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.

Does "pussy" have the same connotation in Estonian? #FdAdFriday

Without the benefit of Google Translate, my guess is "yes"

Via Copyranter, who notes that Elu24 is the country's largest newspaper.

It's part of a pudenda-obsessed poster campaign which, (this time with the help of Google Translate) is apparently causing quite a bit of controversy.

The martini and the trowel, apparently, do not translate...

The Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door

PETA is finally getting around to addressing the most important issue yet in animal welfare: Who are the sexiest non-celebrity vegetarians willing to objectify themselves for the cause?

Will it be Stephanie of Roseville, CA, who (in addition to the fact that she is naked) would like you to know, "There is an unfiltered kindness and love in an animals eyes that you just can't find in a persons" (sic)?

Or Erika of Greenville, SC, who riddles us this: "If you love animals called pets, why do you eat animals called dinner?"

There are men in the running as well.

Zachary of Brooklyn, NY, who seems to have a hard time keeping his underpants up, says "No animals were harmed in the making of this body."

Malik of Pembroke Pines, FL, says "Animals have a place in my heart, not in my stomach".

You only have two weeks left to vote for the two winners, who will then be sent to Hawaii together to  prove how much sex vegetarians can have. (Presuming they're both straight. But I don't want to promote any stereotypes here...)

See all the contestants at the PETA site.

Interestingly, the women outnumber the men by more than 5:1.

This is how they sell video games in Japan now

Ummmm....

I don't think you need to speak Japanese to get the overal message of this Sega promotional video, starring bikini model Yukie Kawamura. She plays the popular video game Super Monkey Ball on the new PS Vita platform. (Apparently this is a big deal.) During the play, she balances a bubble in her cleavage, is visited by a giant monkey mascot, and does contortions for the amusement of the all-male crew.



There is also a shorter vid, which shows new "adult" features of the game.

Gamma Squad's Nathan Birch describes it thusly:

"Sega’s Super Monkey Ball series is about cute cartoon moneys rolling around in hamster balls collecting bananas. It’s about as kid-friendly as a series can get, so of course Sega, master of understanding what makes its own franchises work, has added “adult” levels to the upcoming PS Vita version of Monkey Ball. 

Yup, in these levels the normal floor textures have been replaced by pictures of Japanese bikini model Yukie Kawamura, whose protruding breasts act as obstacles for your adorable hamster ball monkeys. So yeah, basically some burnt out developer at Sega, depressed at being forced to work on yet another Monkey Ball game, just decided to dump the contents of his softcore porn file into the game instead of designing textures."

"Adult"? ...right. It's all about attracting more adolescent boys and turning them into men who fantasize about weird shit like this:

Wait... what?

Coincidentally, "sega" is Italian slang for male masturbation (from the verb "segare", "to saw")...

Yeah, it's a spunky campaign. But who does it serve?

I started this blog to explore best practices in social marketing, as well as to critique what I saw as lazy, obnoxious, unethical and "masturbatory" creative in mainstream advertising.

I am trying really, really hard to find great campaigns to feature. But every time I do the rounds of my usual sources for fresh ad news, I'm confronted by crap like this:

The Ads of The World post says "yogurt"; but the filename says "mayo"...

This is the kind of ad that some creative people, especially Art Directors, think is awesome. It has a great illustration style and it tells a dirty joke about how mayonnaise/yogurt kind of looks like semen. (Even if it doesn't, really.)

But will it really sell car cleaning services? It will get attention for the brand, sure. But it says nothing unique about the actual service except to say that they let an ad agency have fun with their business.

There's a good reason why these ads are usually done as "loss leaders" at creative agencies. (That is to say that the agency usually spends more time and money on the ad than the client puts up.)

You see, this is not an ad for Restaura Car Cleaning. It is really an ad for a Brazilian agency called Hermandad, as well as for the creative team of Paulo Lima, Pedro Teixeira, Hélio Maffia and Douglas Reis, which borrows the obscure brand as an excuse to make the dirty joke. And get covered by ad industry blogs around the world. And probably win an award from other creatives who wish they had clients who would let them do such a spunky ad.

Which is all well and good, for the agency and creatives. But it is not good for the ad industry.

You see, my friends, we have created the ultimate circle-jerk here — making ads simply to impress other ad people. Not to help our clients achieve their business objectives. Not to help make people's lives better. Not even to make money. Just to get awards, recognition and envy from our own colleagues. And I think that's kind of lame.

