A preppy everyday guy meets a living piece of art over a bear; I don’t think this is clever at all the whole coolness of the ad comes from the prop. Or is that art thing?

Quite nice photography and lighting but I am still unclear what the hell is going on here. It can’t be that simple, can it?

MAC/VAL Museum, Meet modern art.

Ok, ok. that is exactly the point. Do you like it?

The Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, nicknamed MAC/VAL, is a museum of contemporary art, Paris, France. Here are some shot on the entrails of the place:

Alain Bachellier

Gaël Chardon

Advertising Agency: CLM BBDO, Paris, France
Creative Directors: Gilles Fichteberg, Jean François Sacco
Copywriter: Vincent Pedrocchi
Art Director: Cédric Moutaud
Art Buyer: Sylvie Etchemaïté
Photographer: Nick and Chloé
Retouch: Spark Link

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Except for AIDS, nothing has changed.

I would like to warn everyone this is totally and completely lightly veiled educational advertising from MTV.

Also I am not too sure of my reader’s tolerance of all things retro, I mean dirty, I mean naughty, and I mean exiting. So if this post somehow offends lets go and burn down MTV studios and see if their executives float in the lake and so forth. Take it all out on them not me.

So ok, Loducca Sao Paulo got a few old, classic, retro p0rn shots scanned them blanked out the sensitive bits and put an ad copy in place. Alternatively, perhaps MTV commissioned a real shoot with retro styling for hair and socks to fit the time period and then nastyed it up in postproduction to look this retro. We’ll probably not but I can just imagine the Art Direction on the set…hmm.

I am sure this will have a desired and perhaps someway viral effect. It smells alot of ”look MTS cares and MTV is so edgy”, well whatever. It’s been all done like 90 years ago.

Advertiser: MTV
Agency: Loducca São Paulo
Creative Director: Guga Ketzer
Art Director: Cassio Moron, Andre Nassar
Copywriter: Guga Ketzer
Country: Brazil

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As far as I can remember, hatred towards wolves was firmly forgotten around the age of eleven. But it’s true, wolves have played the scapegoat in children’s literature of many generations. Nevertheless, these ads may be flat, the copy difficult to read and comprehend, and perhaps not the most inspired visuals – but I love them all the same.

The vintage fading and imagery is reminiscent of a time when we succumbed to the beauty of fairytales, from where we extracted all of the wrong and right and morals of the world. These messages would guide us for many years into the future, long after the fairytales had been relinquished to history.

Once upon a time, fairytales were actually cautionary tales of morality to adults. But age has surrendered their appeal to infants – and perhaps, engendered an unconscious hatred towards the perpetrators of evil in those stories.

Mission Wolf has a point here – it is far easier to sympathise with the endangered pandas and tigers of the world than the wolf; the attractive orphan images pioneered by the WWF. To be honest, I had no idea that grey wolves were even in danger. But in spite of whatever role wolves played in fiction, or in history, they are as entitled to support and charity as any other threatened species.

Perhaps, having left childhood firmly in the past, we can leave some of those inherent associations behind as well. After all,  now that we know how controversial Lewis Carroll and Enid Blyton were – do we really want to base all of our morality upon their stories? In moving forward, we can recognise that the “big bad wolf” already had his comeuppance in literature – he doesn’t need it in real life as well.

Advertising Agency: 22squared, Tampa, USA
Creative Directors: John Stapleton, James Rosene
Copywriter: James Rosene
Art Director: Danny Corrales
Illustration: Stock

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I wonder how eco-friendly the LG warehouse is, or how many emissions were released in creating this model? Because I am positive that the trees saved in “sketching, drawing notes and writing electronically” made up for it. Absolutely. Plus this is a print ad right? As in, on paper?

Anyhow, the ad agency has still managed to pinpoint some embarrassing-but-true hallmarks of Generation Y. Namely, reality television and the ongoing obsession with Google. We can all pretend we aren’t hooked to it (I swear, I’m actually not!) but lets face it, there is no way America’s Next Top Model had twelve successful seasons without a horde of watchers, and its only audience numbers that can explain why the Biggest Loser or Big Brother continue to exist.

The other ad hits as close to home – Admittedly, Google has taken the cyber-stalk encouragement from Facebook to a whole new level. Because to stalk someone via Google, you don’t need to be their friend, and you don’t only get to see the photos which they have deemed worthy of a tag. Google wouldn’t be the multi-billion dollar company it was we didn’t succumb to the worldwide database it offered on a daily basis. To an extent, this is slightly depressing, if not inevitable. What’s the point of the date if you have Googled and Facebook-stalked everything worth knowing?

But this is a prime example of where eye-catching, accurate copy still falls short of the mark. And really, ‘cutting-edge’ tends to refer to something we’ve never seen before, or at least ahead of the game, when these ads do little to separate the LG Dare touch from the iPhone. As a popular and primary competitor, perhaps this should have been a focus point for LG. Not quite their most intelligent decision (Damn that reality tv!)

Advertising Agency: Y&R, Toronto, Canada
Creative Director: David Houghton
Art Director: Zachary Muir-Vavrina
Copywriter: Sussana Forieri

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Whether you’re a busker by the subway, or a rockstar at Wembley stadium, it seems that playing music can be equally uplifting, transcendent, comforting and moving. These Manzer ads have captured that unique quality of an instrument with breathtakingly insightful copy and minimal imagery.

