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.

Trivializing sex on Google+

Ivan at Ads of the World shared this interesting project on Google+ by Selina Elizabeth Kyle.

She combines random academic trivia with sexualized pictures of women. The result is... well... memorable?

I just enjoy the juxtaposition. To be all pedantic about it, I think it says something interesting about how our natural interest in sex can be borrowed to deliver information. (My friend Chris mentions that it reminds him of how old flight navigation training documents for pilots used sexy pin-up photos to teach how to navigate by the stars.)

Isn't this exactly what "sexy" ads are doing? Is the product any less randomly connected to sex than these facts?


See the rest here.

Bad Whitney Houston tributes #FdAdFriday

This card was apparently produced before her death, and was just pulled from the shelves at Target:

Via Buzzfeed

This pill portrait, however, was posthumous:

Via TMZ

I'm sorry, but Banksy's ad rant is tiresome

My brother David shared this from This Isn't Happiness:

You can also see the text better here.

I can understand why people feel imposed upon by outdoor advertising, but it is hardly something new. Look at the sides of old buildings — in the late 1800s and early 1900s, advertisers posted their message on anything that didn't move.

Like many other modern consumers, I've learned to tune out the majority of advertising messages hurled at me from every corner, broadcast, and electronic interaction I happen upon. As an adman, I count on this numbness as I try to find new ways to get attention, gain permission, and inspire sharing among more sophisticated audiences.

But this anti-capitalism, anger and anarchy is tiresome to me. An ad is not "a rock someone just threw at your head" — in most cases it is just another piece of banal visual pollution in the urban environment. Somebody paid somebody else to create a message, then paid yet someone else to post it on their property. It's all within the law, as long as they follow guidelines for hate speech, etc.

If you want to see better standards for advertising, you need to take a more active role as a consumer — organizing to reward brands that contribute something positive to your life, and shutting out the ones that irk you. It sounds idealistic, but it's all we've got. That's why I spend so much time deconstructing and trashing what I see as irresponsible advertising on this blog. I think and expect that our industry can do much better.

You could also lobby local politicians to reduce the number of ad placement opportunities on public land. We already have that here in Ottawa. But I actually miss seeing some of the more interesting billboards that go up in Montreal and Toronto.

Revolutionaries are a necessary part of social change. And I know that offensive ads can and will get vandalized by Adbusters and their ilk (and sometimes I find it extremely funny!)

But there is a difference between taking an action that is civilly disobedient, being prepared for the legal consequences if you are caught, and claiming a moral right or even imperative to do so. The former is revolutionary. The latter, in my humble opinion, is just deluded and arrogant.

I still enjoy his art, though. As long as it's not on the side of my house.

How my generation saw the future when we were kids

In 1976, some American children were asked to picture the world in 100 years. Paleofuture shared a collection of them (which ended up on Buzzfeed).

I hope todays babies are ready for this, because here's how the next few decades will play out:

Fourth-grader Lisa Gilvar's Jetsons-inspired bubble-top homes 

Eduardo del Villas imagines the world of 2076 with jetpacks

Joanne Connaire imagines peace on earth in the year 2076 

Robert Berman's robot president of the year 2076

Uncredited

Tina Kambitsis imagines a new Garden of Eden after nuclear apocalypse.
(By the way, Gen Y, that stuff on the man? That's body hair.)

Street-artist-turned-copywriter shouldn't quit his day job

Martin sent me an interesting link to an item about Scottish artist Robert Montgomery, who spends his evenings pasting over outdoor advertising with his anti-consumerist poetry.

Great idea, but I find the poetry kind of awful. It makes me think of an angry 19-year-old, who has just discovered anarchism, scrawling away in his notebook at Starbucks in the hope that the girl behind the counter will notice how deep and dark he is.

Too harsh? The other point against this work is that, while the artist admits he has vandalized billboards "without permission" before, these installations are authorized. (And even when he was doing it illegally, the police couldn't be bothered to arrest him.)

