Shawinigan Handshake Beer? #FdAdFriday

I'm busier than a one-armed Creative Director today, so these are going to be short.

Casey sent me this tip:

That's "Shawinigan Handshake Beer" by Shawinigan, Que. brewery Le Trou, mocking Canada's former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's manhandling of a protester who got in his face back in 1996.

Apparently Mr. Chrétien liked the idea.

According to the Winnipeg Free Press:

Isaac Tremblay, co-owner of the brewery Le Trou du diable, said he had a secret dream of drinking a draft Shawinigan Handshake with Chrétien ever since his team created the strong German-style beer three years ago. 

"And one day last fall, I walked into the bar and there was Mr. Chrétien, sipping a Shawinigan Handshake," Tremblay said. The two talked and Chrétien expressed his interest in getting a pack of the beer paying tribute to a moment in Canadian history. 

"He liked the idea and thought it was funny," Tremblay said, adding Chrétien wanted to treat his friends with the Shawinigan Handshake. 

At the time, the beer was sold only in draft during an Octoberfest at the brewery's bar.
But Chrétien insisted and Tremblay eventually bottled the Shawinigan Handshake with a label showing Chrétien choking the devil. Montreal illustrator Dominic Philibert created the drawing. 

"Mr. Chrétien is known for his funny personality and he has made fun of this incident in the past," Tremblay said, noting he appreciates the politician's endorsement of his beer.

The handshakee, Bill Clennett, doesn't think it's funny at all. "It's quite extraordinary to trivialize his behaviour only to sell beer," he said. "It's pitiful"

I doubt he will be sharing a beer with the former PM anytime soon.

Here's one advertising blogpost we can all agree on

Via Sociological Images

I don't think that first line of copy means what you think.

Beer with (asshole) attitude

That's what "Stronzo"means in Italian, not literally, but in colloquial use.

See Granny's full beefcake shoot here.

Doc Guerilla (Facebook) tipped me off that this Danish beer with the rude Italian name is being launched in Italy. I'm not really sure what the ad is supposed to be about. Is she the asshole? (In which it should be "stronza".), or is she an older lady who really digs young douchebags?

Looking for other examples of brand advertising didn't make things any clearer:

Via Wordpress

Oh well, European advertising has always confused me. I'll just hold out for a Vaffanculo Lager.

Somehow, I don't think this beer will sell well in the UK #pong

The Consumerist shared the news about this new brand of beer made specifically for American students' drinking games.

Beer pong is similar to the "quarters"game I played in high school, but uses ping pong balls rather than coins. The object is the same: get one in the glass, and your opponent has to drink. (Since your coordination diminishes the more you lose, it's pretty much a guaranteed puke for someone. Lovely.)

According to the Pong Beer site:

"We are beer fanatics committed to providing the highest quality, most flavorful, premium product at a reasonable price.  

Pong Beer is brewed using only the finest natural ingredients to produce an exceptionally crisp, smooth, and refreshing light beer."

 A "crisp, smooth, and refreshing light beer"? Great. But the brand name also brings to mind an unfortunate bit of British slang:

Obscure? The thesaurus entry even has a picture:

Probably not a problem for the brewers, though, since the Brits probably already think most mainstream American beer is pongy...

F'd Ad Fridays: Yes, you should stop...

...before your head overflows all over the page.

Via Ads of The World

F'd Ad Fridays: Norte Photoblocker keeps you safe from being busted on Facebook

A recent study determined that British Facebook users are visibly intoxicated in 76% of the photos they get tagged in on the social network.

This campaign, from Argentina's Norte beer, promotes an individual beer cooler that senses when a smartphone picture is being taken of you and sends a counterflash to destroy the shot with glare.



It's a photo jamming tactic that has been popular with people who want to evade photo radar speed traps. So it is theoretically possible, even if this "innovation" is a gag.

Here's another ad:



Via Ads of The World

Postmodern beer advertising from Molson?

This is kind of hard to believe, but also quite remarkable.

After years of serving up ads that insinuiate that drinking their brand of beer will make you attractive to the opposite sex, Molson has decided to go meta.

The above ad, according to Sociological Images, appeared in Cosmopolitan. Just look at that sensitive, but ruggedly manly, dude with the adorable puppies and matching sweater and cap. A fine catch for any heterosexual woman! And look here! He's drinking a Molson!

While not very credible in its forced cuddliness, this ad probably went unnoticed between all the photoshopped boobs and bums that make up most of the ads in a women's mag.

But then someone caught wind of the other side of the campaign, that ran in FHM and Playboy:

Copy:

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF WOMEN.
PRE-PROGRAMMED FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE. 

As you read this, women across America are reading something very different: an advertisement (fig. 1) scientifically formulated to enhance their perception of men who drink Molson. The ad shown below, currently running in Cosmopolitan magazine, is a perfectly tuned combination of words and images designed by trained professionals.  Women who are exposed to it experience a very positive feeling.  A feeling which they will later project directly onto you. Triggering the process is as simple as ordering a Molson Canadian (fig. 2).
…
Extravagent dinners.  Subtitled movies. Floral arrangements tied together with little pieces of hay. It gets old.  And it gets expensive, depleting funds that could go to a new set of of 20-inch rims. But thanks to the miracle of Twin Advertising Technology, you can achieve success without putting in any time or effort. So drop the bouquet and pick up a Molson Canadian…

Sociological Images editor Lisa Wade (a respected blogging ally, I should disclose) was offended by the ruse, writing "The second ad, then, portrays men as lazy, shallow jerks who are just trying to get laid (not soft and sensitive at all). And it portrays women as stupid and manipulable."

But I think Molson was on to something here. And it has to do with the nature of the trick.

There is no way any male reader of those magazines would take the "Male" ad seriously. It is a parody of the many "how to pick up girls" ads that have been gracing those kinds of publications since the '60s.

It also needs to be seen in context of the culture of pranking Millennials have grown up with. While some women might be offended by the goofy trick, others may get as much of a laugh out of it as the men.

What do you think?

UPDATE: Åsk, from Adland, tells me this campaign is old. Like, real old. (It's always good to know the internet's longest-running ad blogger!)