adrants

Last week was a bit of colossal Microsoft mess wasn't it? We barely had to to pick our jaws up from the floor after seeing the Seinfeld & Gates "simple life" ads before they were yanked and replaced with the biggest "meh" testimonial ad you've ever seen.

While it looked hopeful for a moment - perhaps as Backman suggested the "Hodgman takeoff is the best idea they've had in a long time". But then Microsoft used the Hodgman PC guy from the Mac ads to make a point in the wrong way, big mistake.
There are a few rules of advertising - most which we break every day - but one you shouldn't mess with: When you are #1 in a segment you never ever mention the competition: You are not Avis, Microsoft - you are the biggest software company on the planet. Don't let some Apple-ad envy get to you. Look at other Microsoft campaigns at home to see how you do actually do some things right, even I want an X-box now (I even said so in the Metro paper) and those Zune's are looking mighty tempting too.

Lets face it, Microsoft can not make an all white clean crisp campaign like the "Mac vs PC" one for one simple reason - Microsoft is a software company. Apple is a soft+hardware company. They control the entire box. Of course you'll rarely have bugs appearing when a control freak makes sure their software runs on hardware they have chosen. Any operating system from Microsoft has to be designed for countless possibilities, and try to work on older hardware and any quirks appearing will be blamed on the software itself and not on the shit piece of hardware you bought or the fact that you need to figure out which drivers you need to make your peripherals play nice with it. Comparing Apple to Microsoft is like comparing a restaurant to a supermarket. You could in fact end up with the same dinner from both places if you had the skill set - but they are not selling the same thing. Pretending that they do has been the consistent mistake in Microsoft's advertising for years.

Then PC world reported that the 'I'm a PC' Ads were made on macs - someone get them a Pulitzer! Of course they frickin' were - they were made at an ad agency weren't they? I dare you to find a more mac-friendly environment. Macs reign supreme in the design and advertising space of the business world because way back in March 1985, the Apple LaserWriter was the first printer to ship with Adobe PostScript - so macs were the machines that ran the DTP revolution. We're a loyal bunch and as long as the Macs keep winning D&AD design awards, we will be decorating our offices with the pretty machines. But then we go home at night and play with our X-box.

The brag-gag-alific press release from Fletched Martin says:

QSR Publicity Stunt Gives Appearance that People on Billboards are “Thinking Arby’s”

ATLANTA (September 19, 2008) – Fletcher Martin, a fully integrated marketing communications agency, caught drivers’ attention during the evening rush hour in Atlanta Thursday with a unique publicity stunt.

The agency, which represents Arby’s, placed large helium balloons with the Arby’s logo near billboards that prominently featured people’s faces. The stunt gave the illusion the people on the billboard were “Thinking Arby’s” as seen in the popular television ads where the Arby’s hat appears above people’s heads.
[snip]

What a cheap way to get some attention, and Arby's was behind that? Can't buy your own media space guys? Wow, the US economy must be worse than I thought. Wonder what the people who paid to be on those billboards thought of the stunt, not to mention the billboard owners (in this case the owner looks to be CBS?). Don't get me wrong, the idea is kind of cute, it would benefit from having a "thought bubble shaped" ballon but my guess is Arby's could not afford even novelty shapes. Whenever I see big brands do cheap shit they strike me as stingy - I hope they aren't cutting corners like that when they prepare food. "Arby's, where the meat fell off the back of a truck yesterday." or "Arby's, where everyone is paid below minimum wage because we're stingy bastards", yeah that seems about right. Honestly, big brands can buy their own media and ad creep creeps people out.

"Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising."

Advertising is life made to look larger than life, through images and words that promise a wish fulfilled, a dream come true, a problem solved. Even Viagra follows Mark Twain's keen observation about advertising. The worst kind of advertising exaggerates to get your attention, the best, gets your attention without exaggeration. It simply states a fact or reveals an emotional need, then lets you make the leap from "small to large." Examples of the worst: before-and-after photos for weight loss products and cosmetic surgery-both descend to almost comic disbelief. The best: Apple's "silhouette" campaign for iPod and the breakthrough ads featuring Eminem-both catapult iPod to "instant cool" status.

"When in doubt, tell the truth."

Today's advertising is full of gimmicks. They relentlessly hang on to a product like a ball and chain, keeping it from moving swiftly ahead of the competition, preventing any real communication of benefits or impetus to buy. The thinking is, if the gimmick is outrageous or silly enough, it's got to at least get their attention. Local car dealer ads are probably the worst offenders - using zoo animals, sledgehammers, clowns, bikini-clad models, anything unrelated to the product's real benefit. If the people who thought up these outrageous gimmicks spent half their energy just sticking to the product's real benefits and buying motivators, they'd have a great ad. What they don't realize is, they already have a lot to work with without resorting to gimmicks. There's the product with all its benefits, the brand, which undoubtedly they've spent money to promote, the competition and its weaknesses, and two powerful buying motivators-fear of loss and promise of gain. In other words, all you really have to do is tell the truth about your product and be honest about your customers' wants and needs. Of course, sometimes that's not so easy. You have to do some digging to find out what you customers really want, what your competition has to offer them, and why your product is better.

Radar online has an article called: VIRAL STRAIN 2008 is shaping up to be a bad year for guerrilla advertising and even that headline bothers me. Viral and Guerilla is not even close the same thing, leave it to the ad-amateurs to get these two confused. Then the article starts with "2007 was the year when so-called "guerrilla advertising," or "viral marketing," made its national debut. " Oh puh-lease, was the writer born in 2007? Neither guerilla advertising nor viral advertising is that young, the first exposed viral campaign here is from 2000, though offline virals have been created since 1987 (for Apple mac - look it up), and guerilla advertising goes way back to the days when I was still preoccupied with learning how to walk. That's a long time ago, folks.