Oh, and there's another ad in this "bodily fluid" series:

Ha ha ha. Now, can we get back to work?

"Stupid" new Diesel campaign celebrates tube tops, butt munchers, and crack army squads

Yep, that's stupid.

Via Ads of The World

Pastor brings down naked billboard with 4 tweets

Via NY Post

No, this is not a billboard announcing the re-release of Spinal Tap's Smell The Glove. It's the space where Coca-Cola's Vitaminwater ad used to be.

Via allouteffort.com

This is the creative that used to be there. Pretty run-of-the-mill sexploitative advertising. ("XXX" is one of Vitaminwater's flavours, according to AdFreak.) But the giant version was posted across from Gallery Church, where a small group of Baptist Biblical literalists worship with Rev. Freddy Wyatt.

Wyatt tells the New York Post that he was "angered and brokenhearted" by the ad, because it "takes something that’s pure and precious and just strips it of its value.”

I assume he's talking about sex. Or maybe specifically female sexuality. I would agree that hypersexualized ads do diminish the awesomeness of real human intimacy, however not all sex is "pure and precious". Sometimes, it's dirty and cheap. (At least, I hear some people are into that.)

Anyway, Rev. Wyatt sent just sent four tweets to Vitaminwater and parent company Coca-Cola, and miraculously the company removed the ad the next day, unintentionally creating a great outdoor conceptual piece honouring the fact that is was Good Friday.

The Rev. was so thrilled that he served Vitaminwater at his next service, even though he couldn't believe heis voice could be so powerful. “Here’s four tweets from a random pastor," he said "and without even a conversation, they took it down.

Even though I think this kind of sex in advertising is unimaginative and somewhat demeaning, I find the knee-jerk censorship surprising too. Considering the money obviously spent on the execution and posting, this must have been a real panic for them. Was Coke afraid of having its brand dragged through the mud by a man of god on Easter weekend? No idea.

It couldn't have been Vitaminwater that did it. These are the same people who did the Jennifer Aniston "Sex Tape" hoax to promote Smartwater and had her pose completely nude in their print ads.

Or maybe they found Jesus. I don't know. 

There is a male version of the ad as well, by the way:

Via Jason in Hollywood

Would that have offended the Rev as much, do you think?

Thanks to David Gianatasio at AdFreak for the tip.

Even Weight Watchers is boobvertising now #FdAdFriday

Just the other day I was minding my own business on the internet, as usual, when this banner ad caught my attention:

I thought it must be innocent. Just a woman who happens to have a Hendricksian bosom and who lost weight with WW's online programme. But since I was wondering anyway, I clicked.

Am I reading too much into this, or is their an awful lot of attention on this woman's breasts?

Strangely, I forgot to bookmark the site for later reference. Now, when I google Weight Watchers Online Canada, I get this instead:

Did they change their tactics? Was it a phishing scam? I guess we'll never know.

Why is this Playboy Bunny's lettuce bikini so horribly photoshopped? #FdAdFriday

I suppose the combination of model Sheridyn Fisher's body heat and the studio lights would wilt lettuce pretty quickly, but come on, PETA.

Of course, it's not as if the Playboy Bunny has never been photoshopped before. But it's probably the most awkward and least fun photo editing job anyone's ever had with one of her photos.

You can see the "real" lettuce swimwear in the video version here:



Via Adrants.

Vodka: Liquid underwear remover #FdAdFriday

Sociological Images' Lisa Wade found this old Smirnoff ad on Retronaut. She writes, "The message, of course, is not that a woman who drinks the vodka will become politicized; instead, it is that Smirnoff will 'loosen her up' and facilitate seduction."

Ah, how times have changed...

The Daily Femme's Cherie wrote, "At first, I thought it was tied to some article critiquing the offensive and sexist advertisements of the 1950s and 60s but quickly realized this was nothing more than an advertisement in 2010."

Hmmm...

Strip Facebook

It's kind of like strip poker, but on Facebook. And only the woman strips. And it's a cynical and sexploitative marketing campaign.

Stussy is a Dutch fashion retailer that has found a whole new way to exploit its female models. Instead of presenting them nearly nude, it lets its potential Facebook fans undress a model wearing pretty much every stich of clothing in the store. For every so many new "Likes", she takes something off.

The Daily What reports:

“As you can imagine, the model must be suffocating under that many layers of clothing,” said Colin Lamberton, creative director for Arnold Amsterdam, the agency behind the ad. “It is almost a public duty to free her out of this misery, so we are expecting Facebook fans to help out here. Like and undress.”

