August 31, 2006

Burn baby burn

There's an amusing little article on the BBC website in which the author declares war on branded goods. In a short while, everything he owns that is branded will be chucked onto a bonfire. It's the usual story of disillusionment with capitalist society, where the brainwashed plebs are seduced by brands' empty promises.
Good luck to him, although his rapidly expanding balloon of sanctimony is in danger of being popped by some of the down-to-earth comments appended to the article, which rightly point out that instead of this fiery gesture, he should donate his branded goods to charity.
It wouldn't be a headline-grabber (Young Fella Donates All His Worldly Branded Goods To The Poor), which I suspect may be his real motive.
Gawd bless the great British public.

Tags: Culture, Violence

August 30, 2006

French lessons

You've got to envy the French their supreme confidence in celebrating the human (mostly female) body.
There's a long-standing, superb ad campaign running on the streets of Paris for lingerie brand Aubade. I wasn't aware of it until stumbling across this Flickr pic, and was puzzled by the roll of comments.
The brand appears to have achieved iconic status in France, thanks to an imaginative yet simple strategy. As brandchannel points out, each ad includes the latest lesson in the art of seducing men.
"The lessons are intended to draw women together by sharing tips on how to charm a man, but are risqué enough to appeal to men...The campaign never shows the model's face. The strategy is that the woman can better identify with the faceless body, while the ads are still sexy enough for a man to feel he is buying something special."
It's easy to see how this has succeeded: beautiful bodies combined with a humorous, intriguing message captivates the passer-by. In the second or so that it takes to process the ad, the man or woman seeing it re-engages with the brand, probably accompanied by a chuckle.

Purely in the interests of research, you may choose to examine this collection of Aubade "lessons".

Tags: Press / outdoor ads, Naughty bits

August 29, 2006

Run rabbit, run

I love ads with animals behaving in a smart-arse manner. It's an old cliche, but I am something of an old fart. This ad for Toyota's RAV4 Diesel is chuckle-worthy and, although unremarkable, conveys the idea of speed in a glance, with the doggie acting as a visual punchline.
It's just a wee bit sad that this comes just weeks after the scandal of the mass-culling of racing greyhounds came to light. I'm not generally a lover of animals (except for giraffes, of course) but I do have a soft spot for these sleek, skittish and affectionate creatures. And yet I frequently wondered why I'd seldom see retired greyhounds, despite the numbers involved in racing, and now I know.
In the fantasy world of Toyota, I hope this crafty fella caught his bunny and drove off into the sunset.

Agency: CHI

Tags: Press / outdoor ads; Motor

August 28, 2006

Everyone else is mad

Appearing hot on the heels of Eatliver's scary old ads are these even more disturbing historical curiosities from stylishnoodle's Flickr site. What brings a shiver down the spine is that these are all pharmaceutical ads, most probably aimed at the medical profession (but who knows - the rules for advertising to the plebs must have been a lot more lenient in the olden days).
Western medicine still follows the Shovel Any Old Shit Down Your Throat So Long As It Comes In A Pill doctrine, but I don't think this collection proves things were worse in the last century; only that we were more willing to see the old, children, and women portrayed as half-wits or maniacs.
Mind you, if Injectable Whole Opium were available on mail order, I'd be reaching for the stamps immediately.

Via b3ta

Tags: Press / outdoor ads; Morons

August 25, 2006

Catwoman

Here’s the half-woman-half-cat Sophie Ellis-Bextor, singer and Blue Peter love child, posing as the new face of fashion chain Monsoon. The only reason for this post is that it gives me the opportunity to rehash a favourite shite joke: Sophie Ellis-Bextor has been found head-butted to death in the hotel bedroom of a French footballer. The police say it was Murder on Zidane’s floor.
Sorry sorry sorry

Fondly remembering wanking, cocks and bum sex

Skittles has enjoyed some weird but funny US advertising (see these recent TV spots). What is probably less well known is that there were a series of terrific virals for the brand released in the UK a couple of years ago. True, they did win Bronze Lions at Cannes in 2005, but I can find little evidence outside the usual advertising circles that they ever truly went viral. Maybe they were never intended to go viral (i.e. had the minimum exposure required to gain entry to Cannes), or they simply weren’t seeded well.

I’m regurgitating these because in presentations I have given on the subject of viral advertising, they always raise a laugh. They are favourites of mine because of the simple British schoolboy humour – they appear to be normal TV ads but with a potty mouth twist – and surely deserve a wider audience.





