I’m told that these advertisements were from ‘a series of ads published in fashion magazines, targeted at the fashion conscious female.’

I was having coffee with a friend in the beautiful city of Melbourne when I asked him a comparative question: ‘Why does there seem to be more smokers in Melbourne than in Sydney?’ His reply was quick and most likely not well thought through: ‘Cos we’re cooler’.

That answer doesn’t really make sense to me, and neither does the audience of this advertisement. Smoking has never been cool in my books. Maybe it’s because I grew up with parents who told me it was a waste of money, teachers who told me that it would kill me and a general knowledge of what smells good and what doesn’t, either way smoking has never even been something I’ve been remotely interested in trying.

Although, I have heard that it helps one keep the weight off and I guess ‘fashion’ conscience people are really concerned about that. But these ads are great! They look just like fashion ads, except the models are all dead. The weird, and slightly contorted figures of each model is beautifully adorned in funky and iconic clothing, that are still dark and have gothic feel. A gothic feel which is reiterated by the dead and dry leaves and the messages of doom that accompany each advert. This is a great ad. Except for one thing. These women, dead and weirdly positioned they may be, are still managing to look really sexy… did they smoke… because damn they left behind amazing corpses… imagine people coming to your funeral and seeing you looking so picture perfect, so nice and pale and delicate…

Hmmm… maybe they should have thought this one through a little more. Maybe they should have included a little dribble of blood coming down the side of a mouth from the lungs they coughed up earlier, or the yellowing fingers and teeth and not to mention the tiny, but unforgivable, ash burns on their designer clothes.

You know, maybe just make them look a little less beautiful in death, and a little more ugly in life.

Agency: Foote Cone & Belding, Singapore

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Veggies you can get on your own.

I have seen some pretty foul advertisements in the past. There was the ad for O.B. Tampons with a vampire who sported tampons for teeth, and there was the weird one for a pregnancy test featuring a woman with her head in a very strange place. But this ad  is most definitely, without a doubt the most revolting one I have come across yet.

This is just so unneccesary. OK, so it makes perfect sense. Foetus gets nutrients from mother, child gets nutrients from mother, when you grow up, it’s time to cut the chord. So, conceptually it is a nice idea. Visually, it is just gross. I mean, the umbilical chord is not particularly nice, especially when hanging from a grown man’s belly. But the mother?…that is just foul and I think the concept of being ‘attached’ could have been put across without that added aspect of ick.

We all know where the other end of the chord is, you don’t need to show us.

And  in an ad for vegetable juice, at that. It really doesn’t tempt me into eating vegetables any time soon, and it has most certainly grossed me out of drinking them.

It seems to me like it may have been possible to pull off a concept like this if a genius were at work, and if the product wasn’t vegetable juice. It also would have been nice if the idea was expressed a little less graphically, and left a little more to our imaginations.

Advertising Agency: Taxi/Maclaren McCann, Vancouver, Canada
Art Director: Dan Bache
Copywriter: Brian Quittenton
Photographer: Tony Hurley

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 Advertisements for 4wd vehicles are always interesting. Most of them are aimed either at wealthy wives who want to drop off and pick up their children from school in as much style and noticeability as possible, and men who fantasize that the few hours they don’t spend working they will (one day) spend going for a drive using four wheels instead of two.

This ad, however, as actually advertising a real 4wd – one that expects to be regularly used off-road, and one that will be. It isn’t attractive, the other Mum’s at school would at no stage be finding themselves jealous of your vehicle, and if you tried to go grocery shopping with it, parking would be a significant challenge.

So that is what makes for a real 4wd, and this is certainly one. The ad, placing the vehicle in the zoo with the wild but captive animals, while a little tacky, really does generate an image of ruggedness, wilderness, adventure. The car is strong, resiliant, tough like a wild animal, but it is one that you can tame.

So I don’t mind this ad. It isn’t attractive to me and I am not going to be buying myself a Land Rover any time soon, but because it is advertising the idea of 4wd vehicles actually being used off-road, it lacks that pretensious, image-driven crap that most other car ads have (with the exception of those that manage to be funny – usually directed at men).

While I was browsing at ads for 4wd’s, I came across this one for a Nissan with a very funny voice over. It pretty much sums up just how stupid most of these ads are…

Advertising Agency: Filadélfia, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Art Director: Renê Bionor
Copywriters: Hellen Mundim, Dan Zecchinelli
Creative Director: Dan Zecchinelli
Photography: Pedro Gravatá
Released: March 2009

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Germany’s biggest Kebab. Doy Doy

Nothing about this ad impresses me at all. Actually, I find it quite irritating.

There is something so stupid about painting the back of a cement mixer brown and calling it Germany’s biggest kebab. Sure, if I was walking down the street and it drove past me, I would look. Maybe I would even think about getting a kebab (but probably not). And that is why it is so annoying.

They didn’t even try, it seems to me. Who needs a big advertising agency to think of painting a truck and trying to pass it off as something special? It would be so much less irritating had they not painted “Germany’s Biggest Kebab” on the side. When you hear a claim like that, you want to see an actual giant kebab, especially when it is for a one off event like the opening of a restaurant.

