Play-Doh in dubbed ads over in Singapore. We'll be the lucky ones up here in Sweden, as we'll probably gag on the German adaptation ads instead (because we're so alike in culture and all, it doesn't grate every time we see a German ad dubbed, no siree, we love them. Really we do). I hope that's not what they're saying. I hope what they mean is "We'll see to it that the marketing director of Hasbro Singapore has the power to say yes to local creative, as we'll hire a person we trust with our brands."

DognPony (a.k.a @copyboy1 on twitter) interprets it differently. He thinks they mean “No Hasbro employee may give approval to run Hasbro-branded communications by non-roster agencies.” which seems like a rule in place everywhere already, that rule makes sense. Wonder why Hasbro didn't have that rule then. Does anyone know who the Hasbro agency of record is in Singapore?

Ah, it's the marketing mishap that keeps on giving. Congratulations to Ditte Arnth, you're one step away from Hollywood as O'Reilly and Jane Skinner talks about Karen26 on The O'Reilly Factor FOX News last night.
The O'Reilly Factor shows the edited youtube video and the comments start off like this:

Karen26: ..I don't remember where you're from.. I don't even remember your name...
O'Reilly : Excellent.

Excellent? When were you in Denmark last O'Reilly? Was that a slip-up? Hehe, I slay me. Skinner then quotes Visit Denmarks CEO Dorte Kiilerich seemingly shocked that a woman could approve this ad; 'We're telling a nice and sweet story about a modern responsible woman, that lives in a free society ...'

Update File under funny: FP Passport says ....But did anyone really think this painfully awkward 2 1/2 minute monologue would be enticing to anyone? Then again, this is the country that produced Lars Von Trier, so you never know.

Previous posts on Karen26 and the VisitDenmark hoopla;
Not quite done with Karen26 - this what you did wrong Grey and GoViral.
Karen26 - Karen in Denmark seeking August's father - (2009) (Denmark)
"Karen" the Danish mother seeking is actually Ditte Arnth #Karen26

The "Viral as deception" trend isn't restricted to small countries random tourist ads, and Swedish&Danish press aren't the only ones that fall for such things. Germany is the capitol of quick-to-print-press, and the recent viral hoax for the film Short Cut to Hollywood had even their main news wire service fooled.

Dan Niel at the La Times rips Redmond a new one - he does not like the unicorn filled ads with Kylie. Everyone knows that cornify.com owns the market of syrupy sweet unicorn and rainbow lurve!

Lets watch the ad, shall we?

The new TV ad campaign for Windows 7 (Crispin Porter & Bogusky) kicked off this week with a masterpiece of emotional manipulation that brings back Kylie, the precocious 4-year-old girl from the "I'm a PC" series. The slightly lispy Kylie -- who pronounces the product as "Windows Theben" -- is sitting at a table in front of a PC. "My name's Kylie, and I found these happy words all over my dad's computer. . . ." (Uh-oh, I hope dad's been behaving himself with his PC.) The "happy words" are rave reviews for Windows 7 from tech magazines, which Kylie then puts into a slideshow with images of a unicorn, a kitten in marshmallows, a bunny in a straw hat. "Happy words need happy pictures." Uh-huh. We can only assume as the campaign rolls out to the Windows 7 launch date of Oct. 22 that we'll see baby penguins and water-skiing squirrels hawking for the Redmond, Wash., software giant.

"I'm a PC and more happy is coming," Kylie says, with a sweetness that makes my teeth want to fall out.

More weeks-old ad news. Kind of. Web 2.0 news? Social media news? To play it safe I'll get an ad in here first, because, though this will have to do with mom blogs, poop, Twitter, and UNFOLLOW!, it'll all hopefully all come together after the (Gordon) jump:

Scarred adgrunts know that the image of burning twin towers have been used in advertising before. Why the backlash this time? Was it because AdFreak posted about it? Was it simply the timing?

Humo magazine made what was dubbed the most offensive ad ever a few years back, a title Humo Magazine seemed a little proud of. Other images in the campaign were on the same level, to fit with the tagline "reading HUMO can have serious consequences, in one ad Saddam Hussein was so captivated by the mag he didn't notice that the US army was right behind him invading his little hideout.

Have there been others? Sure, some ad agencies like to use the dramatic images of the burning twin towers to compare death tolls, as a way of making much larger numbers pain and suffering more tangible to the viewer. Example; MTV Magazine twin towers vs Aids, famine, and poverty in 2003.

ASH smoking kills more than terrorism is another angle on the "compare numbers" idea.

But they weren't the only ones to light up cigarettes and evoke the towers, Khaleej Times in United Arab Erimates did the same in 2007.