Agency: TBWA\London

Tags: Naughty bits, Viral

August 24, 2006

Playing with your Nuts

This week’s Campaign magazine remarks how Nuts (a weekly magazine aimed at young hormone-riddled males) crows about increasing the gap between it and Zoo, its rival, despite disappointing circulation figures. These two magazines injected some life into the waning lads’ mag market a couple of years ago. The problem is that each of the monthlies (FHM, loaded, Arena etc.) at least have their own character and distinctive style, each varying the tit load and the amount of other bloke-interest articles, whereas Nuts and Zoo are virtually identical to the (uneducated?) eye.
Anyway, that’s the boring stuff out of the way. Here’s Nuts’ video, sent as a link to press buyers, with expected titillation.

Tags: Media, Sex, Viral

The chimp army in training

Now doesn’t this rank as one of the most stupidly wretched ideas ever: teaching a chimp karate? Never mind his superb array of ushi mawashi geris, it’s the fact that this is a young adult which, when fully grown, will naturally have the strength and the inclination to rip the arms off any human that pisses him off. Now he’ll be able to kick your teeth out too.
I can't wait for the day he knocks seven shades of shit out of his Catweazle-lookalike sensei.
I’ll be recruiting this fella into my ranks.


via MonkeyWatch

Tags: Chimps, Violence

Seasonal depression sets in

Oh bloody great. The first Christmas TV ad of 2006. How damn depressing.

August 23, 2006

Buying into the Beckham illusion

They live the luxury lifestyle, buy Versace and are supposedly an inspirational couple to boys and girls alike.
David and Victoria Beckham have a new range of his & her fragrances, Intimately Beckham, which is surprisingly downmarket. This page ripped from yesterday’s Sun previews the advertising for the new line of Beckham smellies and yet, at under £20 a pop, you couldn’t imagine the waning celebrity couple wearing it. In fact, you couldn’t really imagine the normally skeletal Victoria even looking like this because this isn’t actually her. The face is hers but the man-pleasing shape definitely isn’t, proving that the Beckham brand is all puff.
Nice arse, missus, whoever you are.

See also: Smell like Beckham

Those Saudis know how to have a good laugh

Here’s a cultural curiosity from Saudi Arabia. This appears to be a spoof of the Egyptian movie genre (which must mean shouty families and threatened domestic violence), obviously compulsive peak time viewing in Riyadh. It seems more fun than watching EastEnders.


Client: Domino’s Pizzas;
Agency: TMI-JWT

August 22, 2006

The only Snakes On A Plane post you'll see in this blog, ever

Via b3ta

Tags: Spoof

Old ladies’ stuff part 6

Click to enlarge

Religion and cats combine to make the perfect granny gift!
Best bit is the small print - "Limit: one plate per silly old widow." Classic.

More like this here.

August 21, 2006

I'm sold on bold fold

With the chauffeur on holiday I have had to resort to public transport for the short trip between the airfield and my country pile. Sitting in a diesel-spewing bus and lacking the patience to read, I have perfected the art of constructing micro-aeroplanes from my bus ticket.
So it was with some amusement that I note this cracking bit of ambient marketing from Liverpool: origami guides stuck on the back of bus seats. The only downside is that the website promoting the firm behind it still under construction! What a waste of a good idea.

Via Invisible Red

Tags: Ambient Gorilla

The Brentmeister returns

Microsoft apparently commissioned Ricky Gervais and his comedy partner Stephen Merchant to make these training films. Gervais appears as David Brent, his character from The Office. Brent's advice to Merchant's interviewer is unsurprisingly awful and un-PC.
I'd love to know if staff ever saw these officially.

Office Values 1
Office Values 2

Tags: Spoof, Viral

Piss off Pepsi

Unusual advertising from Denmark. Found on Flickr

Tags: FMCG, Press / outdoor ads

August 18, 2006

PJs from JC's pa

Still chuckling at Bill Green's NyQuil pyjamas, I reckon there's something even more awesome out there.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Armor of God Pyjamas
Only in America...

Via b3ta

Osama's new favourite airline

Interesting tactic from Ryanair: use the words "terrorist" and "terrorism" to get people onto your aeroplanes. This isn't a spoof. It's a full-page ad from today's Daily Telegraph.
Ryanair have a history of publishing near-to-the-knuckle press and poster ads. See this interesting article about them from BrandChannel.
There is no creative agency on their roster.

