Badland

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.

I'm getting sick of these fake stunts posted to youtube that are secret little ads, aren't you? People hopping into jeans, climbing to catch baseballs, and now making impossible dunks for Nike. Perhaps it's because all I can hear in my head when I see it is Larry Bird & Michael Jordan saying "Nothing but net"* and then I get a wild craving for a Big Mac - even though I know that special sauce ain't nothing but thousand island dressing. Must dash and gorge on fatty burger now folks.
(*from McDonald's - Larry Bird / Michael Jordan - The Showdown (1993) - 0:60 (USA))

By now, you've heard:

Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube, a US court has ruled.

(BBC)

Viacom wants the data to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created videos, which could be used to increase Google's liability if it is found guilty of contributory infringement.

(Wired)

I wonder how long it will take before some ad agencies ask Google turn over the IP#'s to try and prove that other ad agencies 'stole' their drumming Gorilla ad ideas in order to get even the tiniest whiff of a Grand Prix Lion. ;)

You'd think it couldn't be done, the "Lowering of dignity" bit that is, but the annoying ringtone with the equally annoying ad from Peach mobile which shows president Robert Mugabe as a caged gorilla has been canned. Peachmobile protested, saying that they had a constitutional "right to mock Mugabe because he is a despot." (From The Times: ‘Racist’ ringtone advert banned)

The ASA found, "... the respondent is infringing on the rights of Robert Mugabe by portraying him in an offensive an undignified manner and as such the commercial is demeaning and lowering Robert Mugabe's dignity. A hypothetical reasonable person would be offended on viewing the commercial as it unnecessarily and intentionally demeans Robert Mugabe."

The ASA ordered that the commercial be withdrawn immediately.

It's not quite the aftermath of Cannes Lions without a lot of "Hey, I saw that in [mention obscure source and year]". So here's the required "Cannes prix is a copy" - TBWA Singapore did a campaign for Nickelodeon back in 2005 with the line "Keep them entertained. Or else." That idea sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Posse from TBWA:
Creative Directors: Marcus Rebeschini, Robert Kleman

Did I get your attention? Good. Lets get ready to gossip!

The silver Lion winning has turned out to be yet another scam ad in the prestigious Cannes award. The same award show that way back in 2001 was saying that scam ads shall not win and that they'd take extra precautions to prevent that (we all know this didn't happen). The suspect is again Ogilvy, Mumbai - and at the risk of never getting another ad from them nor all of India submitted to the commercial archive again - they were doing this as far back as 2001 when four Cannes winners were reported as scam ads. (Yes this here adblog is tres old people.)

The awesome "Tension" film with it's extra tense banging storytelling is a fake ad - says not one, but three little Indian birdies to me. "Fake" by way of never actually airing, that is. I hear gossip like this all the time, but without meat to link to it sadly gets rather weak, since it's all hearsay.

Have no fear, Dabitch is here!

Seems there's an interesting trend in making people super heroes these days. You're a hero for turning off the water, or turning off the power. You're a local hero if you volunteer to help others like in this incredibly cheap (50 quid!) Scottish campaign. You are a hero if you water your lawn at the right times, say the WWF via Ogilvy in South africa (they also did the stickers campaign linked earlier).

And now, via BBDO for United Way of Chicago, you are a hero for volunteering your time again.

The super hero thing is kinda getting too much play these days innit? If you get one of those ideas, consider another route. You're never going to be able to do it cheaper than that Scottish campaign anyway, so don't even try. ;)

Remember the Luxor Highlighters campaign from Leo Burnett Mumbai? Yes, it even won a nice shiny Gold Lion at the Cannes awards in press. Well, there's another campaign out there depicting dictators on newsprint, albeit doing the opposite, blacking out instead of highlighting. I just found the visual similarity amusing.

I'm catching up on my Badlanders. Here's a triple-lazer swords poster collection.

I thought the Chrysler 300C STR8 = Fast , Ambient posters from Brazil were made of plastic because I was thinking of the concept idea semi-transparent resin billboard for Mustang. (which is a portfolio piece not a real ad)

They're not plastic though, like the Volkswagen R32 ads, they're photos of the background, blurred.

Burger King, Carl's Jr/Hardees, and Pizza Hut. If you thought the candid camera concepts were going to stop at fast food brands, you were wrong. So very wrong. Mazda and VW are two more brands following up on the seemly "hot" trend for 2008. And, it's only June. Who knows how many others we'll see by the end of the year. ;)

Volkswagen – VW – Actual Customers (2008):30 (USA)

Remember the WWF "hot water" cups that were given away at the important United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali last December? You poured hot water in them and the the graphic of the world’s land mass vanished under the rising sea.

For better or worse, YouTube videos has really influenced advertising and pop culture as a whole. It's like The World's Funniest Home Videos....on demand. Here's a commercial that takes the popular human slingshot video to new heights.

I don't know why Clay is so preoccupied with perfumes recently, but he just wondered aloud if anyone knew how cumming the fragrance was selling. And that reminded me that we have yet another Sophie Dahl nude Opium perfume spoof to add to our lists - though the recent Hästens luxury bed campaign is probably not trying to be a deliberate homage. Shame it wasn't in color though. :)

Earlier this year, Yum Brands Pizza Hut launched it's new pasta offering by setting up a fake restaurant named Tuscani, serving their new pasta and then video taping the diner's reactions when they told them it was pasta from Pizza Hut. Superadgrunts see one of the ads below:

CKE's Carl's Jr and Hardees have this week launched a new campaign with the same the same fake restaurant idea. The ad campaign "Fake Restaurant" fooled consumers into thinking that the expensive burger they just ate was worth $14 or $20 when it actually came from the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's chains. Just like the Pizza Hut campaign, it captures on hidden camera the experiences of customers who believed they were eating expensive burgers at a fancy restaurant. Mendelsohn|Zien created the concept and a series of 30-second spots started airing Tuesday in Hardee's markets, and will begin airing in Carl's Jr. markets on June 22.

As much as I hate this song, I love the idea of the video. Perform in front of CCTV cameras, request the footage via the Data Protection Act, edit together = presto, neat video.

It was just a matter of time, wasn't it?

Italy's advertising watchdog, the Institute for Advertising Self-Discipline (IAP), has banned Tom Ford Eyewear ads from national media. A close-up photo of a woman wearing the brand's sunglasses with a man's finger in her mouth was deemed by IAP to be "markedly vulgar" and, as such, it "transcends the limits of simple bad taste and offends the sensibility" of viewers. In addition, the committee believes the "scene evokes an offending and abusive act against women, which degrades the dignity of the person." IAP also said the sexual innuendo and provocative edge are part of a campaign based on these kinds of images, noting that the brand's Web site itself describes the spring-summer campaign photos as "sexually explicit." Vincenzo Guggino, general secretary at IAP, said the images were banned after publication last month in three magazines, including Italian Vogue. "Fashion companies very rarely present their ads for inspection before they appear in the media," said Guggino. "Our mission is to promote better and more acceptable communication." .

From: wwd.com

Here are at your attention two creative visions:

When I saw this Hormel spot today, all I could say was D'OH!

Here's a Badlander sure to amuse, and horrify, all ye adgrunts out there. No, not because there's a scary mummy in the ad, and not even because the mummy in the ad is played by one of the adgrunts here who did the ad - but because there's been yet another a case of recycling the ad image not approved by anyone.

Original: Shot in Egypt starring adgrunt HaHaSoup as the mummy