Proving that everything is upside down down under (oh c'mon, I had to work that in there) comes this bizarre story. A McDonald's ad is banned because it undermines parent's authority, like they do, but a nutty Nando ad depicting mother as a pole dancer is OK.
The Smoking Gun reports 'Britney ballistic over billboards' and the ex-pop tart may sue for "nut job" advertisements using her bald head. The ads area headlined "Total Nut Jobs," "Shock Therapy," and "Certifiable." clearly questioning Britney's sanity, and while her lawyer doesn't touch on weather she is nuts or not he claims Spears's "likeness has a multi-million-dollar value for authorized commercial exploitations" and, as a result, she is entitled to "very substantial damages" from Clear Channel.
Note, not sure if the headlines "Total Nut Jobs," "Shock Therapy," and "Certifiable." are talking about Britney or the hacks who created these shite ads.
Remember the ORKIN campaign? Last year Rethink Communications put flypaper type sticky plaques up around Vancouver and a few buggy days later the Orkin logo appeared, made up entirely of bugs caught in the sticky stuff. *shudder* Gross as I might think that is when seeing it for real I must admit it's one helluva away to make me remember the pest control guys, and at the same time clearly demonstrating the need for calling them. Good ad.
Guess what, I found something similar, another ad making bugs deliver the message - see inside.
Everybody's talking about the new "Impossible is nothing" commercial with David Beckham for Adidas. Yes, a great story with a happy end. And very similar to the stories of two other great football players
... (Inside embedded films to compare. Click read more.)
Researcher spotted these two logos which mirror each others doodles. While one is a doodled "d" and the other a doodled "6" and both probably sprung straight from the edges of the designers notes from boring meetings, they pose a problem.
"The advertisement showing a woman pinned to the ground by the wrists by a bare-chested man, with other men in the background looking on", has been banned since yesterday, the Advertising Self-Discipline Institute (IAP) said. The ad, according to the IAP has:
"offended the dignity of the woman, in the sense that the feminine figure is shown in a degrading manner. The woman has an alienated expression, with an absent look. The woman is immobilised and subjected to a man's will.
Dove is at it again with their campaign for real beauty, currently airing several different parts of the campaign. Or not airing, as the case is with their Pro Age ad. Six over-50 gorgeous women do their best 'calender girl' homage in the latest ad posing buck naked in the ad, which is banned from airing because - get this - it "shows too much skin". Seems the TV ads don't adhere to FCC regulations. GettyImages blog says:
This whole debacle is fascinating to me on two fronts. 1) How can it be that Ms. Spears is allowed to gyrate in a bikini top on MTV with a snake whilst singing "I'm a slave for you" to 12 year olds, but 50-something women are not allowed to be shown sans clothes in what I would argue is a completely tasteful, if not downright elegant manner? And 2) why is said "debacle" not more of a…well…debacle? The only mainstream coverage I was able to find on this was here, and that's on a Canadian news site.
Sure, it's a really neat trick, but we're seeing too many ads using that undressed/dressed thing recently.
If you're scripting something like this you may want to wait a year or two before doing it again. ;)
Here's a funny pair - on valentines day the Advertising & Graphic design School Berghs in Stockholm put up 650 posters over the city on the theme "Loveletters". One poster has some striking similarities to a recent campaign for the post created by M&C Saatchi Melbourne, way down on the other side of the planet.
Remember that Wonderbra and Bendan ad pairing, which even ended up in Resumé (sadly without a link back)? Researcher set out to prove that this idea of using the double-page spread as a vital part of the ad idea isn't that unusual, he took a dip in his ad collection and came back with all of these....
More inside! This is fun - and just for fun. I don't think any of the pairings were aware of the other.
We've come a long way baby. The VW Jumper ad (inside for those who haven't seen it yet) created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami has been pulled after complaints from several groups among them Suicide Prevention Action Network, National Alliance on Mental Illness, American Psychiatric Association, Mental Health America and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Just last week General Motors decided to edit the Robot Superbowl spot where a depressed assembly robot dreams that he jumps off a bridge.