If you don't know me, you may assume I am trashing this stuff because I make my living in advertising. Not so. I love subversive shit. I just find this subversion forced, false and boring. If you're going to subject the public to copy like this, you might as well slap a logo on it and get paid.

Britney Bloody Spears #FdAdFriday #art

Reuben shared this portrait by artist Carl Wicker:

Here is the explanation: "I made three new prints over the weekend in human blood, these are my first test prints for a the new series I'm working on. I have a pair for sale, please feel free to contact me."

He doesn't tell us where he got the blood. Maybe that's for the best.

Classic Venus nudes altered for today's beauty standards

I wrote last week about Italian social issues artist Anna Utopia Giordano's mashup of booze bottles and kids' brands; now I've discovered a much cooler collection of hers.

In Venus, Ms. Giordano takes some classic nude paintings of the Roman Goddess of Love (feminine beauty and sexuality personified) and "fixes" them the way a modern photo editor would Photoshop for fashion magazine ads or editorial.

She nips and tucks he waist, thighs and buttocks, and pumps up the breasts. The result is a comparison of what was, and what is now, considered the ideal female body.

What I really like about this series is its subtlety. The artist does not exaggerate to force her point — we don't see the ribs of starving models, just a different standard of beauty applied.

Does this make Venus more "girlish" and less "womanly"? Quite possibly. But that seems to be what the trend is going towards these days.

One thing needed no alteration. In the Renaissance and subsequent periods, female pubic hair was not part of the artistic aesthetic.

Via Flavorwire

Boozy baby bottles

Italian artist Anna Utopia Giardino has created this series of bottles that mash up popular alcohol and kids' brands, and outfits them with baby bottle nipples in case you missed the point.

Here is the artist's statement:

"The bottles are NOT for sale, they are part of an art exhibition. This is an art project to raise social awareness on topics such as alcohol abuse by teens, alcohol abuse by pregnant women, the disinterest of some parents towards their children (abandoned for days between toys and video games), how far marketers can go to gain the attention of their younger customers. There are no commercial purposes."

Personally, I think that they would have been better without the nipples. (Which marks the first time in history that art has not been improved by showing nipples.)

First seen on Copyranter. Full collection via Laughing Squid.

Much ado about highlighters

These two ads from Prolam Y&R, Santiago, Chile, go to a great amount of effort to show the product benefit in a highly-literate way. 

In the first instance, the artist Salamanca paints an execution scene from the French Revolution (A Tale of Two Cities?) where Marie Antoinette's name has been highlighted in the text.

The next shows the effect in Don Quixote, when Dulcinea's name is highlighted.

Beautiful work.

Via Ads of The World

Iranian actress banished for boobies

Golshifteh Farahani is an Iranian actress who has appeared in Western movies with Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe and Isabella Rossellini.

But most recently, she has become known as the latest woman from the Muslim world to be condemned for daring to bare her body for art.

Barely, that is.  She appeared partially nude in Jean-Baptiste Mondino's 'Corps et Âmes' (below) as well as in the French magazine Madame Le Figaro (above).




No big deal, right? Not in Iran.

From The Telegraph:

"The Paris-based actress left Iran last year in protest against restrictive Islamic codes that the Iranian cinema industry has to follow under Ahmadinejad's conservative cultural policies.

Now she said the government has sent a communication telling her not to travel back to her homeland.

"I was told by a Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guide official that Iran does not need any actors or artists. You may offer your artistic services somewhere else", Farahani said."

Following the Nude Photo Revolutionary scandal in Egypt,  I continue to wonder if these individual acts of protest are any indication of a simmering desire for sexual revolution among the women of the conservative Muslim world. If it is, I wish them well.

1 in 5 teenagers will experiment with art

An illustrator friend, Marc A., shared this on Facebook:

Hosted by the Philbrook Museum of Art

Considering how much dope gets smoked in art schools, though, the comparison may be a little too close for comfort.