Smoke Break #880: Finnish Law Firm Asks If Licking A Popsicle Is Sexual Harrassment
October 4, 2011
Well, that’s entirely arguable. AdWeek: “Sometimes a Popsicle is not just a Popsicle — as in this spot about sexual harassment from a lawyers’ group in Finland. It’s probably NSFW — although I guess that’s the question the spot is asking.” We’re on the fence here in the office, so we’re watching it again…
Cool Thing We Want #286: Every Single Word From “A Clockwork Orange” On One Poster
July 14, 2011
Sure it’s just an ad (for a New Zealand bookseller), but we want it just the same…
EVERY COOL THING WE WANT
Smoke Break #772: Knowing How To Sell To Every Generation…
November 24, 2010
A Brazilian market research company produces a slick magnum opus of a promotional video that weaves through several generations of youth in order to make sense of seducing the newest group of kids. It’s hardly a revelatory notion, but as Christmas approaches it’s worth remembering that we’re being meticulously examined, distantly understood and secretly sold to at all times by people in Brazil. Watch your backs.
Smoke Break #761: Books Fall As Dominos In Cool Bookstore Spot
October 26, 2010
It’s not everyday that you see a television ad for a bookstore. Rarer still is marketing from a company that sells used stock. So of course it’s going to be good…
Smoke Break #749: “Ad Freak” On New British Cider Campaign…
September 25, 2010
My daily dose of Ad Freak ended up with coffee coming out of my nose…
A clumsy oaf fumbles around for a late-night snack in a dark kitchen and winds up with a bottle of Frosty Jack’s Cider shoved up his butt. Then his hot girlfriend walks in. Who writes this stuff, Hemingway?
Smoke Break #742: On “Ad Freak” Taking A Turn For The Violent
September 3, 2010
AdFreak is a great site for marketers and adsacks to stay ahead of the water cooler curve of what’s new in their immensely bizarre world. Sometimes, however, they go off the reservation. Their take on this Campari advertisement is a case in point.
Yeah, these self-absorbed scenesters are in no hurry at the local hotspot. They can wait forever for the camera to flash and for those cocktails suspended in mid-air to spill on the floor. The tinkly ambient music, so annoying in other ads, fits perfectly here, lending the tableaux an extra icy aural dimension. Best of all, by standing completely still, these jerk-wad Euro-trash hipsters are sitting ducks for crazed gunmen who might want to mow them all down. C’mon, gunmen…those tools are just standing there!
Unnecessary, sure, but I suppose if I had to view ads like that every damn day, 100 times a day, my fantasies would get the better of me, too.
Smoke Break #728: Yes, Bottled Mineral Water Is Nasty, But…
July 13, 2010
Dita von Teese is the new spokeswoman for Perrier. I am no longer still, just sparkling.
“The Universal Food Chopper & A Few Of The Things It Chops”
July 4, 2010
Before the slap chop, and when food advertising was less subtle…
Smoke Break #717: Greenpeace Releases World Cup Guilt Trip
June 22, 2010
via Ad Freak:
It’s bad enough that Greenpeace is a pine needle in the ass and fishhook in the eye of hard-working loggers and whalers worldwide. (Loggers and whalers breaking the law? As if!) Now, the environmental group is exploiting the World Cup with the Australian spot below, which claims, “Every two seconds an area of forest the size of a football pitch is being cut down.” What’s their point? No endangered species inhabits a football pitch, unless you count the U.S. national team. The graphic in the spot shows green match-head trees covering a soccer field. They’re set ablaze, and flames engulf the goal.
