Badland

Headlined "Discover the real Europe, not the clichés" the ad for the Belgian public broadcaster Canvas shows a caricature of television presenter Thomas Desoete, sporting a Hitler mustache, swastika armband and even swastika G-string - or what some news outlets refer to as a "stripper costume". The copy on the ad also suggest trying a test yourself, typing in the word "German" in google and see what comes up. "Test het self: Dit is de eerste bild dat je te zien als je op Google ‘Duitser’ intikt" (Try it yourself: this is the first image you'll see if you Google "German")
This isn't true - however I did get this lederhosen clad beer toasting flag waving mustache wearing German caricature when I googled "Duitser", so youknow, it was close.
According to hareetz.com the ad was "cancelled immediately" after the controversy surrounding the cooking show last month which was going to make Hitlers favorite dish (they never did due to protests), but a few of the ads had already been printed before they could be pulled. Anne Stroobants, head of the press communication department for the television channel Canvas told hareetz.com that they "didn't mean to offend anyone" and stressed the magazine ads were "satirical in nature".

There's an ad rule, ads with Hitler or the NYC WTC towers in them tend to automagically offend people. True.

Part of the new "In an Absolut Wolrd" campaign for Vodka Absolut is this one print vission:

... 1:1 copy/past of the main idea in the last Tuborg TVC Grand Opening

Silverbacked (and redheaded) adgrunts probably recall the Bark if you love Bonzo barking mad dog billboards that I proclaimed to be the worlds first Dog Billboards back in 2001 (I have yet to find any earlier example, but you never know).

Well, it looks like targeting the dogs rather than their owners (or the owners through their dogs) is becoming ever more popular, and while these are not identical I think it's fun to look at some related ideas (I am not accusing anyone in this group of purposely plagiarizing any other idea here)

Credits to the Bonzo billboard goes to Pim Gerrits, Ben Lambers, Raphael Bartels who worked a couple of doors down from me at Publicis, Amsterdam at the time. The billboards were fitted with a dog whistle, so dogs would indeed bark when they came near it.

Here's a follow-up to that poster with the puking gorilla which nods to the serial award winning Cadbury Gorilla - except this one is created by DDB Stockholm for the ad awards Roygalan.
Hat tip to Swedish ad-digg site Researcher

The Coca Cola owned Oasis drink brand campaign about "Cactus kid" and his pregnant girlfriend has been banned by the ASA in the UK.

The ending to the story was chosen by Cactus kid fans at www.runcactuskidrun.com and aired the 22 August during the Big Brother show in the UK - making this a toothless ban indeed since the campaign has already officially ended anyway. This ad, it seems, was the final straw - the campaign received 32 complaints, which is apparently enough to get something off the air. It does make sense to kick Oasis a little for acting as if it is a relpacement for regular water. That ain't healthy.

Oasis – Cactus Kid part one (2008):30 (UK)

Oasis - Cactus kid / Diner (part two) - (2008) :30 (UK)

Oasis - Cactus kid / Motel (part three) - (2008) :30 (UK)

Watch the final ad inside, after the jump, folks!

Hats off to the uber-intelligent folks at 'The Economist' who have, in just two words, so eloquently captured how we are all feeling about the current state of the financial markets.

1989 British Airways Commercial - "Face": (also in the commercial archive British Airways - Bringing people together / Face - (1989) :90 (UK)) As far as I remember this was the first ever TVC with +1 miliion dollars budget. One of Maurice & Charles Saatchi masterpieces , before leaving Saatchi & Saatchi.

Today we have this by FIAT .....:

???

When you are about to have a party, you might want to let the neighbors know with a few well placed notes. When you are a brand or night-club desperate to get attention, you might hire an agency to create these hand written "sorry we're having a party" notes.

That's how we ended up with the battle of the apology flyers. Martin Schori at Dagens Media just spotted the flyer on the left the other day - it's an apology from the nightclub Ambassadeur which announces that the Ibiza famous DJ Roger Sanchez will be playing there, and to soothe any hard feelings with the neighbors there's even some earplugs attached to the note. As soon as I saw that I recalled the K-rauta "yard party" flyers from this summer. Aside from using flyers as the medium, the "we're sorry, we will be having a party" message is the same exact idea as well. Back to the drawing board kids, and while you are there thinking, contemplate what ad creep is and how annoying it can get as commercial messages gobble up the free space previously used for people rather than corporations.

vs

What does Coldplay and Juicy Fruit and Doublemint have in common? A serious case of Apple art direction envy? Have a look for yourself.

NCH, the UK’s largest children’s charity that helps the most vulnerable and excluded children achieve their full potential, is launching a revamped identity and powerful new fundraising as it re-brands to Action for Children.