Yes, Colin. You are such a fucking gentleman.

The trick is that you, oh horny Facebooker, do not get to see how much she has shed until you "like" it yourself. In the interest of science, I sacrificed by social media feminist dude cred. Here's what I got:

Thrilling. This is at 1,127 likes. I suppose she'll be defying Facebook's shockingly prudish anti-nudity rules at about three quarters of a million. (TDW also mentions a sticky little rule that states, "You must not use Facebook features or functionality, such as the Like button, as a voting mechanism for a promotion." Oops.)

Luckily, if you're curious you can "unlike" this lame stunt just as easily.

This post was mentioned on Adland.

Durex ads: Faked for your pleasure?

Update: According to Copyranter, these ads are apparently "real" abominations created by Buzzman.fr. Not that it makes them any less vile. (Although it's odd that they're not on Buzzman's Facebook Page.)

These fake "edgy" ads are getting really tiresome.



This one, from Illegal Advertising, uses a cheap sight gag with batter to make a naughty bukkake reference. (If you don't know what that is, don't look it up. You've been warned.)

It's not so much the making of these spec pieces that bugs me so much as they'll be passed around as real.

But hey — if you're into this kind of humour, here are two more from the same YouTube Channel:





(Post picked up by Copyranter on Buzzfeed)

Guitars as women as sex toys?

There's always been a strong connection between sex and rock 'n' roll (the latter term, itself a euphemism for sex), and the feminine shape of guitars has always been acknowledged.

But this is still weird as hell.

Interestingly, these ads for Hendrix Studios in Russia (a rehearsal studio) was created by two women:  Anna Gladkova and Olga Azukina of Moscow's Twiga agency.

Somehow, that fact changes the way I look at the ads. They're not so much about treating women as sex objects (via guitar lust); they're showing men as kind of pathetic and desperate.

And then there's this:



Via Ads of the World

Babes 'n' Donuts: A new low in viral car advertising?

This is a real ad for the Scion IQ, just shared by Ads of The World:



Ummm... OK. But at least it's equal opportunity sexploitation:







Truly, truly stupid and bizarre. So I'm sure it will get lots of views. But will it sell cars?

Hmmm...

Most cynical use of sex in advertising of the week

Okay, it's only Monday and this ad launched last Friday. But try to glean one spec of useful consumer information from this ad:



I guess this is pretty tame for a Kate Upton ad, though. At least she's not simulating sex with a burger in public,  erotically teaching a group of jocks how to use their fingers or using her breasts to win staring contests.

But at least those ads had some sort of concept, as exploitative as it was.

Via Buzzfeed

Breasts exploited in the name of cancer (again) #FdAdFriday

The technology is interesting, if it actually works as intended.

Poster before thermoactivation.

"Breast lumps are often discovered by womens partners. As a part of communication launching Breast Unit Prague (clinique for preventing and curing breast cancer) we produced this poster targeting men in male areas. When they placed their hands on the poster a pair of breasts would appear. Headline: ‘Touch them to ensure that they don’t disappear.’"

Poster thermoactivated.

While cause marketers like "Coppafeel,"  "Feel Your Boobies" and "Self Chec" promote self-screening for lumps in humorous and playfully sexy ways, this one seems more lecherous and objectifying. (Even though the creative team of Tereza Sverakova, Lauren van Aswegen and Igor Paleta seems to include at least one women.) And I don't know what it's like on the streets of Prague, but I wouldn't want to be seen feeling up a poster in public. Especially not a cancer campaign.

Ummm... what "thermoactivated" that line below the hands?

Let's hope this ad wasn't literally "F'd"...

Campaign by Leagas Delaney Prague, Czech Republic
Via I Believe in Advertising

Walgreens really wants you to buy this sex toy #FdAdFriday

As "America's online pharmacy", Walgreens.com of course has a "sexual wellness" section. But in addition to condoms and lube, they sell toys. Including toys for boys. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this particular item, the Tenga Flip Hole for Male Masturbation Black, has gone viral for its particularly graphic product description:

"Tenga Flip Hole is designed to be the best male masturbator on the market. The Tenga Flip hole is deliberately not a simple artificial vagina - it is better. Filled with silicone ribs; nubs; gates; flaps; and pumps; the Tenga Flip Hole has an astonishing complex inside shape. Every centimeter of it has a particular function. Its flexible casing with buttons allows a total control of the stimuli. Flip Hole is the first masturbator that can open itself completely. For this reason it's really easy to clean and to always keep it hygienic. The Tenga Flip Hole Black provides a tighter interior sleeve for a noticibly different feel from the Flip Hole White."

