So, remember Heinz’s “gay” commercial that caused that big stink, nearly gave Bill O’Reilly a coronary and ended up getting yanked? If not, we’ve included it above.
Anyway, Britain’s advertising authority announced today that they will not be investigating complaints:
After a Coca-Cola spot airing before the American Idol finale, television advertisements from Dominos Pizza, Topps Major League Baseball Cards, E-Trade, General Mills, and the movies You Don’t Mess with the Zohan and Sex and the City were, according to TiVo data, among the least fast-forwarded through in May, a category otherwise known as “just tolerable enough.” [TVD]
Republicans Larry Craig and David Vitter made headlines last week after cosponsoring a Senatorial act “protecting” marriage from the vile homosexual beasts.
This is hilarious, of course, because the men both had extramarital excursions last year. Seizing the absurd moment, Patriot Boy mocked up these faux ads mocking the hypocritical politicians.
Brilliant!
Harper’s Bazaar is v. v. excited about the new fragrance from Estée Laude, Sensuous. So excited that they’ve booked Gwenyth Paltrow, the face of Sensuous, for the cover (considered a major get!) and dedicated 40 – four zero – pages to Paltrow as well as Elizabeth Hurley, Carolyn Murphy and Hilary Rhoda, who also, in their off time, collect fees as the faces of Sensuous. Critics might say that there’s some sordid pay-for-play advertising/editorial deal going on at Bazaar, but that’s nonsense! After all, do you see an ad from Estee Lauder in the magazine? Nooooo! And the magazine said in a statement, “Like many magazines, we often feature celebrities to coincide with their beauty and fashion launches.” Obviously, “coincide” does not refer to some outlandish sponsorship deal set up by the publisher, but a pure editorial decision that gives readers what they want: beautiful women in a magazine. CONTINUED »
Those annoying advertisements that are taking over the lower-third — and, lately, lower-half — of your television screen don’t just piss off you, the viewer. They’re also obnoxious for the talent behind the camera, whose programs they so often interrupt.
Sure, you really only have yourself and your DVR to blame for these invasive promos, which came about when the networks realized you weren’t watching their 30-second spots anymore. But lately, what were once perfectly acceptable “snipes,” as they’re called, have ballooned from innocent logos and timeslot alerts to full-fledged animated flames, screeching tires, and yes, talking heads — the most egregious recent example being Bill Engvall’s “pausing” of Family Guy while he delivered an obnoxious plug for his own terrible comedy.
So what’s a late night host to do? CONTINUED »
This week MTV announced it was repealing its policy against accepting political advertisements, with the stipulation any spots they accept must come from candidates or their parties, and not those sleazy 527 groups. Barack Obama is said to be first in line with an ad buy — but a report from 2006 says another senator already beat him to it. CONTINUED »
They’re here! And definitely queer. That’s right, ladies and gents, it’s time once again for non-profit Commercial Closet’s Image in Advertising Awards, which celebrate positively homo inclusion in marketing and commercial ventures.
This new ad for Old Spice Body Wash is supposed to send the message that using this product will make you feel more manly. And it would. Except for one obvious defect: The Centaur washing himself? Showering naked here, it’s clear he’s missing one obvious manly attribute. (Yes, we went there.)
Maybe Don Imus’ latest racist flap isn’t attracting the outcry last year’s “nappy-headed hos” remark did because there are fewer people to cry out to. In this type of situation, the infuriated classes have two people to sound off to: The broadcasters who carry his show (his new five-year $40 million gig is through Citadel Broadcasting and Rural Media Networks) and the advertisers who pay to reach his audience.
Except every since losing his old gig and finding new partners, his reach has slid; he no longer averages the 2.25 million listeners per week he did with CBS Radio. But more importantly, the advertisers who fund his operation – which reaped $20 million a year to CBS’ WFAN flagship, plus $20 million collectively to other affiliates – are nowhere to be found. CONTINUED »
Is it gay or European? CONTINUED »
Are we really going to have to “thank” right-wing zealots like Bill O’Reilly for getting Heinz to yank a mayo ad featuring two dudes kissing? Perhaps. After just a week of airing the ad on British television, the ketchup company has removed the spot — and apologized for it. Heinz has said the ad – where a busy working father rushes his kids off to school, then kisses the (male) cook in the kitchen who prepared their lunches – which wasn’t even supposed to be gay themed; the guy making the sandwiches was supposed to represent a New York deli man, not a house-husband.
But then Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority received 200 complaints about the ad, which mostly outlined how inappropriate it was to show two fellas smooching on national TV. “It is our policy to listen to consumers,” kowtowed a Heinz UK spokesperson. “We recognise that some consumers raised concerns over the content of the ad and this prompted our decision to withdraw it.” Nevermind that the ad was already banished from children’s programming because Heinz Deli Mayo violates a “no products high in fat, salt and sugar” mandate.
And forgive us for noticing the double standard here: While an ad that benignly portrays two men kissing gets booted from the airwaves, an ad like Snickers’ spot from the 2007 Super Bowl, which adds a negative implication about two men kissing, is just fine to air. (In the U.S. at least.) Highlighting aspects of a gay household: bad. Demeaning aspects of a gay household: OK.