The past is a scary place

Heck, people were really screwed up in the olden days. Eatliver.com has a collection of truly odd press and poster ads from a variety of countries. Some images are disturbing, but it's fascinating to see how attitudes that were once everyday now appear completely alien.
Never mind the demented old people, dying children and happy spankings, the one true horror must be the David Cassidy poster. Euurgh.

Tags: Culture, Evil, FMCG, Press /outdoor ads

Man with Minge

For the benefit of those unacquainted with British slang, minge is another word for one of these (NSFW).

Via
Holy Moly

Tags: FMCG, Naughty bits, Online

August 17, 2006

Put your head between them and go brblbrblbrblrr


A stubble may give a man a dirty sex god look, but he's got to be careful where he puts it. Simple, obvious fun from BIC Razors, Spain (?).
The agency is most likely TBWA (who handle BIC Razors' accounts in several countries).


Tags: FMCG, Naughty bits, Sex, TV ads

August 16, 2006

Go on, have an adventure (and don't forget to buy one of our cars)

This arty cinema spot for Land Rover is a cut above most aspirational lifestyle motor ads. i.e. we’re not going to tell you about much about the car, but just look at how this brand will help you chase African wildlife / give you size-related hallucinatory experiences / shake your buttocks suggestively etc.
Some that go down this road (pun intended) work well, and some don’t.
Brands like Land Rover are having a terrible image problem: sales of 4x4 off-roaders have fallen in the UK for the first time. Owners of these cars are threatened with huge tax hikes; they have been targeted by high-street protesters and are called wankers by Greenpeace.
With this in mind, focusing on the car’s physical attributes is too much of a risk – it’s safer to help the viewer dream of exploration and adventure.
Although this will possibly result in an increase in traffic to travel agency websites, the campaign is supported by a website where people will post their own adventurous experiences. And hopefully encourage them to buy a Land Rover and piss off the townies.

Agency: Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R, Harrison Troughton Wunderman Narrated by Ewan McGregor

Tags: TV ads, Motor

Bludgeoned by bagpipe...

...after gay sex romp with laughing Scottish maniac.This extraordinary piece of advertising for a hangover cure is the brainchild of Leo Burnett, Bangkok.

Tags: Press / outdoor ads

August 15, 2006

http slash slash slash slash

Icky work from Y&R Johannesburg

Tags: Press / outdoor ads

Where size does matter

Even on the inadequate canvas of a computer screen the physical size of the sculptures of two particular artists are breathtaking.
In London, Tessa Farmer’s tiny fairy demons are on display at the Miniature Worlds Show, the prime feature appearing to be evil little fantasy figures tormenting hordes of dessicated (and real) insects. I heard her interviewed on the BBC at the weekend – she sounds a bit of a fruitcake, which I imagine must help if you’re going to create armies of little people.
Equally odd, but at the opposite end of the scale are Ron Mueck’s grotesquely oversize real-life sculptures currently drawing in the crowds in Edinburgh. Check out the sleeping woman. Weird and disorientating.

"I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do. Whereas priests... more drink?"

If I were God, then I would return from my lengthy vacation and declare a total ban on organised religion.
How depressing and sad it is to see the blind acceptance of Creationism in the UK.
With a firm foot in the Flying Spaghetti Monster camp, I shall continue to wave the holy fly whisk delivered unto me by the Great Sky Giraffe.

Title quote from Father Ted

Tags: Human behaviour

Doolittle's favourite Pushme-Pullyou

There's an old navy trick (so I'm told) whereby a sailor would carefully manicure one hand, paint the nails, and lie on the arm until lack of circulation rendered it numb. The desensitised and feminised hand would then be employed in such a way that the imaginative fellow could fool himself that he was being shandied by a woman.
Heaven knows what lurid fantasies would go through such a mind. Maybe sailor boy imagined himself as a Homeric voyager, tied to a mast while naked sea nymphs sang their siren songs from their deadly rocks. Or maybe he imagined himself frolicking with several lithe mermaids in some glowing underwater cavern.
It always puzzled me, that one about the mermaids. I mean... how do you shag a demi-fish? Do you only look at the top, womanish half and avoid the too-fishy lower bit? A more practical alternative would see the competing piscine-human biologies swapped around so that the deluded sailor would at least have a suitable cove in which to drop his anchor, so to speak.
Which brings me to this peculiar piece of work for a dating website.
Maybe Singaporeans like to take things literally. However, one could assume that there's something Siamese-twinsy going on here. Where are this strange creature's toilet bits? How does she/they get around?
Faced with such a creature, I would not know where to start. Maybe I'd have to ask a sailor.