Sure, this ad was effective at getting the attention of passers by and increasing traffic in the restaurant. But I still don’t like it. It makes me think of those little village bakers who get together and slave away to try to make the world’s biggest croissant, or the butcher putting together the world’s biggest sausage after years of planning and practice. It makes me feel sorry for the people who do try. It is a touchy subject for me. Obviously, I like my giant things to be giant things, not just cement mixers painted to look that way.I think Doy Doy should have tried to make an actual, giant, messy, juicy kebab, bigger than this one.

Realistically, though, their idea worked just fine, so bollocks to whatever I think.

Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Frankfurt, Germany
CCO: Burkhart von Scheven
Creative Director: Mark Karatas
Art Director: Patrick Ackmann, Alexander Fechner
Copywriter: William John, Heike Erdelmeier, Dorothea Eckhardt
Ilustrator: Artmos4

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For mornings less complicated.

Hahaha…I had a chuckle to myself when I first saw these ads. I can really relate to them, especially the second one.

I hate mornings. I never was a morning person, and for many years I actually managed to fulfill my time with occupations and studies that rarely required me to set my alarm before 9am. The idea of sleeping until 9am is no laughable. Motherhood has forced me to get to know mornings – even mornings before the sunlight has arrived (which, really, is still night time). Now I am familiar with Songs of Praise (infomercials definitely always win).

I am quite comfortable with watching television blankly at 6am while the fog of sleep slowly exits my brain. My son is the same – we get the lazy television watching over and then start the day.

But still, I still suffer massively from the hopeless morning fog-brain. If I have to go somehwere, I can never find the keys. Toast is regularly burnt, baby food spilled, and while I don’t struggle too much getting dressed myself, wrangling a 15month old boy into multiple winter layers is no easy task.

So like I said, I can relate to this ad. Unfortunately, I do not drink coffee (which I am sure explains my fog brain), but while the product doesn’t appeal to me, I would say that regular coffee drinkers would be attracted by it’s relevance.

Advertising Agency: Armands Leitis
Copywriter: Christian Bunnemann
Via: newcreatives

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Do you honestly think getting drugs abroad could be a laugh?
2000 Spanish citizens are no longer laughing. When you travel, keep away from drugs.

 

So I can just imagine someone has been waiting for the perfect opportunity to use this concept in an ad and actually pull it off. It seems to me they would have had to have waited for a situation that isn’t so serious that soap in the shower just wouldn’t work, or so minor that an ad such as this as a deterrent would never be believable.

This is a great ad, because it plays with your mind a little bit. I feel like I want to laugh at the images because all the Spaniards are laughing, but at the same time, a man with a knife to his throat who has just pissed himself in fear and a whole bunch of men in the shower together (the soap threatening the happy scene) really just gives me the creeps, and so I only conjour a small smile (because those darn smiling  Spaniards are so funny). I just always find it disturbing in movies or on television (or in ads like these) when you see people laughing in situations where normal people would be cringing or closing their eyes (like in horror movies where psychotic murderers laugh and joke at the terror of their frightened victims). Gives me shivers. And while the uncomfortable-ness of these ads are not quite that extreme, they still give me that same feeling of awkward wrongness, just to a lesser degree (probably a pretty far lesser degree, I’d say, after having just watched the link again).  

I have never thought of travelling with drugs, so I am not exactly sure how these ads might work as a deterrent. I wonder that they might look just that wee bit too lightly at the consequences of the crime, so that the potential criminal really doesn’t get the message, or they just find themselves too amused to care.

Advertising Agency: JWT DELVICO Barcelona, Spain
Executive Creative Director: álex Martínez
Creative Director: Oscar Alcaráz, Napi Rivera
Art Director: Javier Lorés
Photographer: Pastor Heredia Studio

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Aww… poor nerds.

You’ve got to be impressed with the second picture. I think that if I knew anyone who was able to build something so beautiful out of Leggo, I’d have to think about being his girlfriend- or at least getting him involved in some sort of engineering scholarship.

Anyway, these two ads are playing on the usual pull that deoderant advertisements use. They promise that all the ladies will fall for these guys if they wear their deoderant. I’m not sure if this is true. Not the part about these two guys getting girlfriends, but about the deoderant wearing part. I know a lot of nerdy guys who somehow manage to find equally as nerdy (if not nerdier) girls that will go out with thm.

 I have been physically repulsed by guys with offensive odour. When I say ‘offensive odour’ I mean more than just Body Odour, but also allude to bad deoderant or perfume, or even overwhelming perfume. Maybe it’s because I have a strong sensitivity to smell, but I think that it’s more likely that all people have a subconscious connection to that sense than we’re aware of and so it’s actually more important than we think. So, perhaps I’m wrong in thinking that this is a strange way to attract a consumer. Perhaps if you smell good, with the right intensity, women will find themselves subconciously attracted to you and you’ll have no choice but to date them- or something.

However, I do stand by my nerds aren’t all offensive smelling. I think there are other factors that are not in their favour.

Agency: LOWE BULL, Johannesburg
Creative Director: Gareth Lessing, Rob Mclennan
Copywriter: Matthew Brink
Art Director: Adam Livesey
Photographer: Clive Stewart
Typographer: Adam Livesey

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