From afar, I thought these were scans from Hello! Magazine. Moving past the layout, I quickly found the candid takes of “Mum and Dad” to be anything but the stuff of celebrity rags.

Flickr was all it took to capture the kindred, unpretentious vibe for National Express East Coast‘s holiday advertisements. Most everyone could relate to these pictures. Except by showing Prince Harry escaping to and fro Grandmum and Dad in London, they’re as universal as they could get.

This is a train operator deigning to a populace who needs it. Nothing proves that than advertising bargain fares in the midst of trying times. In a recession not seen since 1947, economists are waxing pessimistic over the British Isles as much as they do over the US.

The generous company at hand, National Express East Coast, was franchised to the National Express Group of transport services only last year. GNER originally operated the coveted East Coast train service, which covers 920 miles and annually conveys 17 million passengers in the UK. All in all, National Express Group runs 2,301 trains every day. Combined with its diverse transport services, National Express Group accounts for one billion trips a year, globally.

Discount trips to Scotland couldn’t come at a better time. New Year’s Day, if nothing else, means the most to the Scots, who celebrate it with such hedonistic sanguinity.

Over time, New Year’s Day in Scotland came to be called Hogmanay. The celebration either derived from Viking custom or the fact that Scots hadn’t been able to observe Christmas for four centuries. In the latter sense, pent-up joy could only burst forth at New Year’s Day.

In Edinburgh, Hogmanay is four days of unadulterated revelry. It just kicked off the other day with a traditional Torchlight Procession, wherein people create a stream of fire across the Royal Mile, to consummate in a fiery blaze atop Calton Hill.

Hours from now, it’s the city’s world-famous Hogmanay Street Party. Like every other year, on the strike of twelve, party-goers kiss everybody else and break into a rendition of Robert Burns’ “For Auld Lang Syne,” amidst coruscating laser and fireworks.

Tonight’s festivities will see Groove Armada, Paolo Nutini, and Friendly Fires playing in Princes Street Gardens. Meanwhile, ceilidh bands will take over East Princes Street. Peatbog Faeries and Attic Lights will also be in the city too, among other acts.

We’re on the cusp of a new year already. Wherever time zone you are, StillAd wishes you a happy 2009!

Advertising Agency: Dentsu London, UK
Creative Director: Andy Lockley
Art Director: Andy Preston
Copywriter: Joe Williams
Photographer: Flickr
Designer: Winston Archer
Published: December 2008

Rate this Ad  Loading ...

Free Subscription

eMail Subscription

Tweet This

By and large, this advertisement has to be the most in tune with the season. The copy did what writing “Merry Christmas” in flashy laser and neon couldn’t: spreading the light.

Depicted herein are DQ flashlights, casting light on speeches made by four of the most altruistic people to walk the earth. The timeliest, on account of the US presidential election, may have to be the one given by civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. On August 28, 1963, before a multitude of 250,000 at Washington DC’s Lincoln Memorial, King uttered “I have a dream.” He dreamt of a world sans racial discrimination, and now it’s come to this.

He must have been dreaming of Barack Obama’s momentous election, or Beyonce sashaying on MTV just like any blonde girl. Sadly, King didn’t live long to see these happen. Five years after his famous speech, King was assassinated.

Leading to that, King had to contend with arrests and death threats, but he never got to resorting to violence, in the vein of the original pacifist, Mahatma Gandhi. Both share many parallels so it’s only apt both should end up on the same print ads.

Gandhi blazed the trail of resistance based on “noncooperation and nonviolence,” as the copy goes. The speech reprinted in the ad was made on the same year Gandhi started peaceful protests against British rule in India, ultimately paving the way for the country’s independence. He wasn’t as successful with ending the ancient strife between Muslims and Hindus though, and he paid with his life for it.

Good thing then that Mandela did not share their fate. Somehow he embodies King’s dream, only that it was realized in South Africa, not the US. For a bit of history, Nelson Mandela is that nation’s first black president, symbolizing the end of “apartheid” or racial segregation there. The ad contains a transcript of the speech he gave during his inauguration on May 10, 1994.

No talk of righteousness is complete without the heretofore Living Saint, Mother Teresa. DQ pays homage to this saintly woman by printing her Lecture upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1979. Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, Mother Teresa felt the plight of India’s destitute and dying, such that she dedicated her whole life in their service.