Agency: TBWA\Singapore

Tags: Press / outdoor ads; Sex

Media blog needs to get bzzy

Heads-up for an interesting new blog. The mediawasp team aims to fire "topic-based media bullets" from its base somewhere in London. These fellas are packing some attitude. The articles are still small in number; I hope they can increase their post rate to keep interest up.

Tags: Bigging-up, Online

August 14, 2006

Your golden ticket to la dolce vita, chav-style

Here are fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, they of the heaving tits and tight corsets look, camping it up with their gold Motorola Razr V3i mobile. I’m not even sure if you can still buy one – their designer phone was launched earlier this year in a 1,000 run, worldwide, selling at the equivalent of £400 each.
This ad has been screaming its chavvy vulgarity in virtually every glossy mag and colour supplement, drawing my resentful eye.
I am now primed for being beaten about the head with a cricket bat for admitting that I’m coming round to liking it, although I wouldn’t go so far as buying this bling.
Yet that’s the point: with mobile phones being a saturated market, certainly in the UK, the only potential for growth lies in convincing us to ditch our otherwise OK handsets for something snazzier. This won’t be the first marriage between a consumer technology brand and fashion designers; there’s nothing in this ad that tells you about the quality of the phone, it’s all about style.
The ad is perfectly pitched to appeal to the young pikeys whose imagination has failed to inspire them. Their only form of self-expression is to collect something shiny and new and yet, like the magpies they imitate, their coarse voices are never employed to utter anything of interest.
And yet, like Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket, the phone's exclusivity makes it an impossible dream (unless they have a quiet word with old Mikey McPikey down the pub, who'll have some good quality fakes freshly imported from Taiwan, on sale down Peckham market at a tenner a throw, first-come first-served).
Even the txt-style name, Razr is perfect for a generation divorced from its own language.
So full marks for a piece of advertising that is compelling, simple, and desperately sad.

Agency: Ogilvy & Mather

August 11, 2006

Naughty schoolgirl mischief

Old ladies and prank calls: a combination with rich comic potential. Happily McCann-Erickson Singapore pulls this one off well.

Client: BIC

Tags: Sex, TV ads

Get your lips around this

Being of the male persuasion, it was mightily odd that I’d actually notice a tampon ad. The druggy graphics for this new Tampax spot are notable enough, but the weirdest thing is the script:

“Hey, are you feeling the joyful revolutionary power of flowers, a new feminine freedom. No? (scratch) Well (snort) it’s only the new Tampax Compak. Slightly scented. Enjoy the new Tampax Compak Fresh – the new flower power tampon. Yeeeeah!”

The voiceover is male and the delivery can only be described as leery, especially the final Yeeeeah. And “enjoy” ? Never having had my own front bottom (that wasn’t already attached to another person) I wouldn’t have imagined that word being applied to such a product.
Unless they mean tampon guns. Now you’re talking.

Agency: Leo Burnett

Tags: FMCG, TV ads

Giraffe goes wild !!!

Woah there, big fella! Major points to Dave for locating this, and for the red crayons. Sadly, it's not destined for my giraffe porn collection because the serious message behind this pic makes me want to wipe away a tear.
Poor giraffes.

Tags: Press / outdoor ads, giraffes

August 10, 2006

Virgin goes tits up

Here’s another of Virgin Money’s virals. Sticking with the cosmetic surgery theme, this time it’s not penis enlargement but breast augmentation that is used as a vehicle to persuade you to watch out for your plastic. There’s the feeling that at the heart of this ad is a good idea trying to get out, that somehow the wrong script went into production. It does at least make the first viral appear to be funny by comparison.

