The saddest GIS image theft ever #FdAdFriday

In the age of Google, it's not uncommon to find personal or news photos stolen and used for ads in other countries. But what those unethical adpeople don't realize is that the same internet that gives them access to "free" visuals can also make their thefts very public.

Copyranter shared this billboard from India, for overseas study and job placement firm Jubeerich Consultancy.

"The trusted name since 1999"

Whoever designed the ad was obviously looking for a pretty, smiling, fair-complexioned face to represent the West. But they didn't check the story behind the image.

Eve Carson, the woman pictured, was a student at the University of North Carolina who was brutally murdered by Demario James Atwater (and possibly his teen accomplice) on March 5, 2008. In what was apparently a random act of violence, she was killed by repeated shotgun blasts and her car and ATM card stolen.

This act of image theft was not only unforgivably cruel to Ms. Carson's family and friends. There is also a painful irony in using the picture of a murdered American student in an ad for study abroad.

Shame on them.

Putting the sexy back in philosophy class #FdAdFriday

Jezebel featured this odd bit of promotion that Philosophy Prof Vincent Hendricks did for his class at the University of Copenhagen:

Yes, those are sexy schoolgirls behind him.

Apparently, the immensely-modest Dr.Hendricks did the shoot for the Danish ladmag Connery when they chose him as their "Man of The Month".  And he thought it was not only entirely professional to imply that he is getting lots of female student ass, but also felt that his actual female students would enjoy being characterized this way.

I do, however, give the man bonus points for out-creeping one of the creepiest ads of 2011, that award-winning Brazilian KIA pedo travesty that caused shitstorms all the way to Korea.

If the timelines were reversed, I would have assumed he actually inspired the ad:

After raising predictable outrage, Dr. Hendricks issued this apology:

"To the Philosophical Community 

Some recent pictures on my website have caused some debate. The intention was that the pictures, as a cover on a forthcoming magazine, might be used to view logic from a somewhat humorous and untraditional perspective appealing to larger audience which the magazine covers. However it had the opposite effect offending various parties in the philosophical community. I truly apologize for this and I stand completely corrected. I have removed the pictures from the website."

 Yeah, whatever.

College Recruitment — it's a snap! #FdAdFriday

This is a real ad from a real technical college in Australia, The Central Institute of Technology. But what starts out as a fairly cheesy recruitment ad goes off the rails pretty quickly into horror, gore, and angst.

In other words, perfect for the target market.



Via Gizmodo. (Thanks, Dave, for the tip!)

"Learn English Abroad" ads hit my communication sweet spot

I really like these Swiss learning travel ads in today's Ads of The World:

The copy reads, "Exciting conversations don't come out of your schoolbook.
Language courses abroad: www.smallworld.ch".

This struck me as such a perfectly true insight. So true, in fact, that there's no way it can't have been done many times before.

It also hits home. As an English Canadian of a certain age, I studied French as a mandatory school course from Grade 3 to Grade 10. Today, I cannot speak French to save my cul.

A few years later, I learned to speak Italian. Not grammatically perfect Italian, but enough to keep my culo out of trouble as I mingled with new friends in bars, clubs and parties — exactly the scenarios shown above.

And this is why I love the ads. Real language immersion is a full-contact cultural experience. You learn what you need to learn naturally, simply because you really want to communicate. And the payoffs, in lifelong beyond-tourism experiences, are immediate and more than worth the effort.