Number ten on their list of "crappiest viral advertising campaigns in 2008 thus far" is... Guinness good times! Yes, the fake "Orgy" advert, or should I call it "user generated"? Either way that ad is so fake fake fake that Diageo has demanded that the group sex Guinness viral should be pulled from YouTube - but as usual, users fight back and that video will never die as fans of it keep posting hundreds of copies (ignoring that useless youtube TOS - here's a tip youtube enforce your terms of service or forget about having any kthxbye).

I knew that this day would come, when ads, fake ads, and stealthy virals muddled the water so much we no longer know which is which. I even said so in Viral marketings worst nightmare - Hoaxes back in feb 2005 - related is Justin's rant The Hidden (in Plain Sight) Persuaders debate in December 2004. What is a brand to do when the brand is clearly owned by the consumer and not themselves these days? Will our jobs as advertisers switch over to pure PR, the panic kind that puts out fires from bad user generated ads and pushes the good ones further? I feel like screaming "kids, get off my lawn!". Brands are usergenerated, and if you think about it - they always were. Advertisers have only ever played with an illusion of control over a brand - like surfers on waves, it's the ocean that calls the shots not you. The sooner brands wise up to this, the better. You'll still need one mean surfer to manage to stay afloat in rough waves. Call us.

Now, the whole "spec work/portfolio work" floating around the web syndrome isn't great for the industry - you all know this don't you? We were just chatting about it in Spec work going around the web as real ads - is there any way to stop that? Should we even try? where the AD behind the outrageous Toyota Prius campaign at least credited a fake agency. But here, Sunil Sinbad seems to have found an ad produced by McCann India (according to credits) for Benetton. See Sunil's post here where he contacts Benetton to get their comment on the campaign. Benetton's spokeperson Jill explains that they had nothing to do with it, but the she adds that she hasn't asked McCann if they did it. Seriously where is your head at if you are a legit multination ad agency and you make fake ads for clients you never had? Oh, I know, in the same place as DPZ Propaganda of Brazil's a few years back. Cannes lions are that tempting.

The Benetton campaign was originally found here.

Remember that Toyota Prius campaign that Well, at least he drives a prius, right? in "spoof or homage" because it looked like a fake ad campaign to us. I said then "Who spent all this energy on doing a fake campaign I wonder"... But wonder no more - David Krulik did them and proudly displays them on his portfolio site. Krulik actually works at Ogilvy New York, where they don’t have the Prius account.

Johan Jansson at Stimulansbloggen emailed David Krulik to ask him about these ads, he got this reply.

Hi Johan,
The ads are 100% fake.
Toyota did not, nor in my estimation, would ever order these kinds of ads.
I created them for fun. And being an Art Director in advertising, they were meant only as self promotion. How this thing blew up as big as it has continues to baffles me. Hope this helps. And good luck with your blog!

(Much more inside)

Thank goodness we don't use paypal anymore, as they'd likely freak over this new Hästens ad, which looks a lot like the nude Sophie Dahl ad for Opium that got us banned from Paypal many moons ago. Pale nude red headed beauties with hands on their tits seem to freak out a lot of people as Resumé reports that the campaign, which is the most expensive one for Hästens to date, is receiving harsh reviews from the Swedish ad community as it objectifies women. Yes, we are total prudes in the land of nude beaches and free sex. Might be a bit of culture clash going on, as Hästens is a loved Swedish brand, and Barker/DZP is giving our handmade all-natural classic furniture with a 25-year warranty the sexy treatment as if the product had no history or decent selling propositions. The campaign was shot by Simon Procter, and Emma Sandsjö spokesperson for Hästens in Sweden calms us all down by saying that he's shot the woman wearing a nightie too, and that if there are strong reactions against the nude version they'll run the dressed one in Sweden. Since the nude one would in all likelihood be reported immediately to the Swedish 'ad police' ERK, that seems to be a safe move.

As a pale redhead who sleeps in the nude, I would like to announce it does not look like this when I sleep. I don't levitate as far as I know.

You can watch the making of the ad campaign on Hästens website.

You make the call after the jump:
Is this a well-done ad for a network television show
(in this case, MGM's American Gladiators on NBC),
or a sly PSA on the possible side effects of steroid use?

Have you been seeing these little things in the footer of emails recently too?

P     Please consider the environment before printing this email.

Here's the thing though, I haven't printed an email since 1997. So I have another question for you email-green-peeps. What type of electricity do you use? Are your computers on at all times? Is your companies server hosted in the cheapest possible colocation space, where you're probably using un-eco friendly electricity 24/7 all year, or have you found a green alternative? Adland is hosted at memset, a carbon neutral company, because - duh - I actually think about these things and worry about my carbon footprint which includes worrying about this servers impact on our environment. I guess what I'm saying is, next time you sent one of those silly little things out in your email, consider what that email travels through. Being green isn't only about saving paper.

My my, you must be really really naive if you thought that the Dove campaign was't a tad retouched. Of course it was, retouch includes getting better colors and removing distracting stuff such as plain old dust, seams in clothing or stray strands of hair. Still, some people find this quote from an interview with Pascal Dangin in the New Yorker a 'shocking revelation'.

I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual “real women” in their undergarments. It turned out that it was a Dangin job. “Do you know how much retouching was on that?” he asked. “But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.”