The Chilean Bic Wite Out ad campaign that we had to remove as Bic US HQ were quite upset by it, and the TBWA Chile ad agency got cold feet after the fact, was probably the best example of off-brand shocking for shocks sake WTC 9/11 imagery ad. What did it really say about Wite out? Great for censorship?

For Nature every day is 9/11 states this poster showing two trees being 'attacked'. This was posted to Fredrik Samuels blog in January of 2007, and he credits the ad to CLM BBDO, Paris.

Lego of all brands, did a campaign with the positive end message "Rebuild it" showing the dust cloud post WTC attack as their image choice. This makes little sense considering the target market - kids. When the ads first appeared on well known adblogs '06 they were credited to Saatchi & Saatchi China, later the team behind it, Black Wu and Darren Cheung, admitted that they were just pushing their own creativity and came up with dumb ideas, their managers at Saatchi had nothing to do with it.

CoBis used the visual similarity of motherboards to bustling cities to remind people that some day, your computer might be the target of an attack.

Before the terrorist attack on the twin towers, ads used the iconic Twin Towers as their "New York" image of choice quite often. Some of these ads seem in hindsight to be a little creepy, if not downright spooky. The PIA twin towers ad looks creepy no matter what.

One good thing came out of this uproar, and that is the One Show scam ad ban. International award shows will never be "fair" when, for example, one countries drug ad laws prevents the creatives from making campaigns like the Canadian Viagra work which won in Cannes this summer, but it will be at least a little more fair when all competing campaigns were actually vetted by a real client.

I still love the Cookie Monster, despite the image of him eating the WTC.

Update: Oh, so it wasn't a publicity stunt, it was "a social experiment that aimed to test media response to a relatively unimportant story." Thanks for that, Mr. DJ.

-=-=-=-

So, then, didya hear the one about the guy forced by his wife to stand at a busy intersection with a sandwich board reading "I cheated. This is my punishment."?

Yeah, I can see why not.

Though it was first broken by an LA news outlet, the story seems to have gotten only a little play outside the Beltway (and IIRC, where he was standing was, technically, outside the Beltway) — most of it being his interview and heated discussion with his wife on 99.5 FM. I kept expecting to hear more, waiting for the other shoe to drop …

That is basically what this mornings Politiken.dk is telling me: "Four children have lost their father, while a reality show has ensured lots of buzz.

Pakistani contestant Saad Khan, only 32 years old, was swimming across a lake while wearing a 15-pound backpack when he called out for help and then disappeared underwater, said Fareshte Aslam of Unilever Pakistan, the show’s sponsor. Co-contestants and crew rushed to his aid but could not find him in the murky waters if the lake in Bangkok, Thailand where the show was being filmed. Khan's body was later found by divers. Los Angeles Times reports that "Unilever Pakistan accepts no liability for Khan's death, Aslam said, but added that the company is in discussions to provide for Khan's wife and four children "out of rightness."

Plans to air the reality show, which were sponsored by Unilever's Clear shampoo are on hold after the murky waters took Khan, who was doing this challenge in an attempt to earn a spot in the finals, as he had already been eliminated from the show.

Thom Dinsdale notes that Sony's big push for Xmas has a call to action that does not yet work.

The call to action is "Search: Start PS3" (how trendy). Unfortunatly as of writing the top result on google for that is actually a blog from a user with a broken PS3... lets hope their search budget kicks in soon.

Hey Sony I can fix that, send me every ad you got in this campaign and I'll promise to list that tagline in each googlejuice-tastic posting here on adland. ;)

Nestlé's "Fitness" flakes currently have a Dance-CD giveaway, but the CD that meant to show yo "Body Jam" shows you porn instead. Aftonbladet article here, complete with photo of "serious looking customer posing with offending package".
The woman in the article - Ida Riedel Palmer, 23 - was expecting that the CD with "body jam" on it would lead her to some dancing type of body jam, but when she popped her CD into her computer she was directed to a pornography site. She even triple checked that CD by trying it on two other computers other than her own - she must have really liked that porn. The Aftonbladet article doesn't say exactly what happened, just that when she put the CD on "she was automatically 'linked' to a pornograhic webpage".

Nestlé aren't as amused as I am, they call it a matter for the police. Marie Louise Elmgren, spokesperson for Nestlé says she has no idea how it could have happened. "It could be sabotage, or the production company might have recorded onto old CD's." she speculates, clearly pulling guesses out of her ass.

Ulrika Good has a quick update on the Apoliva campaign which scared the bejesus out of at least 90,000 Swedes who joined a facebook group declaring they were very very afraid. Print ads are now appearing in womens magazines, and there's a glued sample stuck to the page. When removed, the glue looks like snot runnig from the models nose - eeew. Unlike with the hombre magazine sticky spreads or the Powa anti rape ads this sticky position was not planned.

