This ’300′ style ad for dirt cheap Be Love condoms by Leo Burnett, Paris (Eric Esculier, Stephane Santana AD/concept; Simon Danaher illustrator) turns Cupids into Spartan warriors of love. Their cry: Let your love arrows fly with great vigor and little remorse! (Image thanks to scaryideas):
When we saw this ad for Schick’s Quattro TrimStyle a few weeks ago it tickled our imagination, but it seemed to be living in an awkward place between outright campy and demurely suggestive. The combo blade and trimmer lets women shave and, in the ad’s words, ‘transform’. You can almost feel the creative struggle that must have occurred between agency (JWT, NY) and client over how far to take it.
The TV spot (below), though a little more suggestive since the topiaries transform from untrimmed to trimmed, similarly lives in that neither-here-nor-there world.
Then we saw the video on AgencySpy’s Week in Advertising 22. This is where, it seems to us, the campaign should have gone. The video’s fab lyrics encourage women to ‘mow the lawn’ declaring ‘some bushes are really big, some gardens are mighty small, but whatever shape your topiary, it’s easy to trim them all’. The viz’s are equally campy and suggestive.
At first we thought it was the British version because of the URL, but according to scaryideas, it was produced by JWT, NY. Of course, it doesn’t exist anywhere on the company’s generic-looking Quattro For Women website.
The fun direction must have freaked the hell out of the focus group ladies in Minneapolis, so mainstream media got the soft stuff.
This week we introduce a new Adiocracy column to address the huge volume of ad nonsense out there these days.
For its inaugural post, we’ve picked a campaign for Knob Creek we’ve been observing for a while. As bourbon drinkers we always like to see a bourbon brand put it out there. And we like the smoky, vintage, collaged look of the campaign.
What we take issue with are the monkey nonsense headlines meant to be, we gather, statements of confident male purpose. The problem is, they come across as the kind of drunken drivel your punning uncle might make. The sort of quips you can only nod your head at in lame acknowledgement.
Not that we’re looking for profundity from a mid-list bourbon. But the brand has worked hard to create both a culture and a community. But more often than not, when you try to be profound you come across sounding either incredibly precious or super obvious. Variously, the headlines in this campaign achieve both with statements like, ‘The presence of a bar stool shouldn’t prevent you from standing for something’ and non-statements like, ‘No matter how loud the bar, you can always hear your own voice.’
Bourbon is one of those alcohols that can build a brand on mood alone, and these ads do create mood. Unfortunately, like any handsome drunk, the mood is ruined once he opens his mouth.
Perhaps because we’re not British, we don’t quite get the point of view in this Schweppes ad by Mother (London) in which every country in the G20 has just been fired. Why fire Turkey and Canada? What’d they do?
And who’s doing the firing? Gordon Brown? Trump? Neither makes sense, so are they supposed to represent the common people? Maybe, but they look more like bankers than school teachers to us. We also have to admit to feeling a little bad that they fired Obama, despite his lack of experience. Being Americans, we’d like Schweppes to give him a little more of a chance.
The ad’s a bit confusing, but we certainly appreciate the angst and cathartic rage behind it.
