Hell Pizza billboard under review

New Zealand's Hell Pizza chain is getting some backlash from its billboards around Auckland and Wellington which feature George Bush.

Outdoor Advertising New Zealand is reviewing who is behind the boards and whether the Advertising Standards Authority needs to become involved.
Hell's media manager, Matthew Blomfield, says they expected to cause a bit of a stir. He says it is meant to provoke discussion and be a little edgy, instead of bland, boring advertising.

This second billboard was defaced, but it kinda adds to it all, don't you think?

Adland® is supported by your donations alone. You can help us out by buying us a Ko-Fi coffee.
Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
comment_node_story
Files must be less than 1 MB.
Allowed file types: jpg jpeg gif png wav avi mpeg mpg mov rm flv wmv 3gp mp4 m4v.
AnonymousCoward's picture

i'm not that worried about it. when was the last time new zealand did anything worth talking about? oh yeah. they let us use their country for Lord of the Rings.

AnonymousCoward's picture

It must be nice to be so smugly and ignorantly superior.
Even when they take the posters down (and I suspect they will) they will have generated more brand exposure for their $ than going down the straight and narrow path. I like it heh.

AnonymousCoward's picture

This is great! I love the fact that a tiny company in the middle of the Pacific Ocean has the balls to advertise and say something fairly important, about someone who is sadly glorified in some backwater, middle state inbred colony in North America. This billboard is fantastic. Bush is a complete F**K. oh and the Lord of the Rings movies were written and directed by Peter Jackson - A NEW ZEALANDER.

AnonymousCoward's picture

Finally, someone can see him for who he really is.

troymcclure's picture

The question is - what does any of this have to do with pizza? Politics aside, it's a lousy billboard designed more to generate controversy than sales. OK, so they are "hip" and :edgy" - but are their pizzas worth a damn? (Pun intended.) I'm certainly no fan of the current Administration. But to label Bush as an "evil bastard" is a cheap shot. If Bush is evil, what is Bin Laden? Why don't they put him on one of their billboards?

Dabitch's picture

Dammit Troy. Stop making sense.

You're right of course, shocking for attentions sake is nothing but a cheap trick. Though in this day and age of Goldenpalace's being hailed as one of the "best" "guerrilla" marketers in mainstream press (aaaugH!), there is no lack of crap to choose from. *sigh* Seems that anything that makes it to the "odd news" section is now the yardstick of "good advertising" because at least they "got attention", no matter how irrelevant, annoying, pointless or downright offending it is. Pardon me while I weep into my Bishops for the state of this biz. /melodrama

AnonymousCoward's picture

You are camunists and we will striek you with nukuler weapens til yuo glow!!!!!!!!!!! LOL ROFLMACO Just becase our Presdent handed cuntrol of Merkin foregn polucy over to PNAC and the likes of (chickenhawk-in-chief) Cheney, Wolfowitz, William Kristol and Richard Perle and they sold it to the highest bidder (their buddies in the oil industry, and the Likud party) dosn't meen you have any raht to say he is the devel or the Beast. Besides, Queen Elizabeth is the Beast, I heard her name spells out 666 if you turn it to numbers or something like that. Anway, you're all a bunch of foregn fairies and we can kick your butt six ways from Sunday (as soon as we git out of church), so shut up and do what we tell you!!! What kind of a fairy name is New Z-land anyway, are you all a bunch of Z's ? I heard all you have is sheep there, hands off!!! LOL

I love Bush!!!!!!!

Signed,
A proud Merkin!!!!!!!!!

AnonymousCoward's picture

um, yeah he's the devil. whoop whoop whoop.
grow up kids.

AnonymousCoward's picture

I always thought New Zealanders were just Australian hillbillies. Now I see you're more like the oh-so-sophisticated and attention-starved Canadians. Enjoy your moment in the limelight assholes.

Oh and see if you can do something about your English too. You sound as crude as you are.

FU NZ

AnonymousCoward's picture

lololol It's americans like you who give the rest a bad name. I'd rather be living in a Bush-free zone thanks-very-much. Away from inbred trailer park trash like yourself.

Go to Hell.

It's the best damn pizza in the world :P

AnonymousCoward's picture

Three points...

First, it is very good pizza. Check out the flavours and more of their communications on www.hell.co.nz. You will notice they are struggling developing thier 'tone of voice' and their copy is unconvincing at times.

Seocnd, this was controversial and certainly got some media attention.

Third, this resonates with a great number of people, but will alienate probably close to 30% the population, so maybe not so smart.

IMHO, a little too easy and obvious, and totally unconvincing. It reinforces to me that they still dont understand their brand (i.e personality, tone of voice) very well.

Andreas-Udd's picture

Arty, who are you talking to?

I'm genuinely curious, is your comment directed at anyone here, because I don't see anyone being a crude sounding kiwi. I do however see a very bad speller from the united states above (Donald_Canard). But I'm hoping that is some strange type of performance art or irony.

AnonymousCoward's picture

As a born and raised Danish-American in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA (An American Republican dreamland), I would like to applaud them for their statement. Although it does not seem to be directed toward their brand, I believe their motive is in that sometimes, it's worth it just to say what you feel within the culture of your business.

On another note, I am disgusted by bush. His educational level alone should have prevented him from office (as I am not counting the collegiate degrees that daddy bought), and not only that but his dodging of service legally prevents him from public service and should have landed him in U.S. Federal Prison, as abandonement is a federal crime. I am a Democrat, a Red Cross volunteer, an employee of a U.S. government contractor, and a citizen of the United States of America, and I firmly believe that bush has no right to be my president, and no right to do what he has done.

For the rest of the world, I say, I am truly very sorry for what this man and his cohorts have done in the name of Americans, and from our people to you I can honestly say those things were done without the command or voice of the majority of the American people. I also promise that I will work on a campaign to bring voices to those who failed to vote in our presidential elections, and carry the weight of burdon to help correct the wrongs done.

For those of you who do not care what is going on, I'll leave you with this...the world's greatest superpower has been hijacked from within by racist, anti-socialist, faith abusing, anti-freedom war-mongers, and you may not have a vote....but you have a voice. Please help us be heard.

If you have experience creating media, please take it upon yourself to create the most powerful vocal and media assault against any one political power ever, we may not sound so attentive, but once you break down the communication walls our false leaders have built, Americans will listen.

Thank You.