I've never quite understood the strategy of selling a beer on being "cold" (which would be my job to keep it so) rather than tasty, but everyone knows that an ice-cold beer at the height of summer is when lagers are at their best. So Spendrups did an ad with the headline "have a really cold summer", suggesting cold beer on hot days. They've now been reprimanded for having the audacity suggesting that beer should be drunk at all, forget seeing anything as advanced as the Jupiler Ice Beer poster here in Sweden.

This is the offending Spendrups ad that ran last summer. Shocking, isn't it?

I Badlanded the reverse reading trick last year, hoping we'd end the old Usenet joke trend then and there, but last weeks release of DK groups internal sales meet video which again does the reverse reading thing had some suggesting that DK should change their name to Xerox.

Our pal Joe la pompe has his own post on this reverse reading trend, showing a French copy. Joe, who I keep dubbing the badland ninja for nailing twin ads to the board faster than a speeding bullet point, has a book out with twin ads out as well, which I show off here, and you can pick up at Amazon France.

RECREAR - The Truth

On the topic of twin ads, Mike Wolfsohn has posted this Adage article: In Defense of Inevitable Creative Outcomes, where he says that advertising isn't an originality contest, but a tool where one should do what's appropriate for the issue at hand. He rightly points out that input effects the outcome as well, as too many briefs are the exact same starting point, so landing on the same end-point shouldn't surprise anyone.

Too frequently ads are accused of being rip-offs of music videos or movies, without recognizing the talent that is required to identify creativity within one artistic genre and translate it successfully into another -- namely marketing.

He makes a good argument, and ties it up nicely with: "originality should be celebrated, risk should be rewarded and innovation should be admired. But so, too, should the ability to translate popular culture into effective marketing. Not when it's done illegally, surreptitiously, or dishonestly -- but when it's done humbly, artfully and insightfully"

Australia is apparently running this spot for the *dating* service during the upcoming Oscars, while the U.S. is not. Yea free speech down under! Or is it more, yeah good taste in the U.S.? Latter! Ashley Madison claims there’s hypocrisy at work because of the themes in the movies that night. (Maybe, but the films don’t openly advocate the lifestyles they depict, unlike the dating service which encourages you to cheat.) Here’s the thing though, and it’s what kept Mancrunch from ever having a realistic shot at getting on the Super Bowl, and has nothing to do with gay, not-gay, single, not single, etc.— The ad just ain’t that good. Come Oscar night, there are going to be parodies by the best FX houses (and plastic surgeons) in the world doing segments with actors throughout the evening, and then this comes on? It’s like student work with actors and spray paint. The end.

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Yes, Matt just wrote about it on agencyspy, but I was actually tipped off by the French badland ninja @joelapompe a few days ago. I've been trying to get a comment from anyone involved, but everyone so far has declined. Matt found that it made the papers in Jerusalem: the Jerusalem post.

Let watch the Coke sleepwalking ad from the 2010 Super Bowl XLIV commercials.

Copyranter is putting his foot down. He says enough is enough, the Marilyn "Seven year itch" pose has now been in every kind of ad idea, from explaining farts in science world, to preventing farts (anti gas medication), to showing a tiny Marilyn for short film festivals. Now the kilt-wearing whisky dudes are getting on the action. Yes, stop it. Besides, I did the tiny Marilyn thing ten years ago. *

* dudes, that's a joke.

Lowe Brindfors and NTF Stockholm just launched this campaign showing cell phones in car crashes, or cell phones as crashed cars, to visually tell people to hang up while driving. (Is it just me or could that be Princess Dianas cell phone car crash?)

It reminds me of the lesser photoshop skilled Wataniya cell phone car crash which in turn reminded me of the Land Transport New Zealand & New Zealand Police "Sleep" campaign. where we see beds crashed instead. Aw.

Moral of the story: If a visual idea is nice and simple, you can bet money on it already being done.