Righteous light, it’s the most devilishly divine sales pitch yet. When you get past these ads, you’re going to need the flashlights, partly because it’s a wintry night out there, but mostly because you’ll be inspired to cut through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Advertising Agency: Firstell Communications, Shanghai, China
Creative Director: Murphy Chou
Art Director: Murphy Chou, Kens Cao
Copywriter: Murphy Chou, Yanli Song

Rate this Ad  Loading ...

Free Subscription

eMail Subscription

Tweet This

A hot planet would be a cold place.

Working under the world’s most powerful woman, Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety is the organization responsible for crafting and managing Germany’s environmental policies. The ministry, otherwise known by its German title, Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit (BMU), was created in June 1986 to consolidate the country’s growing environmental interests. It manifests itself as three federal agencies, the main one being the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, headquartered in Bonn. The others, the Federal Environmental Agency and the Federal Office for Radiation Protection, are based in Berlin and Salzgitter, respectively. The current Federal Environment Minister is Sigmar Gabriel, who is in turn assisted by State Secretary Matthias Machnig, Parliamentary State Secretary Michael Müller and Parliamentary State Secretary Astrid Klug.

In short, the rest of the world is willing to take the ecological lead with minimal supervision from Al Gore.

Germany’s Environment Ministry is dangling these print ads around, not as eye-catching artworks per se, but as yet another call to arms on land as on sea. Here are speculative images depicting Arctic and Antarctic fauna dying to wraiths. And the sucker punch is: they just might not be scare tactics anymore. It’s one thing to be alarmist, another to depict what’s real. Anyone could see the ministry’s tenacity to infuse some urgency to this issue. If it requires the use of thermography, then so be it.

Inconvenient Truth…almost. The thermographic art direction rather reminds me of Scariest Places on Earth, that reality series which used to air on Fox Family. In the show, families were made to walk through paranormal hotspots across the globe. They lugged thermographic cameras around, scanning locations for abrupt changes in temperature, telltale signs of “spirits.” The program has since been canceled but its kitschy use of the devices memorably provided fodder for gasps, both out of fear and amusement. As if its host Linda Blair hadn’t elicited any before.

What’s happening to the planet is scarier though.

Advertising Agency: KNSK Werbeagentur, Germany
Creative Directors: Anke Winschewski, Tim Krink, Niels Holle
Copywriters: Kurt Müller-Fleischer, Irina Schüller
Art Directors: Bill Yom, Nathalie Krüger

Rate this Ad  Loading ...

Free Subscription

eMail Subscription

Tweet This

Season’s greetings to you from Mickey D’s!

In the spirit of Christmas, I’ll let the Golden Arches cut in a long queue of ads with products posturing as Christmas trees. The food stylist could’ve added some Twister fries to this and—voila!—Christmas tree ornaments!

Dare I say however, the ads’ bleak-blue backdrop is no more Christmas-y than a witch is a good Valentine’s Day decor. Red and green, so far as I know, are the traditional Yuletide colors. At least she says so:

Look at this ad from 2005:

Or this one:

Maybe the choice of color is ultimately McDonald’s doublespeak for “economic blues.” It can’t be all that queasy though; McDonald’s French fries in the US and Canada are now devoid of trans fat, if it’s any consolation. McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner himself announced that the fries are now cooked with canola-based oils. And as Ronald McDonald is wont to tell anybody, a 2.5 oz serving of his fries account for only 230 calories. Every day, the McDonald’s suppliers in the US conduct 95 different checks on potatoes.

Even so, I just couldn’t imagine serving French fries on Christmas Eve. On the 24th, I usually prefer home-cooked to fastfood.

Unless I live in London, that is. In the United Kingdom, McDonald’s had the foresight to create a special “Festive Menu” for the 2008 holidays. Britons get to dine on five items that could find its way to just about any Christmas dinner except for The Queen’s. The main offering, Big Cheese & Bacon, boasts of pure beef patty. The other, Chicken Fiesta, is basically cheese-slathered Focaccia bun enclosing chicken breast patty amidst sauces, lettuce, and nachos. Festive Pie, on the other hand, has a custard-and-mincemeat filling while the Cheese Wedges come with onion dips. The fifth item is ice cream with Matchmaker confectionery.

Festive Menu is currently being promoted by TV spots all over the UK. Directed by the Leo Burnett agency, the new commercial shows a man biting into a Festive dinner after wrangling with a game of charades back home.

First, viewers see the man letting his family guess a movie in vain. Slowly, he disappears behind the Christmas tree and escapes through a tunnel. To the tune of The Great Escape soundtrack, he rides on a motorcycle towards a McDonald’s restaurant. Just as he was about to take a bite, his family pulls over and his grandma asks, “Is it Free Willy?” Back when times were simpler, ad agencies just had to grapple with Ronald.