View the Heinz ad below. CONTINUED »
The advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi won a Cannes Bronze Lion this week for this 60-second J.C. Penny spot. So very clever, viewers concluded! The ad, which features a teen boy and girl timing themselves as they get dressed and undressed, then lying to the girl’s parents about what they planned on doing in the basement, might, to some, encourage teen sex. Racy! Which is why, in fact, J.C. Penny never approved the ad — and expected it to die on the cutting room floor. It didn’t, and S&S submitted it to Cannes. Now, execs at the retailer are, supposedly, furious over the spot and the attention its getting, which is the reaction any responsible mega-corp would need to have. Except if said execs are actually any good at their job, they’re going to put their feet on their desks and congratulate themselves over the endless brand impressions they received from all the free publicity and their ability to come across as hip to the teen market they so desperately court, all while maintaining deniability.
People working in the advertising industry enjoy watching, talking about, and imitating the show Mad Men. This is interesting because while people working in the magazine industry enjoy watching and talking about the show Ugly Betty, they do not enjoy imitating it. [NYT]
The newspaper industry succeeded at beating last year’s revenues. Errr, revenue declines, that is. In 2007 the industry saw ad revenues slide 8 percent; this year they’re on par for a 12 percent drop. Congratulations publishers!
If it makes you feel any better, across the media spectrum at the TV networks — who’ve seen their ratings plummet by double digits as viewers move to cable channels, video games, and Facebook — managed to beat last year’s upfront sales with more than $9 billion in sales.
That the two industries are working with opposite logic signals one thing, which isn’t particularly top secret: Advertisers continue to believe in television as an influential way to reach consumers, and they’ve all but abandoned hope in newspapers to do that.
We’ve spent many instances of clicking “publish” discussing viral marketing or, as it’s known in some circles where buzzwords don’t annoy, “murketing.” From Levi’s uploading a video to YouTube featuring young people jumping into pants to LG’s not-exactly-secret-but-very-creepy spot for its Secret phone, the trend of paying very little for a video spot that reaches a much wider audience than a TV spot ever could is a growing one.
Auto maker BMW and its agency GSD&M understood this quite well, which is why they spent a few bucks on a five-day shoot to produce a half-hour mockumentary, in the style of This Is Spinal Tap, about a Bavarian’s town attempt to launch a new BMW 1 Series, via ramp, from Germany to the United States.
When the clips began popping up in February, it wasn’t long before most everybody called bullshit on them, and linked the spots, part of a campaign called “Rampenfest,” to BMW. The car company, however, refused to acknowledge it was behind the project. More so, they even went the additional step and “created a Web site for the fictional events planner, Franz Brendl, and the fictional Bavarian town of Oberpfaffelbachen. Several characters, including the faux film maker, got their own Facebook profiles.”
Now, the Wall Street Journal issued a postmortem on the stunt, which argues BMW could’ve faced significant backlash for its unconventional – though, these days, all too conventional – attempt at reaching younger consumers, by refusing to own the spots when they were found out. CONTINUED »
How long until the Parents Television Council summons a firestorm for over this “viral” spot for LG’s new Secret phone? In the ad, a good-looking creep peeks out from his apartment window to capture, using his chic new Secret phone, a lovely sleeping lady next door, who just so happens to be wearing a revealing nighty that she squirms around in. Sure, it’s ends up being – spoiler alert! – a dream sequence, but this is the sort of thing they build Law & Order: SVU episodes around.
Click below for LG’s less stalker-y alternative clip for their phone. CONTINUED »
How did fans react to the public unveiling of David Beckham’s new Emporio Armani underwear campaign? You’re looking at it. The bulging soccer star, who was on hand to sign photos of his package, appears in a giant billboard, a half-dozen stories tall, on Macy’s store in San Francisco’s Union Square. But this photo doesn’t give the real manufactured pandemonium. That’s below. CONTINUED »
Because nobody else will. The designer’s ad campaign with fembot Victoria Beckham was praised, by Vogue, as being “brave” for allowing Ms. Beckham, somebody so controlling of her image, to step into a giant shopping bag while being photographed. Eh, says the Daily Mail’s Liz Jones: “Hmmm. To me, these pictures sum up exactly what is so very wrong about ‘high’ fashion. A small group of people - stylists, photographers, hairdressers, make-up artists, designers - are, I’ve come to the conclusion, having a great deal of fun, and making a great deal of money at our expense. These people do a very skilled and persuasive job: they bully us into buying more stuff.”
This advertisement, airing in the UK and promoting Sure Girl deodorant, was yanked form airwaves when the Advertising Standards Authority there received 21 complaints.
Viewers weren’t upset about young girls dancing to a sexually provocative Pussycat Dolls song — they were upset the girls were dancing in an old VW van without seatbelts.
Nevermind that Unilever insisted the ad was filmed in a stationary van, and that the movement of the vehicle was from the girls dancing. Because who doesn’t climb into the back of their parents VW while it’s sitting in the garage to bust out to some pop singles?
The standard tricks of political ads are no secret: Black-and-white imagery conveys negative associations, as does slow-motion video that makes people look like sloth-y monsters. Numbers, whether percentages or dollar amounts, included in mostly unqualified statements, convey the idea that something is factual, whether positive or negative. Smiling people surrounding a candidate conveys happiness, good times, and generally congenial thoughts. Close-ups on faces convey ugliness. Oh, and fear!
So now that the secrets of overpaid media consultants are in the public domain, why not utilize those tricks en masse?
That’s what do-it-yourself ad agency Spot Runner is doing. Normally accustomed to getting your auto repair shop some TV commercial time for just $500 per spot (that’s the cost of the creative, not air time), the cut-and-paste service is moving into the political arena, using those tried and true tactics for any public office hopeful.
That Spot Runner gets to call its service a “democratization” of media only helps its transition into political advertising. After all, don’t Americans want everything to be more democratic? Below, watch the service get taken for a test drive. CONTINUED »
Editorial Director