Tags: Viral

Get these evil bastards off the streets

Last week's manufactured media hysteria was over youngsters driving mini motorbikes, a doomed trend if ever I saw one. The craze will end as soon as these kids realise that they look right tossers cramped over machines built to Action Man scale. Frankly, I'd rather have to dodge a tearaway riding me down on one of these than in a joy-ridden souped-up VW Golf nicked from outside the local chippie. I might even collapse, laughing at the eejit.
Yes, here was another politician laying into the motorised young, a demographic that has no voice, so this is an easy vote catcher.
If "Doctor" (a title that goes against protocol if your phd isn't in medicine) John Reid had any balls, he'd be pursuing the real menace on our streets, one of whom collided with me at the weekend.
I'm talking about mobility scooters ridden by pensioners.
As far as I can determine, the only deaths involving mini motorbikes have occurred when the numbskulls riding them go head-first into lamp posts, minus helmets. Darwinism in action, one might venture.
Mobility scooters on the other hand are responsible for a multitude of mischiefs. There is one self-inflicted death on the record, when some old grannie reversed over the end of a pier into the sea. We've seen a ramraider, several hospitalised pedestrians, and at least one death (caused by some old git running down his victim in a mobility scooter that had been painted in Ferrari colours).
I won't tell you what I shouted at the old fucker who grazed my heel, but he's a regular on our street and treats his scooter like a weapon. They're supposed to drive at 4 mph on pavements.
4 mph my arse.
You can bet your life that this menace won't be targeted by vote-happy politicians on an anti-yob crusade. There'd be an outcry.
Rant over.

Tags: Media, Morons, Politics

August 09, 2006

The BBC's resident grumpmeister

Shuffling into town with two smaller members of the troop, I was persuaded to finish off the day in London by taking them into one of the big Leicester Square cinemas to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2.
I wasn't disappointed because I had been expecting crap, and crap was what I got. Chimplet #1 opined that it was fun, but said it presaged the death of narrative cinema (not in those words, exactly), and Chimplet #2 thought that the scary bits were great although, one hour later, he couldn't remember what the story was.
If only they had listened to Dr. Kermode.
Now, I'm happy to say that I'm one of the 2 million regular podcast downloaders identified by Rajar last week.
One of the BBC's surprise podcast hits is its Friday afternoon film review. The reviewer is a reconstituted teddy boy with a doctorate in filmology, a diploma in cynicism, and a quiff protected by the National Trust. Even better, this unlikely fellow deeply loathes Harry Knowles (wheezy so-called Voice Of The People whose reviews supposedly has Hollywood quaking in its boots with his lazy website's "hey, dude" manner of delivery that barely qualifies as English).
I don't suppose that the BBC's Mark Kermode is alone in panning the latest Pirates movie. A few weeks ago, this film was the subject of one the grumpmeister's longest and most memorable rants. Since then, he has regularly implored listeners to avoid seeing it, and has despaired at the public's willingness to pour money into Hollywood's pockets when its films are so unbelievably crap.
The problem is that we're hardly spoilt for choice, and being told that something's worth avoiding is often the spur to get people to do the opposite.
So apologies to the good doctor. You were right.

August 08, 2006

Ryanair: cheeky monkeys or rip-off merchants?

Apparently, Saatchi & Saatchi's poster for the 1979 general election was dreamt up, designed and churning off the presses within 24 hours. This was the poster that booted out Labour and ushered in Maggie Thatcher's Conservative government.


Ryanair have been hauled up before the ASA for so many crimes against advertising that somehow it's unsurprising that they (sans agency) have not only copied Saatchi's idea, but have cut & pasted the queue from the original.


Maybe that's the point. Cheap and cheeky advertising for a budget airline. The big airlines aren't working etc. etc. etc.
You've got to laugh, I suppose.

August 07, 2006

Bottoms up for Accrington Stanley

This little bit of advertising history was featured several times on British TV this week, not during the commercial breaks, but as a sports feature.
As the new football season slowly kicks off amongst the lower leagues, many eyes were on a tiny northern club that was playing its first game in the lowest professional division for over 40 years.
The improbably-named Accrington Stanley was the butt of this Milk ad back in 1989. The ad’s undoubted charm derives from the undisguised accents of the two little scallywags’ banter; for a while “Exactly”, delivered in a broad scouse accent, became a school playground catch phrase.

Tags: TV ads

August 04, 2006

Time to eat, fattie

A brilliant outdoor idea from Leo Burnett in the USA: a sundial that points to a different breakfast item each hour. To the easily persuaded (which I guess includes everyone who walks through their doors), this may seem like a suggestion that you should shove a McDonald’s down your throat every 60 minutes until lunchtime, after which your salt rush would have you gasping for a Stella Artois, an ad for which sits happily alongside.
All jolly healthy stuff.