StillAd wishes you a happy new year ahead!

Advertising Agency: TBWA\Neboko, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Art Director: Edward Romunde
Copywriter: Robert den Bremer
Photographer: Thomas Pelgrom
Published: December 2008

Rate this Ad  Loading ...

Free Subscription

eMail Subscription

Tweet This

Stacy’s Smokehouse has just declared war on PETA with these ads.

Colonel Sanders, if anyone, must be so angry. “Finger-lickin’ good” was coined by KFC for its slogan, and it has since become one of the most memorable advertisements ever. Next to KFC, Stacy’s rooster ad could look like a sleazy knockoff wanting a lawsuit. Then again, Beastie Boys sang about “Finger-Lickin’ Good” once.

As for guilty carnivores, their lot is in Phoenix, Arizona, where Stacy Phipps has opened his eponymous smoked meat eatery. Stacy’s Smokehouse, which opened this year, represents a departure for him, who’s known around Phoenix for an earlier restaurant that served mostly soul food.

As the ad copy tells everyone, the “rub” or the spicy sauce lends fame to his barbecues. A rub is defined as a special coating usually indicated for smoked and grilled meats. It is made of any combination of ground spices, seasonings, salt, oil and herbs. For the rub, Stacy adds sugar to a paste of spices, ketchup, and vinegar, so that the meat comes out more caramelized. Plus, Phipps smokes his meat over hickory and almond firewood. As a result, his menu’s bestsellers (ribs, brisket) are said to be all the more flavorsome for it.

There’s the rub: people not indoctrinated to the art of barbecuing may not really understand “rub” right off the bat. The ad agency is probably counting on statistics showing Arizonans who prefer barbecues with their July 4 fireworks.

Smoked meats aside, the restaurant, as in Stacy’s former eatery, prides itself in catfish with a dressing of cornmeal batter. It also boasts of fried chickens, which allegedly requires so much special treatment, they’re only served after 3 PM.

If delayed gratification is not to one’s liking, Stacy’s has some tender pulled pork on offer. It’s the one thing the restaurant skewers other than George Orwell’s Animal Farm; the print ad denoting “four legs” just reminds me of a popular line from the book. “Whatever goes on four legs, or has wings, is a friend,” so says Animal Farm—and PETA.

Advertising Agency: Santy Advertising, Phoenix, USA
Creative Director: Adam Pierno
Art Director: Chris Cavalieri
Copywriter: Jamie Dos Santos
Published: May 2008

Rate this Ad  Loading ...

Free Subscription

eMail Subscription

Tweet This

There’s only 7% of the Atlantic Forest. Help preserve.

Just because Saatchi & Saatchi of Brazil put together (and not I did not say create)a set of print ads that will attract another glace does not mean their client SOS Mata Atlantica will get a lot out of this campaign. There is no insight of how to help, no call to action and I would say it is not even that very personal. Nothing here really tells me why I should care.

It is an eye catching set of images, you see a lot of things going on but because you continue scanning this monotone image for something to easily fixate on you spend an extra moment looking at this. That all a good news to the advertiser, but not that interesting.

It’s a nice visual campaign, better than many. But just because it is cool to check out in print does not mean it solved the client’s problem. Then again that is a whole lot more than some other advertising campaigns that are pumped out buy crappy creative’s around the world.

• Advertising Agency: F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, Brazil
• Creative Directors: Fabio Fernandes, Eduardo Lima
• Art Director: Keka Morelle
• Editor: André Faria
• Photographer: Fernando Rockert
• Graphics: Jomar Farias
• Planning: Fernand Alphen, Dorian Dack
• Other additional credits: André Gustavo, Daniela Keller, Bárbara Ferreira, Luana Gregório
• Media: Marcos Formoso, Cesar Nery

Rate this Ad  Loading ...

Free Subscription

eMail Subscription

Tweet This

Does it really work for Bianco customers? This is quite funny, but this does not show with their face expression right, it is somehow mocking and not cool I think. The ads themselves, well they’re OK. These are not great, it’s just a bit of a stretch. But you would hope the shoes are really that good.

The other thing is I do love the photographs here but the over processing and smoothing is far too strong, almost wedding look without the blocked up shadows. It’s good, but could be better.

• Advertising Agency: & Co., Denmark
• Creative Director: Thomas Hoffmann
• Art Directors: Thomas Hoffmann, Martin Storgaard, Jesper Schmidt

Rate this Ad  Loading ...

Free Subscription

eMail Subscription

Tweet This