"Depressed Copywriter" is actually hilarious

It's a new advertising Tumblr. And some of the posts are depressingly funny:

It's like he or she is posting from inside every burnt out Copywriter's poundingly hung over mind.

Check out the whole psychological mess here.

Via Copyranter

Smarter people than me are also fascinated by it

Sex in advertising, that is.

Lisa Wade, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Occidental College and a blogger at Sociological Images. As she often takes on the issue of sex and sexism in advertising and other media, we often end up sharing links.

The most recent one she shared (via Facebook) is a Pinterest board of ads that use subliminal, and not so subliminal, sexual symbolism.

And by "not subliminal", she means stuff like this:

And this:

And...

Some are subversive:

Others are rather creative:

As an educator, Lisa provides links to analyses of the images. As an adman (and ad critic), I find this both useful and entertaining. Here's hoping the Sexual Symbolism board will continue to expand, and that people will actually learn to make and/or identify better ads because of it.

Time cover features preschooler breastfeeding

Via BuzzFeed

So that was unexpected.

As the United States continues to struggle with the social and health issues around breastfeeding, Time Magazine decides to run a cover photo of a nursing three-year-old.

It's for a piece on attachment parenting, which we practice to some extent at our house (even though the boy weaned himself at about 20 months). I'm sure the picture is meant to shock some people who think breastfeeding a kid old enough to talk is weird or even perverse.

"Supermom" Jamie Lynne Grumet (the woman in the picture) told Huffington Post:

“When you think of breast-feeding, you think of mothers holding their children, which was impossible with some of these older kids. I liked the idea of having the kids standing up to underline the point that this was an uncommon situation.”

But hey — in the struggle to normalize natural baby feeding, such a prominent portrayal can only help.

My only question is, now that breastfeeding is considered "SFW" enough for the cover of Time, can Facebook stop calling it "obscene"?

See more photos from the shoot here.

Playboy's late-life identity crisis

Poor old Playboy doesn't know what to be in the 21st Century.

Founded as somewhat of a countercultural icon for affluent and educated men almost 60 years ago, it played an important (if one-sided) part in the Sexual Revolution and spoke out against McCarthyism. In the '60s, it matured into a brand for the wannabe martini set. But by the '70s, hardcore pornography took away its more horny audiences as it maintained its relevance through top-notch interviews and celebrity pictorials. In the '80s, it was all about video.

Now, here we are in the digital age. Pictures of naked women are abundant and free. So is interesting and subversive content. So what's left for Playboy?

I think their biggest problem is that sex, culture and politics are no longer a man's exclusive domain. Playboy will never be able to shake its basically sexist brand character, and who wants to be associated with that?

The douchebag market, that's who. Young men who read Maxim and wear Axe.

To compete with Maxim, Playboy launched The Smoking Jacket, an online ladmag that covers culture, entertainment and boobies with a less overtly-pornographic, teasing style. Fellow adblogger Steve Hall, from Adrants, is one of the contributors. (He pens a "sexy ads of the week" column.)

And Axe?

Check out this Playboy shower gel ad by DDB Paris:



Yeah, it's a shitty ad. It's also extremely creepy. Can you imagine how a young woman would feel if a strange man, alone with her in the elevator, hit the emergency button? She'd be expecting the worst.

I don't really know if Playboy has a future as a serious brand. It could be that, in a few years, it will only survive as a logo worn ironically (or desperately) by attention-seeking young women.

What do you think?

Canadian focus groups shocked by topless statues on WW I memorial shown on $20 bill

Journalists really have to stop basing their coverage of political issues on Access to Information requests for focus group results.

Here's a scoop: sometimes, focus group participants say stupid things.

Case in freaking point: CTV reports that focus groups shown Canada's new $20 bill design complained about "pornographic" images of partially nude women and "the twin towers" from 9/11.

They were looking at an engraving of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France, a world famous monument to First World War Canadian soldiers killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave.

And, being a neoclassical kind of monument, it includes naked boobies:

Oh! The humanity.

I would like to ask the journalistic community to please stop making Canadians look so ignorant.

Also, nudity in currency notes is classy.

Subway talks trash about fast food

If real, this is pretty weird. According to a post on Ads Of The World, it's a Subway campaign for DDB Puerto Rico.

Weirdness aside, there are two things about this campaign that bug me:

First, what fast food brand in its right mind would want their logo associated with disgusting, smelly, garbage trucks and bins? Even with the "feed them better" tagline, it's bound to cause some visceral negativity around the brand.

Second, Subway is hardly health food. According to their site, even a 6" version of their tuna, Italian, and pizza subs have almost 500 calories. (Specialty six-inchers like Big Philly Cheesesteak, Buffalo Chicken, and Chicken & Bacon Ranch Melt have 500 or more.)

At McDonald's, a Big Mac is more calorie-iffic, sure, at 550, but the Quarter Pounder w/Cheese is 520, and a regular hamburger (does anyone eat those?) is just 250 cal.

Sure, you can go all Jared and get a low-fat turkey sub with no cheese and mayo. But McDonald's also sells salads. The point is that you can get an Angus Bacon & Cheese (790) with fries and a Coke (note that all numbers on the McSite are "small only") or you can get a footlong Big Philly Cheesesteak (1000) with chips and a Coke. Both meals are arterially terrifying crap.

So where does Subway get off being all less-junkier-than-thou?

"A Stretchy Hand" — new sticky viral from Coca-Cola

Go ahead. Do it! Go to astretchyhand.com and tell me you didn't waste a good five minutes (or more) on that sticky little thing.

(That's what she said.)