Right now, thousands of creatives are mimicking shooting themselves in the head with their markers, I bet. The VW "jumper" commercial is inside - not in youtubian format. It keeps getting posted and yanked there since it breaks their terms of service. (Do'h people!)
Last year this double-page spread which was a finalist at the One Show and Cannes Lions, sold naughty nothings in the middle east. How do you do that? Show nothing! (more inside)
"Do you think anyone will notice if we rip off that ancient Apple 1984 commercial?"
"Nah. And even if they do, we'll call it an 'homage' or some sh*t like that."
Musical brush? Apple 1984-like advert? Kids these days have it so good, why in my day you actually had to brush your own teeth to the sound of.. brushing - and the 1984 ad blew everyones minds. Get off my lawn!
Meanwhile Orwell spins in his grave so fast we might be able to harness that as an environmentally friendly energy source.
And if at first you don’t succeed, you can dust yourself off and try try again. Lindex seems to live by this motto, as last year their "we love boobs" campaign was banned by clearchannel (Who own practically all the outdoor adspace in Sweden) and the campaign was not allowed to run in the subway or on the city buses.
This year Lindex thought they'd do it again, and up until a few days ago, it looked like it might work. Just last week Johan Hallin, marketing executive at Lindex, confidently told Resume "This time SL (the public transport authority) has seen the campaign and approved it".
He must have not gotten the memo - because today Resume reports that SL allows the images, but not the headline "we love boobs".
Dolce & Gabbana has had some theatrical looking ads where men brandish knives banned by the ASA. After receiving 157 complaints, including from groups such as Mothers Against Murder And Aggression (“MAMAA”) and Media March the ASA agreed that the knives were brandished aggressively and the image of a man lying on the ground with a wound to his forehead added to the overall impression of violence and upheld the complaint.
Photographer Rich Adkin and creative Dalbir Singh collaborated when making this campaign for www.szexplaza.com, which is a spoof to a recent wonderbra campaign.
Founding partner of Tomboy Viral, Joel Veitch, has been badlanded by coke Argentina. The video, produced for his band "seven seconds of love" featuring dancing ninja kittens has been lifted pretty much wholesale, music and all.
OOOh, will you look at that, someone has a serious case of demo-love it seems. or do you really think that the team behind the dancing actor Michael Persbrant for Vasakronan never saw Christopher Walken strut his stuff in Fat Boy Slims video weapon of choice?
more inside. You knew that.
Swedes - the prudes with the scandalous reputation and the high ratio of buxom blondes has banned a Lavazza ad as it was discriminating. See tame pin-up inside.
XBox's new spot advertising their sport themed games looks an awful lot like Apple's iTunes/iPod spot from earlier this year where CD covers pile up into a city which then turns into the iPod. You have to wonder where they got their inspiration. ;) Apple's spot was released back in March of 2006.
In 2005 the Japanese creative team at Dentsu conceived the "Pencil Catcher" as a play on the classic arcade game to pay homage to the prestigious Pencils awarded at the One Show.
The "Pencil-Catcher" website was created as a call for entry and an invitation to the opening of the 4th Annual One Show Exhibition at the Ad Museum of Tokyo, Japan.
The concept was highly regarded and the "Pencil-Catcher" website garnered a Bronze in Clio 2006, Silver in Asia Pacific Ad Fest 2006, and Bronze in Tokyo Interactive Ad Awards 2006.
Yes, we've got yet another example of the dangers of using stock imagery. Antoan sent in this badland duo of a newly released billboard of Nova Television TV station in Sofia, Bulgaria and a print ad for Renault.
Following in the footsteps of Tango's Balls spoof back in May, London lingerie company Myla has created their own spoof on the Sony Bravia "Balls" spot.
A woman in a revealing mediaeval frock sits perched atop a hay bale, declaring "I love a good session on the Bishop's Finger". , and honestly now who doesn't? I know I love a good round of the Bishop's finger!
Now compare, here' something a Serbian MoGraph company Fried Pictures just did. Recognise some of the industrial landscape, the shots of smokestacks, oil pumpers and it all exploding with flowers a the end, plus the whole colour palette? Deja badland vu!