Not sure whether any of you saw Rob Walker's article on Word of Mouth Marketing in the New York Times the other day:
'The Hidden (in Plain Sight) Persuaders'

Sloggi has finally gone one butt too far - Triumph the brand behind Sloggi, has been asked by the French advertising sector association to withdraw a billboard campaign for its Sloggi range, which has been widely condemned as offensive to women. The image depicts ladies in underwear and little else posing around poles in starstudded spotligts, reminiscent of a striptease stage.

Wanna see it? Of course you do. Read more.

Who are the faceless people? Or rather, what on earth are they advertising? Spotted at Henley, at Wimbledon and at the start of Harrods summer sale. Might it be an ad stunt for cars? No I don't see the connection either - but whois says that http://www.facelesspeople.com/ is owned by Group Lotus Plc, Norwich, Norfolk United Kingdom. That's Group Lotus cars. Wonder what "True Character" will be revealed in 19 days. That car better be good looking as hell after a stunt like that, ya'll.

We've been discussing brand names that don't export well on adlist this week. Some things can have names that people in other countries may misunderstand. It all began with this can above.

To which I exclaimed "personally I'm simply horrified that it comes in a can and is microwavable." but UK adlisters assured me that it's actually pretty decent. American and other adlisters meanwhile, were rolling on the floor laughing.

The UK does have a few of these not possible for US export food gems, such as:

But really, Americans aren't much better I mean they serve:

In the "bound to happen" category, homages to Sony's balls (hehe, I said "balls") have appeared on the web. In the off the wall category Snoken Productions called all their gameskilled mates together and directed a Mine2 gameversion of balls. Brilliant.

Link to video

On October 17, 2007, the most luminous names in advertising gathered at a black tie gala at The Metropolitan Club in New York City to witness the induction of three of advertising’s greatest legends—Phil Dusenberry, Tim Delaney and the late Paul Rand (1914 – 1996), into The One Club’s Creative Hall of Fame. As former Creative Hall of Fame inductee and 2007 Hall of Fame Chairman David Abbott observed, being inducted into the Creative Hall of Fame is a “pat on the back from those who really knew.”

[Left to Right] Swanepoel, Dusenberry, Warlick, Delaney, Abbott

Following are quotes from the evening:
“I was fortunate to be married to a fellow creative. I could wake up in the middle of the night with an idea and immediately be able to get a professional opinion. Gave new meaning to “being rejected in bed.”
--Phil Dusenberry, on how his marriage helped bolster his career

“It’s much better being inducted than being indicted.”
--Phil Dusenberry, Former Chairman BBDO North America and 2007 Inductee into the Creative Hall of Fame

“The thing he liked the most was the thing he liked the least—not knowing what would happen from one minute to the next.”
-- Allen Rosenshine, Chairman of BBDO Worldwide, on Phil Dusenberry’s feelings about the ad industry

“We had an unlimited budget, but we somehow managed to exceed it.”
-- Phil Dusenberry, on making blockbuster commercials for clients like Pepsi and GE at the height of his career at BBDO

“I’ve never had my name in a New York Times crossword puzzle, so go f*#@ yourself!
-- George Lois, legendary ad man and former Hall of Fame inductee, on multi-award-winning designer Paul Rand’s reaction to seeing George’s name in a crossword puzzle

In addition, as part of its induction of the legendary Paul Rand into its Creative Hall of Fame, The One Club for Art & Copy turned to Imaginary Forces to create a video introduction of the design icon for its black tie gala. The resulting four-minute film captures the seminal role Rand played in design and design thinking, using an animated mix of his logos and layouts set to music, along with the words of the master himself.

Watch it here:

Erik Nordenankar doesn't do things half-assed. In fact, he's created The Biggest drawing in the world with a little help from a GPS device and DHL. This was his end of school project at Beckmans and I'm willing to bet money he'll land an awesome job pronto. In fact, if DHL doesn't pay him some money to us this as the viral campaign it already is, I'm going to get mighty peeved. YOU HEAR ME DHL?

"Won't somebody think of the children!?"
Someone did - Ananova reports that a catholic college has complained about the new wrapper design for Haribo's Moaom fruit chews - the fruit on the wrapper seems to be copulating. If you have a dirty mind.

"We are shocked at the shameless presentation of sexual practices on the wrapping, which includes not only sexual intercourse but also fellatio and cunnilingus," wrote the St Blasien Jesuit College near Bonn.

(to see the wrappers read more...)

"Everybody probably does want to be good but not everybody are prepared to make the sacrifices it takes. To some people being nice, to be liked is important. There is equal merit in that too. But you must not confuse being good with being liked. There may be not one person in this room that truly wants to be great. Most of you have come here for a solution. The way to become good. I have to tell you that I have no such solution. I can't teach you anything. I can tell you, but you won't hear me. The only way to learn is through your own experiences and mistakes. There is no instant solution. But I can offer some guidelines that have helped me."

It is not easy to pick the top five worst superbowl commercials of all time.

There's bad, like those mens razors ads which make my teeth hurt every year, then there's really really bad like backfiring (literally) jokes, and then there's so bad that masses of people protest and your company sues the ad agency who created the ad bad. With that said, here's Adland's pick of the top five worst super bowl ads of all time. We've combed through the 35 years of Super bowl ads in The Super Bowl Commercials archive to bring you these fantastic turds.