I love the idea of music as therapeutic, or enlightening – and in a such a busy world of chaotic noise, perhaps everybody is looking for that kind of escapism. It might be controversial, but many seeking enlightenment are not comfortable, or not welcome, in a church. Or any other traditional place of worship. The idea of finding that kind of transcendence from within, through the simple act of strumming a guitar, is appealing.

Music has played such a crucial role in our society’s history – from traditional slave songs and inspirational marching songs in the civil war, to the opposition music which filtered into popular culture during the Vietnam War. Music has been a golden thread linking people of different cultures, languages and countries. This simplistic ad reminds of all that a guitar can give you, and is indicative of something much larger; all that music can give to you, if you give yourself to it.

Advertising Agency: John st., Toronto, Canada
Creative Directors: Angus Tucker, Stephen Jurisic
Art Directors: Tony Ponzo, Brian MacDonald
Photographer: Nikki Ormerod
Copywriter: Suzanne Pope

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To open this blog with a disclaimer: the Red Cross can do no harm in my eyes.  True, I know about the administration funds and the bureaucracy issues, but I also believe that they they possess the right intentions, and have done far more good than any other similar operation. For that, I am willing to forgive the maladministration.

But I’m not sure that I can forgive the blurring of lines between reality and game. Especially, the cold, harsh reality that the Red Cross faces on a daily basis. True, most video games may be a battle for life or death. But the ad takes on a far darker perspective when it becomes apparent that the Red Cross is not merely playing a game. Life or death becomes the harsh reality when one spends almost a century “fighting the real world.”

I think the issue here is that, from a distance, you could only hope that the iconic red cross would be enough to compel the observer. From where I’m standing, I can see more ten-year old boys getting excited over the prospect of a new video game than willing donors being intrigued by the Red Cross’ work in Ecuador.

Perhaps with larger text, or a billboard sized advertisement, this image would capture the significance of the work of the Red Cross. The reality that they play within is larger than life, and far more difficult to comprehend than the virtualised reality of a Playstation III. That’s why I’m not sure moving away from the ‘traditional’ Red Cross advertising of hospitals and battlefields were entirely well-advised.

I was open about the fact that the Red Cross can do no harm; even here, the darkness of this game controller being in human hands is compelling. The Red Cross is placing its future in our own hands, because contrary to popular opinion, even organisations as prominent as the Red Cross need support. So perhaps the beauty of this ad is that in this harsh reality, the disturbing game between life and death is in the viewer’s control.

Advertising Agency: ELJ Publicidad, Ecuador
Executive Creative Director: David Cabezas
Creative Directors: Esteban Samaniego, Julio Ortiz

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Its name preceding reputation, Sci Fi Channel thrives on the “what ifs” of this world, as implied by these moving illustrations from Mike Koelsch. Thrice, the advertisement demystifies the mysterious and the unknown in a reversal of roles, such that the mysterious and the unknown fear humans, rather than the other way around. These executions are great shoo-ins for speculative fiction, if anything.

From the illustration down to the copy, the ads are, at best, homage to Hollywood camp classics and post-Roswell imagination. On a different level, it’s an unabashed expression of solidarity with fanboys, the channel’s perceived core demographic, and at the same time, a creative but veiled outreach to an audience beyond its niche.

Since its inception in 1992, through its acquisition by NBC Universal, Sci Fi Channel has done just that, outgrowing its pigeonhole little by little. Oftentimes it meant ramming down the box altogether.

Hence it came to be that SciFi Channel spread itself thin, busting the confines of spaceships and futuristic cities to cover more of speculative fiction. The network is even mulling reality shows, even if doing so is a direct affront to its brand as a “fiction channel.” Already, it’s showing Ghost Hunters and Scare Tactics, and two more are in the pipelines, Estate of Panic and Cash or Capture.

That said, the network’s highest-rated shows are not far removed from its science. One of its most popular ever is a Steven Spielberg alien drama called Taken, which took a respectable chunk of 2002 ratings. A more current top draw for the network, Battlestar Galactica, is obviously about a space-traveling conveyance. But Battlestar Galactica tried to humanize its characters despite all the skittering lights, as did Taken.

This tastefulness in screenplay, coupled with a commitment to break its mold, vaunted Sci Fi as one of last year’s top-rating cable networks among individuals aged 25 to 54. More importantly, females are emerging as a substantial demographic for the network; they now account for 43 percent of its audience. Currently Sci Fi Channel has 12 channels internationally and is seen in 89 million homes.

Even so, Sci-Fi Channel tries harder. Last July, it partnered with micro-blogging site Twitter for Eureka Season 3. The show revolves around a community of geniuses in the Pacific Northwest, some of which live in a house named S.A.R.A.H. (Self Activated Residential Automated Habitat). For Fallon’s promotional campaign, S.A.R.A.H updated her Twitter fans regularly about future episodes and hinted at plot developments.

It’s a campaign befitting a channel not of this earth. For its next show, they could try beaming it into space, like what 20th Century Fox did for The Day The Earth Stood Still. Once again, that would be life ripping off science fiction. With that in mind, Sci Fi Channel should rest well, confident of its relevance by default.

Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi Milan, Italy
Creative Director: Agostino Toscana
Art Director: Luca Pannese
Copywriter: Luca Lorenzini
Illustrator: Mike Koelsch
Published: February 2009

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