An ode to Mad Men's "Fat Betty"

As the current season of Mad Men was being filmed, January Jones (who plays Betty) was having a baby. Instead of ignoring the pregnancy or writing it into the plot, the writers put Ms. Jones into a fat suit and had Betty's weight gain become a rather dramatic plot element.

In the meantime some guys at SOUTH Music & Sound Design decided to commemorate the development with a song:



Yes, it is rather mean. But I choose to see it as a send-up on the show's dramatic excesses rather than a put-down of overweight people in the real world.

What do you think?

At least they didn't make fun of her placentophagy...

"We are not men... we are not an advertising agency"

Remember that horrible "manly" Turkish shampoo ad with Hitler in it?

Employees of a Turkish ad agency sure do. And they hate what it has done to the reputation of their country, and their industry.

So they decided to do what any red-blooded Turkish men would do to fight back: they got in drag.

Adland reports that Farkyeri issued this statement:

“We are not men… 

We, as a local advertising agency in Turkey, hereby condemn the unfortunate commercial produced in March 2012 by an advertising agency from our country for a shampoo brand in our country by using the images of a speech delivered by Adolf Hitler. 

From a humanistic perspective, it is shameful to use as a commercial material the tragedy of a genocide that caused the death of millions of innocent people and an international problem of gender apartheid which results in oppression and killing of millions of people. In terms of creativeness, it is simply cheapness and taking the easy way out. We are first human and then advertising agency. We never accept any concession on our humanity for the work we do. We refer those who carried out this cheapness to the conscience of the public. We believe that the advertisers and consumers in our country will give them the best answer. 

The belief of any publicity is good publicity can be argued, but there is no question about the good and bad people. This is clearly an attempt to make a commercial profit on the grief of millions of people. This is a shameful human weakness. And this is unfortunately done by an advertising agency in this country. 

As a matter of fact, if manhood is racism and gender apartheid… if it is to use grief of millions of oppressed and massacred innocent people as a commercial material, we are not men! If those who prepared this are advertiser and if this is called advertising, we are not an advertising agency! 

Farkyeri"

The above image is also the landing page of their web site.

And now there's a video, too:



Wonderful way to self-promote while making a real statement. (Coincidentally, the season opener of Mad Men had Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce do something remarkably similar, but against Y&R's racism.)

More faux-retro ads than you can shake a martini at

To celebrate the long-awaited return of Mad Men this Sunday, Newsweek yesterday launched a special issue with a retro design.

The best part, for many lucky modern admen and adwomen, was the invitation to submit special '60s-style ads for the occasion.

Some are better than others. All must have been so much fun to do.

Totally classic.

Great integration with current campaign.

Maybe a little too authentic.

I don't quite buy it. The models are all wrong.

Retro design done right.

Looks like 1990s faux vintage.

Cute.

The photo treatment could have been more authentic.

Dig the long copy.

Nicely done, with the Lyndon Johnson reference.

Too obvious for me.

Pretty authentic, but boring.

In the spirit, without being too silly.

Meh.

Captures our idea of the time.

A true classic.

The SPAM must have gone bad to make that happen.

Much better trippy design.

Cool.

Nice self-parody of their campaign.

What do you think?

All ad visuals via Fast To Create.

Ad hackers play into admen's hands #FdAdFriday

The defacement of public advertising can be brilliant and entertaining, as in the recent Mad Men teaser poster hacks in NYC. And then there's this:

The Drum writes:

Peter Davis, executive creative director of [Powownow agency] gyro Manchester, commented: “Our new campaign for Powwownow has been made to court with controversy, so we’re pleased to see it’s already doing just that. If our character is already causing widespread offence then many people won’t like some of the things we have planned for him - this is only the beginning! We all have preconceptions about free services – ‘if it’s free, it must be bad!’ To confront this idea, we’ve created an obnoxious fictional businessman that spends money lavishly and dislikes anything that’s free – especially Powwownow. Our "more sense than money" campaign drives the idea that actually, you don’t have to pay a premium to get a great quality service.”

In Plain English: the guy in the ads is supposed to be an asshole and the copy is supposed to piss you off.

So, whoever got enraged enough to risk arrest and fine by stating the obvious on this ad actually did the advertiser a tremendous favour. I wouldn't be surprised if future campaigns of this kind actually hire people to deface the ads. (Maybe that's what's happening with the Mad Men meme - you never know.)

Being an ironic asshole in your advertising, by the way, has a history of backfiring. Remember the Groupon dogpile during last year's Super Bowl? People are just not that clever.

Mad Men new season premiere falls on March 25

Via Copyranter

Christina Hendricks celebrates Christmas with a product placement

I assume it's a "double"

According to Celebuzz: "Christina Hendricks celebrates with Johnnie Walker at her annual holiday party at a private residence on December 10, 2011 in Los Angeles, California."

No subtlety here. But it's also the perfect storm of booze, boobs and branding.

Buzzfeeder Gavon Laessig said, "It's as though two examples of perfection were dropped into the Large Hadron Collider and smooshed into one giant wad of perfection. We've discovered the Higgs Bosom. Why, yes, Christina Hendricks…I would love some scotch."

Me, I just can't wait for Mad Men to come back. But perhaps a stiff drink would get me through...

More pics here.