As part of a multi million pound overhaul, London-based creative agency Baby Creative has devised the charity’s first advertising campaign in its 140-year history. The campaign will launch in 2009, aiming to drive awareness of what Action for Children does.

A radio ad in the UK has been banned for being too quick!.

The Vodafone radio advertisement was banned after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the 'disclaimer' was too difficult for listeners to understand as it was read very fast. You can listen to it at the BBC website

[Vodafone] contended that the radio advertising standard codes made no mention at which speed the legal terminology should be delivered.
They also said they did not believe their advertisement to be deceptive and in contravention of advertising legislation.

I think Disclaimer guy might want to step outside to have a word with the ASA. "Don't interrupt Disclaimer guy, I'm serious don't even test me, I'll bring the heavens down..."

"Zack and Miri Make a Porno" opened at the Toronto film festival last week and this poster - yes, this one on the left here - was banned because.. Well I don't even know why.

Silent Bob a.k.a Kevin Smith might just be getting his fingers slapped for putting the word "Porno" in the title here - he actually had to petition the film's rating down from NC-17 to R, and now this poster is banned by the MPAA. Whisky tango Foxtrot? The poster is humourous and fully clothed - though with two conspicuously placed heads. Is this deserving of a ban? What do you adgrunts think?

Only those who have done what is implied here might get - and if you've done it, I reckon it may be to late to save that kid with a rating. Girls are pregnant at the age of 17 - I think they might now what the woohoos and dodahs do.

I'd understand the ban if the "coming soon" was spelled differently. Puns like that are evil. ;)

This is an ad, recently awarded at a festival for new creative ideas. But I thnk I have seen it somewhere before. Can you help me and remind me where ?

Last year I worked at a place where the "creative" was limited to "Model on the left, product to the right" and every single sketch ever made had to be done in photoshop so that the myriad of people who had something to say about the layout in its infancy, could waste everyones time complaining about "the models ears being too square" because all I found was a photograph of a great face with big hair, and my lassoing away of the hair left her ears looking silly. (Yes, I had to go draw fake ears on the model for the next meeting, Seriously.)

Using pre existing photography for presentations not only locks you into working only with what already exists (and that you can find) instead of using that creative brain they hired you for - but also puts you straight into the path of copying work which is called derivative work and can get the company into serious trouble. Y'all do remember that little thing called "copyright", right?

At that job, I did what any sane AD would do, I went back to pen and paper and drew everything I had planned to be in the final layout. That's when some people turn to already perfect photography to present to their clients in meetings instead. And that is when shit like this happens.

Spotted at clayton cubitts tumblr account, where the Dexim ad is credited to BBDO Athens.

102.2 Smooth Radio has done it, FNAC vinyl & Rocketboom have done it, and now Eskils Junker Film joins the trend with their Knight Music video.

 
Dibs on calling this trend twice jumped the shark!

If you're still not bored with the album-cover-collage photo fun, dive into the Flickr LP Portraits Pool for more.

Storåkers in Stockhom were so impressed by Improv Everywhere's fantastic Frozen Grand Central that they repeated the event, except as an ad for Telia's 'new' offering of the ability pause live TV which is like, so futuristic over here in the backwaters of Europe.

Lets have a look shall we? Improv everywhere:

Telia at Stureplan, Stockholm:

The left boot is from H&M, and the skull pattern on it is created by Helena Lindholm och Nini Andersson and has been used on various items during 2006 & 2007. The boot on the right is from Wedins and showed up in their shops this April. H&M thinks that Wedins pattern is a direct copy of their own and sent warning letters to Wedins already back in April. Since they got no response on that, they went ahead and filed suit the 28th of July demanding among other things that all of the boots shall be destroyed.
Wedins response?: "It is not a copy. I think it's a bit stomach turning that H&M are filing suit when they are world famous for plagiarizing." said Mats Björkenfeldt, Wedins lawyer, to Resume.

Stockholm is currently party-town with Stockholm Pride festival in full swing. Sweden's Channel five are tagging along by showing pride-related films like Transamerica, and TV shows like "Rick and Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World". Absolut Vodka have released a rainbow colored bottle which is prominently displayed in the Swedish state operated liquor stores - but that isn't due to the Prideparty in Stockholm, instead the rainbow bottle is to celebrate that it is 30 years ago that Gilbert Baker of San Francisco designed a flag with six stripes representing the six colours of the rainbow as a symbol of gay and lesbian community pride.


Meanwhile, lots of ads are being pulled due to homophobia or offending homosexual people.


