Doritos® and Pepsi MAX® are experiencing a bit of controversy regarding their annual Crash The Superbowl competition this year, as two ads depicting gay men have made the rounds on the web as if they were potential Super Bowl ad airs, despite never making it to the final round of the competition.

Frito-Lay Director of Public Relations Chris Kuechenmeister told GLAAD the ads were two out of 5,600 that were submitted to the company for its “Crash the Super Bowl” contest. He said the ads were not among the finalists chosen by a panel of judges, and have no chance of airing during the Super Bowl or otherwise.

It's only been a month since the pregnant nun munching on ice-cream was pulled, now the latest Antonio Federici meets the banhammer. Seems this was their strategy all along.

The ad which only ran in Look magazine, showed two priests in full robes eating from a tub of ice cream 'in a seductive pose as if they were about to kiss passionately', the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said. Six complaints later, presto - banned.

Defending the ad, the ice-cream company said it did not mock Catholicism but 'reflected the grave troubles they considered affected the Catholic Church'.

Joelapompe wasn't too impressed with the Nissan Polar Bear ad either.... but for a different reason than me. He's seen that whole bear-hug thing before. The Minnesota State Lottery has a brown bear follow and hug a man as thanks for donating to the wildlife fun by playing lotto.

See I told y'all that bear hugs weren't a good thing.

Jared Hess, of Napoleon Dynamite fame ponders if racism is the reason these ads he directed were pulled. In the ads a jheri-curled soul singer is seen serenading a pig and a funnel cake, in a rather over the top fashion. The Utah State Fair Board members have said the ads just "weren't right." Some said they were offensive.

The Utah State Fair Board decided to pull the TV ads when some board members felt they had "sexual undertones" and were "over the top." But Hess says he believes it was only because the actor is black.

The actor in the ad, Markus T. Boddie says he doesn't believe the decision was racially motivated, but he can't say for sure.

The "Save our Swarm" billboard where the message is created by live bees, as seen on Adfreak and Copyranter, is ready for its badland closeup.

Cai Guo-Qiang: Head On could be seen at Deutsche Guggenheim, 2006 : link.
Head On concept:

With few wolves scattered in the front gallery, all ninety-nine wolves run, gallop, and jump toward the far end of the exhibition hall, where a wall stands. The bravery of the wolves is met head on by the unyielding wall. As the leading wolves go down, many more follow with force and determination. As those in the front fall and pile up, those behind take up their positions.

Meanwhile the Harvey Nichols "sale" ad called wolves created by Y&R Dubai won a Bronze Lion in Cannes this summer.

A woman in Norrköping has reported the Jarlsberg tv-show bumper idents to the Consumer Ombudsman for their "unpleasant" tagline: "the taste is in the holes."

First of all, it's misleading, the taste can't be in the holes. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how unpleasant it was.

She elaborates: "I felt provoked. It felt like it was alluding to something sexual. Then I got angry. One wonders what sort of society we live in with this kind of attitude toward women."

She's not the only one with her mind firmly in the gutter. There's even facebook groups dedicated to snickering at how "dirty" the tagline is. There's blogposts musing on how the tagline might have been created by an intern, others go straight to the point that holes "probably taste like fish", and newspaper journalists are wondering if those who like tasteful cheese might be able to buy a bag full of holes. (Great idea, marketing - get on that stat!) It's currently the most discussed piece of news at aftonbladets bloggportal.

At Aftonbladet the Jarlsberg cheese Managing Director Magnus Ekstrand defends the ads, and find it being pigeon holed as a sexist ad rather odd. "Our cheese has more unique holes than any other cheese. Somewhere there, she chooses to form associations to something which we don't associate to."