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Make Your Statement

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Handbags make statements. I own at least 36 hand bags and my sister probably has over 50 that I can borrow. Why do women, specifically my sister and I, have so many handbags?

Three reasons.

1. Your shoes are the finishing touch to any outfit. If you’re making the effort to make your shoes work with the outfit, then you’re making the effort. Your handbag must match your shoes.

2. Your handbag needs to be able to do all the things that you need it to do. Depending on where you’re going, what time of day, how you’re getting there, what you’re doing there, what the weather is like, everything is a determining factor when it comes to handbag selection.

3. Your handbag is an expression of yourself. I say (personally) never bother with a girl (or metrosexual) who goes out in the middle of the day with a handbag that’s not big enough to fit a novel. Or a girl with a grandma handbag at a nightclub.

These bags are the means by which these people express themselves, not through their clothes (especially in the case of the Nazi jumper girl- I definitely do not want her to take off her bag).

The pictures are very minimalist. The models are attractive or interesting, which is always a good thing. A criticism I would have is that you don’t actually see the bag in the main visual, you only get to see its’ strap. Also, just once I would like to see a busty woman’s shoulder sling bag. A substantial portion of the population in western countries are overweight and probably have buxom bosoms, so why not try to sell them a cool shoulder bag that’s not going to strangle them boob side?

Besides from that, I like these advertisements, partly just because they fit nicely into my handbag philosophy.

Photographed: Sonja Müller

Ad Agency: McCann Erickson, Germany
Creative Directors: Daniel Henning & Thorsten Adenauer
Art Director: Thorsten Adenauer
Copywriter: Daniel Henning
Illustrator: James Cruickshank

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The Atheist Bus

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Oh. My. God.

On earth as it most probably is in heaven, God doesn’t work on an even playing field. So long as it concerns the Omnipotent One, the scales tip in Thy favor, by default and in perpetuity. Amen.

It’s always about The One Upstairs. The Queen and the US President believe in one. Curtis Stigers sings about one. Heck, Aretha Franklin sings and screams about one. One horned guy couldn’t even stand a chance.

God, Creator of the Cosmos, wants everyone to know He (or She) wins, just about every time.

What British comedienne Ariane Sherine hath wrought then was one filament in a longer continuum of age-old theological questing. Like most atheists, Ariane Sherine was no more blasphemous than someone, feeling pariah, acts on a whim in an ocean of holier-than-thou fanatics.

So it happened that when a London bus plied past her one day, with an ad asking “When the Son of Man comes, will He find Faith on this Earth?”, Sherine felt Her Last Straw was at hand. It didn’t help that the ad directed Sherine to a site that, in her words, damned non-believers to “eternity in torment in hell.” In a “fiery apocalyptic sunset,” she adds.

But hell hath no fury than an atheist scorned.

Her sensibilities scathed, she cooked up the now anarchistic counterpunch:

There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

All she needed hereafter was the sterling to pay for London buses to bear the message. In an article for The Guardian, she urged all atheists to contribute £5 to bankroll a campaign.

That call to arms resonated stridently, striking the strongest chord with The British Humanist Association. They helped Sherine in the fundraising, which had an initial target of £5500, enough for an ad campaign with 30 bendy buses.

Donors inundated the campaign site upon its launch. In just a day, organizers received a whopping £31,000 ($74,000), five times the targeted fund! Plus, Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, a celebrity atheist, had agreed to match all contributions.

On January 6, the bus campaign made its overture, the real-life equivalent of biblical pillars of fire razing London.

Uproar could not ensue more palpably. Complaints over the ad copy queued at UK’s advertising watchdog. In the end, it ruled in favor of the advertisers, the adverts judged as “unlikely” to offend and mislead. That the ad uses the word “probably” is the sticking point for the judgment; with that, a reader could not infer if the ad outright proclaimed God as nonexistent.

A sly fox of a copywriter, that Sherine.

Christian groups are avenging themselves with ads along the lines of “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God,” “There definitely is a God. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life,” and “There is God. Don’t worry. Enjoy your life!” At least one driver, a certain Ron Heather, declined to drive the atheist buses.

In any case, the atheist buses have ended their run on February 1. Over the course of the campaign, the ad has been splayed on around 800 vehicles in Great Britain, including 200 bendy buses in London alone. By January 31, the campaign has received over £135,000 in donations.

Sherine’s posse is preparing for an encore in April, while similar campaigns are being readied in North America, South America, Europe, and Australia. In March, an inspired campaign should announce, “The bad news is that God does not exist. The good news is that we do not need him”—in Italy, the Pope’s bastion.

Social percussions of touchy ads are often the only sensory things in their wake, their subjects’ denouement being too elusive in comparison. When one tries to dissect atheism for example, the morass of a debate is sure to come up, especially in an epoch of religious rationalism.

In one respect, atheism has claimed victory. By embarking on a successful ad campaign, atheism has wrested some tolerance normally accorded to bodies of belief. Atheism, after all, believes in nothingness. Surely that couldn’t demarcate an atheist from another’s moral compass.

For sure, Ariane Sherine has written one helluva copy. Perhaps the ad’s greatest achievement is the fact that it wasn’t crafted by a pro copywriter or a snobby ad agency. Then again, some ad subjects do stir the pot.