First there was that Heinz "New York deli mom" ad kiss. Or rather - peck. Mom of the house - as always making lunch bags for the kids and the hubby in the kitchen where else would mom be? - has been replaced by a stereotypical Noo Yawka deli man. When Dad is about to rush off to work without kissing the missus, Noo Yawka Deliman says "hey, aren't you forgetting something?" and there is the kiss. 200 people missed the joke and reported the "gay kiss" as offensive and "inappropriate to see two men kissing". Heinz withdrew the ad and and apologised to viewers.

While not everything in black and white makes sense - that this ad is fake fake not paid for by Guiness is dead obvious on first viewing.

Sure enough, the director explains further down in the comments that it's "just a joke". Using someone elses trademarked brand. Not a parody or anything. Hmm. Might that cause legal troubles for DESchatz?

It really isn't real. I shot the ad with no intention of sending it to Guiness because of the content. IT was meant to either make people laugh or get really disgusted. I rather people felt the former because that's why it was made. Just for fun.
Oh and it only cost $320 for the ad. My equipment, 300 for the actress, and the rest for food and a six pack of Guiness

Then DiageoMarketingCode pops in and leaves a comment:

"Please be assured that Guinness is in no way associated with this video, and has approached YouTube to have it removed. We are proud of our brand, and our commitment to responsible marketing, and this is not how we want our brand portrayed. For further information, check out our marketing code at Diageo's website."

And DESchatz defends himself:

"Please understand that this was never meant to go this far as in terms of many viewers. This isn't a legitimate ad considering the glitches of the spot. In no way or form was there though of sending the idea to Guiness. This was meant for a good laugh. It shouldn't get more serious than that."

The biggest glitch in the spot (apart from the serious brand disconnect) is the sound, it's bloody horrible. And how naive are you when you think something with sex in it won't get that many viewers on youtube?

Last weeks "duh, obviously fake" ads for Bayer's Bepanthen first aid cream have been officially named fakes by JWT who've even released an official statement about them - as if ads depicting parents roasting their babies over fire, with blowtorches or burning a la marshmallows on a stick would ever have been approved - c'mon!

The recently much debated Red Cross (youth) campaign has been pulled after a discussion with Red Cross headquarters in Geneva last Thursday. You can see the previous posts here; Red Cross campaign compares Chinese human right violations to olympic sports (16th June 2008) and a follow-up posted by the Red Cross Youth Sweden here; Red Cross Youth campaign for human rights (16th July 2008).

The campaign was first posted june 16th here on Adland, and like the (very similar) Amnesty International - After the Olympics campaign (posted 14th of March 2008) it didn't receive much attention at all, until about month later (12th July) when a new adgrunt - whole9yards - spotted something wrong with the images and left a comment about it. The photos in the campaign were shot in Nepal, and not in China.

The campaign then quickly took on a life on it's own, appearing in forums such as Anti-CNN.com, HK Yahoo.com, LKCN portal, bbs.hdpu.edu.cn, and even spawning facebook groups like this one*. For the extra curious who can't read chinese, you might find the worldlingo translator useful when trying to make out what is going on in some of those threads.

I don't know what brought on the sudden popularity of The Shining - perhaps all work and no play makes ad-Jack a dull boy?

Verizon - Dead Zones / Creepy kids :30 (USA) vs Queen Silvia's children's hospital :60 (Sweden)

You remember the Adidas "vertical football" poster from from TBWA Japan in 2004, right? See BBC news - Japan turns football on its head. It won two Gold Lions at Cannes and picked up a Grand Clio back then and was written up pretty much everywhere. It was an ad that wowed people not just in the street below but pretty much all over the world - the vertical football later became vertical soccer when they played it on a poster in Times Square New York. Yeah, you remember it, I knew you would. To think that Carlsberg in Poland doesn't, as they just did the exact same thing. The balls of these guys aye? (Movies inside folks!)

Miljöpartiet de gröna in Sweden ran a full page ad in Dagens Nyheter (morning newspaper) today highlighting the fact that money with females on it, is worth less than money with males on it - and with this they want to draw attention to the fact that women still make less money than men.

- "The salary level is a symptom on how women are valued and what position they are in at work and in soceity at large. The systematic salary discrimination of women is an explanation to that the structural inequality exists." says Esabelle Dingizian (Miljöpartiet).
"It is unacceptable with gender-based irrelevant salary differences. With our ad the topic can get more exposure."

Large ad inside folks, click on.

New York Times blog finds that Coast Magazine is doing ye old 'sincerest form of flattery' thing regarding their own Spring 2007 cover of T (left). Coast Magazine (right) July 2007 is more tanned and less juicy tomato. Looks like it's missing the bacon too. How dull.