The cryptic email hyped:

The Advertising Him.com team has launched this site with the goal of creating a roaring adventure on the internet: Creating a human wall of advertising and making him visible worldwide!
You can join this incredible adventure by going to: www.advertisinghim.com .

I check out the site, and sure enough - it's some dude sorting out prices for parts of his body where you can place ads. Like a combo between those million-dollar-pixel websites and the countless "I'm selling my body as adspace" stunts we've seen over the years. So, it's the same thing yet again except with a less recognizable name and with more fish-eye-above-angle shots that got tired in the early naughts when the fisheye lens stock photo of the asian nerd made him the most famous geek in IT. At least Pat Lean has the brass ovaries to sell tattoo advertising space on her body. And lets not forget there's been adspace sold on prostitutes bodies, sponsor my melon, headvertising, pregvertising and assvertising - there was even a media agency set on selling vacant adspace on students foreheads. (also related - bumvertising) I know there's at least one more man in there whose goal was to sell his entire body as adspace from a few years back but my carpal tunnel is telling me to quit researching for other people now.

Oh, but Him.com have a real pro-looking sig in the email. Ain't it purdy?

I'm so over it I can't even roll my eyes anymore.

I'll admit, I did not open the .PDF When I say don't send press releases attached as .pdf's or word .docs (which practically every other blog is saying as well, including techcrunch who hates the same PR #fail queen as we do) we really mean it. Don't send PDF's or youtube links folks, pretty pretty please with sugar on top, you're just wasting everyones time.

When I wasn't busy trying to come up with songs in code or laughing at the hashtag flow, I spotted quite a few people wondering what was up with CP+B & Brammo deal. The Denver Egotist sums it all up nicely: IT'S OFFICIAL, THE CP+ B INTERNS CAN'T DESIGN. Yes, if you win the brief you can pocket a cool thousand dollars, leaving Crispin to pocked the 16655 they made on that eBay auction.

Peta have pissed off an org bigger than themselves with their save the whales poster. The The Obesity Action Coalition have gone out with a release that "Calls on PETA to Immediately End Campaign Stigmatizing Overweight and Obese Individuals"

With more than 93 million Americans affected by obesity, this type of unacceptable stigmatization of obese/overweight individuals has no place in today's society. Obese individuals are often stigmatized or discriminated against in a variety of areas, such as employment, school, healthcare and much more. The OAC finds obesity stigma to be extremely detrimental to the obese population as it furthers the all-too-frequent negative perceptions of the obese. The OAC demands PETA immediately end the campaign and remove the billboard from the public domain and the PETA Web site. In addition, the OAC is currently encouraging its Coalition members to respond directly to PETA about this inappropriate campaign. If you are not a member of the Coalition, but would also like to respond, please visit the OAC Web site at www.obesityaction.org for more information.

Following up on the earlier post…

OK, I'll admit to some mixed feelings about the U.S.'s health care reform. But the Obama as Joker Socialist poster just baffled me. Really, it just seemed like a lame mashing together of some outdated memes … so what am I supposed to be getting out of this? That our president is a Socialist? Or he's going to make me lie down in acid as he … cripes, people, if you're going to mount an opposition, get your act (and your message) together.

Anyway, it's all been revealed.

Here's some lovely advertising photography of Kat Von D showing off her new tattoo concealer for Sephora. On the left we see Kat with ink, in the middle Kat with concealer and on the right an un-airbrushed leaked shot that spells doom for yet another tattoo concealing product that doesn't work very well at all. Oops!
Via the superficial.

Der Spiegel reports that a politicians poster featuring Chancellor Angela Merkel's cleavage is causing a bit of a stir.

A female member of Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union has raised eyebrows with a campaign poster displaying the chancellor's ample cleavage alongside her own. The poster's slogan reads: "We have more to offer."

The poster features a photo of Vera Lengsfeld, 57, in a low-cut dress alongside a famous photo of Merkel displaying cleavage during a visit to the opera in Oslo in April 2008.

Some people commentating on the poster find it humorous, ironic and even showing a certain degree of courage. What it boils down to no matter how you slice it is: vote for me because my boobs are bigger, and last time I checked that criteria only really applies in wet T-shirt contests. Der Spiegel seems to think this might become a trend: "Several regional CDU districts are now considering following suit by using Merkel's cleavage in their own posters. " uh-oh! And judging by the Green Party bare buttocks ad, skin is "in", in political ads down in Germany. Sheesh.

Adland is no stranger to using cleavage in ads, or even Prostitutes' Cleavage and Thighs as media space though. Expect more skin soon.

* Note: Can't get a hold of anyone at Reuters regarding republishing the photo, don't much fancy plain 'nicking' it when Spiegel always treated us right, so that's why there is none.