There is something to be said for faith, even so. I won’t breathe the proofs for God’s existence to another here, seeing as faith is best left to one’s call.

Just a thought: When comets ram the earth or nuclear weapons explode in unison, that becomes the part when faith in someone/something stops becoming a source of anxieties.

My philosophy teacher says that humankind could choose from four scenarios. One is to believe in a god, and die to realize there is no such. The second is to believe in a god, and find upon death that there is, in fact, one. The third is to believe there is no god, and to discover that to be true. Last is to believe there is no God, when in fact, there is one.

Either party variably won’t lose in the first three scenarios, my teacher said.

I believe it vindicated then to play safe, not for fear of perdition in a “fiery apocalyptic” lake of fire, but for the sheer embarrassment of passing on opportunity.

You can join the fun! Generate your own bus slogan here.

Advertising Agency: CBS Outdoor
Copywriter: Ariane Sherine
Photographs by Jon Worth of The British Humanist Association

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Scrabble

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The puzzle geek in me was glued to this ad for a far too-embarrassingly-long-period-of-time to admit, sorting out the different images. And the illustrations left me dying to play Scrabble. I guess that’s a 10 out of 10 for JWT Santiago?

True, not all of us are puzzle geeks (sadly, the world would be a happier place!) But this is that rare combination of a genius idea with awesome execution – the ad is engaging AND sells the product. How often does that happen?

I miss the simpler things in life, when a night in with Scrabble and a coffee mug was all that one needed to have fun. Board games seemed to have been relinquished to retro-night when there is electronic madness and a million other things to keep us distracted. Don’t even get me started about online scrabble.

Call it trendily vintage, or adorably old-fashioned – paint it however you like. But I doubt I’m the only one who secretly reminisces of a time where my laptop didn’t dominate my entire existence. I must confess, I have no idea how the board game industry is doing these days. My hunch would be that they’re struggling. Every kid I know prefers their Nintendo DS to conversation and human interaction, so I’m guessing that the average game of Scrabble with the parentals has fallen far below in priorities. And it can’t only be the puzzle geeks of the world who find that sad.

Advertising Agency: JWT Santiago Chile
Creative Directors: Matias Lecaros, Sergio rosati
Art Director / Copywriter: Matias Lecaros
Illustrator: Astro image Creators
Photographer: Patricio Pescetto / Astro image Creators
Other additional credits: Tomás Vidal, Israel Urrutia, Tomás Neely, Leo Farfan
Published: December 2008

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Active Life Movement

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It was always more enjoyable to ‘play around’ with toys as a child, ie decapitating limbs, testing reactions to hair dye, putting them in environments not recommended on the box etc. Regardless of whether you liked Barbie, Batman or Lego Pirates, we all associate them with childhood playtime innocence. That is why this campaign conveys its message particularly well. They have “played around” with a symbol of innocence, but this time with a uncomfortable end product. It triggers instant recognition, shock and alarm.

Child obesity is a confronting reality and concern. Part of the solution is getting kids out of the telly, laptop and fridge, and into some body body movement. Active Life Movement have a difficult task of driving kids away from routine. Scaring us with fat toys may just do that.

Parents will undoubtedly feed off the tagline. What parent will want to be blamed for their child’s obese immobile life? Moreover what viewer would gladly accept a reluctance to act (literally) on the issue?

In 1992 Barbie introduced a multi-ethnic friend which was indicative of society’s recognition and respect for cultures. We therefore must ask- do we ever want a “Beefy Barbie” to be added to the Barbarian family? I sincerely hope not. Nonetheless if such a Barbie is cooked up, I predict heavy support by McDonalds. Happy Meals to potentially include a Beefy Barbie accessory- a mini plastic Big Mac.

Advertising Agency: Latinworks, Austin, USA
Chief Creative Officer: Sergio Alcocer
Creative Directors: Diego Castillo, Lewis Sempertegui
Art Director: Daslav Maslov
Copywriters: Diego Castillo, Lewis Sempertegui
Illustrator / Photographer: Ricardo Salamanca
Account Executive: Lonnie Limon
Production Manager: Steve Grill

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Stop men! Destruction of trees.

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I think this advertisement is clever. I thought it was so clever that I followed the link to the website and was bitterly disappointed to find it in a language I can’t understand.

The graphics do the job well. The chainsaws look like sad and desolate tree stumps in a post-apocalyptic world where there is no sunshine or happiness. It reminds me of the Industrial Revolution where the only way that the average person could live was by subjecting themselves to a slow and painful demise on the factory floor. A world where all colour is smothered by the poo-brown of infrastructure and urbanization. The advertisement faces us with the reality of what we are doing to the world- hopefully it wasn’t a scan of a paper print-out.

The statistic is confronting and real, but it just kind of leaves me feeling like that little child who accidentally ruined the icing on the birthday cake. Child-me is standing there with her hands open, held out in front of her proclaiming innocence with icing-sticky fingers. As I look at this advertisement I can feel a fear tightening in my chest as I hold out my hands in feigned innocence, hoping no one notices the chainsaw in my pocket.

Advertising Agency: DRAFTFCB, Germany
Creative Director: Bill Biancoli
Art Director: Jessica Schneider
Copywriter: Christian Stamp

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