More on this here

Spotted in Campaign

Tags: Press / outdoor ads

Guard dog on teddy bear rampage

Hundreds of teddy bears. One dog. Dave on tranquilisers.

Tags: Dave

August 03, 2006

My granny told me: eat up your fucking breakfast

No apologies for the swearing, because I’m just keeping in the spirit of these live-“action” virals promoting the new Reservoir Dogs video games by Eidos. Although quaintly amusing to see grannies and kiddies let rip with their potty mouths, I can’t help but think it’s been done before, and better.
There is the famous VW Bollocks viral, of course. And sweary old ladies quoting Tarantino scripts have been on the telly before.


Tags: Viral

How to get beaten up in London

August 02, 2006

Bob Dylan will be spinning on his sofa

Maxell cassette tapes copied the idea behind Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues video in a couple of TV ads in the early 1990s. They at least had some integrity, the cue-card idea proving an amusing prop which was relevant to the brand message and to the medium itself. After all, you wouldn’t want Dylan’s lyrics to be muffled by a poor quality tape when cruising down the Old Kent Road, would you?
Now that the old folk rebel is in his mid-sixties, he is probably partial to carpet slippers and a fluffy cat, but God forbid that he’d be relaxing on a DFS sofa. I cannot explain it, but every time I see this ad I feel like chucking a large item of furniture at the TV.

Agency: PWLC

Ruling from the shadows

Congratulations for being a reader of impeccable taste. Your fine eye for ad and media scatology has helped keep CMM News in the Top 25. It's bloody hard work (thank heavens for the DIY lobotomy that is Big Brother, which gives me the perfect excuse to lock myself away from the Simian Empress and compose the next day's posts).
Holy cow, if the big cheeses on the top floor knew their basement troglodyte had got himself onto BMA's ranking, I'd be soooooo fired.
My blogroll contains my own idea of essential reading, but to the other bloggers who assume the mantle of anonymity, I say: more power to your elbow.
My particular cloak & dagger faves are copyranter (for providing a consistently amusing stream of justified vitriol), Northern Planner (for occasional off-topic diversions sprinkled amongst the regular fascinating nuggets; and he's from Up North), Scamp (a surprisingly sane voice of copywriting who seems to blag some good freebies e.g. Cannes and lunch with Gordon Ramsay) and Why Advertising Sucks (where sweariness hides some deep convictions - I'd hate to get on the wrong side of these guys).
I'm sure there must be tons of other ad bloggers out there. It's too time consuming to go through other blogrolls searching for other gems, especially when they lead outside the admosphere. This is why Mack Collier's BMA list is so useful. How about a monthly top 50 list?
And what other ways are there to get to see the newbies?

Tags: Ad industry, Bigging-up, Online

August 01, 2006

Fluffiness and mutilation await you in the cartoon forest

Fluffy cartoon creatures are at last forcing a backlash against the cuteness their animators have foisted on us since the early days of Disney. Taking a leaf out of the Happy Tree Friends book, we see cuddly bears act in a way that will make you treat the Charmin bears with suspicion. The violent goodness, Happy Entrails, comes courtesy of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners who are suggesting that the snazzy Stumpjumper mountain bike is a little hardier than the softies who ride them.
Equally amusing is a little OJ-style police chase video, Outlaw in Lycra, in a second spot that will have its adventurous audience jumping with glee.
Watch the virals here.

See also: Sinister car viral not for teddy bears

Tags: Viral

Housework? I’d rather jump off a tall building

This astounding (in a "WTF!!!" kind of way) piece of work originated from Lowe’s Shanghai office. I can’t recall the last time anyone used attempted suicide to advertise a consumer durable.

Tags: TV ads

Life-affirming charity spots

It was interesting to note the reactions of people at a staff meeting a few months back when I showed these Brazilian cancer charity ads. Reactions were split evenly along gender lines: the women found the Girl In Shower spot very moving, and yet the men were virtually overcome by the Little Boys.
Don’t let that put you off: they are strangely upbeat, despite their emotional weight. Rough translation of the first ad: "All you have to do is believe in a cure"; for the second: "Everyone needs strength to beat Cancer. We need strength too."

Charity: Fundacao Mario Penna
Agency: MG Comunicao

Tags: TV ads