I am not letting that thing within 100 metres of my johnson...

And of course, with the added attention, come the trolling "product reviews":

"For the value it's much better than the Fleshlight
My Fleshlight had to be replaced after it sprung a leak and the Flip Hole was just what I was looking for. Sleek and modern design with quality construction at an affordable price and clean up is a breeze!
The Flip Hole is definitely the only male masturbation tool I will ever use again. Say goodbye to the stranger and hello to the Tenga Flip Hole!" 

- Vas Deferens 

"LOOOVE IIIIIT
Pros: cheaper than a real date, no conversation needed
this is amazing" 

- JWOW

Unfortunately, this item appears to be sold out. But this isn't the only Tenga male masturbation product in the online catalogue; the Tenga Deep Throat Cup for Male Masturbation is still available and the Tenga Double Hole Cup for Male Masturbation is even on sale!

Who could resist the latter, after reading this copy:

"Tenga Double Hole male masturbation cup provides double the enjoyment. This cup features two holes; allowing you to enjoy different types of sensual sensations - the 'Bitter Side' and the 'Sweet Side'. The 'Bitter Side' firmly tightens while the "Sweet Side" gently clings to your member. Normal use is one side at a time. But; using both sides of this cup simultaneously transports you to the virtual world of a 'hreesome'."

Hreesome?

On that note, have a great weekend.

Tip via Crushable 

Apparently, pants are no longer fashionable in Spain #FdAdFriday

Since my last two posts were real downers, here's the cover of this April's edition of Harper’s Bazaar Espana:

According to Styleite, that's former Victoria’s Secret "angel" Izabel Goulart. But I seriously doubt those are really her legs. (Photoshop Disasters fans, can we get a ruling on this?)

And here I thought it was "the land of France" where "the ladies wear no pants".

These porn ads are so fatuous

These ads for MTS's Amour TV "adult" channel remind me of that great scene in The Big Lebowski.

İzleyin: Geleneksel Big Lebowski festivali

[Maude shows the porn video starring Bunny to the Dude]
Sherry in 'Logjammin': [on video] "You must be here to fix the cable."
Maude Lebowski: Lord. "You can imagine where it goes from here."
The Dude: "He fixes the cable?"
Maude Lebowski: "Don't be fatuous, Jeffrey"

But in these ads, the creative team at Dare Vancouver isn't being fatuous at all:


Amour 'Dirty Pool' from thisisdare on Vimeo.



Amour 'Officer Biggs' from thisisdare on Vimeo.



Amour 'Special Delivery' from thisisdare on Vimeo.


Personally, I think it would have been even better as a campaign for censorware.

Tip Via Ads of The World
Embeds via Joey Tomatoes 

Naked for Kony

The interest in, and controversy over, the Kony 2012 campaign by Invisible Children has kept social media busy over the past couple of weeks. Intended to increase international pressure to arrest the Ugandan warlord for crimes against humanity by creating a faux camaign"for" Kony, it racked up tens of millions of views in a short time.

It also drew attention to criticisms of the charity, such as claims it distorts the facts, misuses funds, and is homophobic. Plus, Ugandans themselves hated it. And then there was the bizarre arrest of the movement's intoxicated, masturbating, founder.

I've been avoiding blogging about Kony 2012 because I had nothing to add. But then my Facebook friend Kate h. posted this ridiculous pro-Kony video by Bree Olson:



Ms. Olson is an adult performer best known for her association with Charlie Sheen during his "Goddesses" phase.

In case you were unable to sit through more than a few seconds of the video, it features Ms. Olson writhing in various states of undress, interspersed with pictures of sad African child soldiers and title cards (with voiceover) that make the claim the her porno posturing to get attention for the cause is the same thing that Invisible Children did.

That's the old Machiavellian social marketing idea that anything that gets attention is a good thing. But I don't even buy this on that level. It's really a self-serving attempt by a quasi-celebrity to get some borrowed intertest from a phenomenally successful viral campaign.

So she's right: It's nice packaging (borrowed interest) on something (Bree Olson) that wouldn't be an inherently fascinating topic to many people otherwise.