Japan's Wakino Ad Company is selling ad space on women's underarms for rates starting at 10,000 yen/hour. Their first paid campaign comes from Seishin Biyo Clinic for its armpit hair removal process. From Straits Times:
Read the restMeanwhile, Wakino is calling for aspiring models to raise their hands, as it has since embarked on a recruitment drive via its website.
The company, which said it is open to hiring male models as well, will also be organising an armpit beauty contest.
Through a mix of archival and current footage, this lovely documentary puts Milton Glaser's iconic I ❤ NY logo in historical context. Read the rest
Thanks to YouTube and short attention spans, the humble movie trailer has surged in popularity in the past decade. In that time, the number of agencies that make trailers jumped from 12 to over 100. Read the rest
My bud Money Mark joined tennis champion Roger Federer in the Mojave Desert to record this fantastic commercial for a new Wilson racket. It's titled "Play Your Heart Out." Below, Mark explains the method behind the mad beats. The extended mix is available as a 7" vinyl record as part of a limited edition box set that includes the racket, photo book, and other accoutrements.
Please don't shoot the messenger on this one. But to show how mad advertising has become, I present to you this super-weird commercial for Gain laundry detergent where a boy sniffs a jockstrap.
Here's the premise: Two boys (the "Martinez brothers") attempt to prank their napping "dad" by placing a jockstrap (that they just pulled out of a gym bag with a stick) on his face. What the young pranksters don't know is that the jockstrap has been washed with Gain, which has effectively eliminated the man-crotch aroma. So, instead of being woken up in disgust by the smell of his own junk, the dad just smiles and keeps on sleeping. Confused, the older boy then takes the jockstrap back and gives it a deep huff. The announcer says, "That, boys, is the sweet smell of defeat."
I'm laughing so hard. Who greenlighted this?! And what parent would be ok with their child taking an acting role that involves sniffing a jockstrap to sell laundry detergent?
The internet has questions too:
@ProcterGamble 1-800-888-4642 Your jock strap #GainDetergent commercial is ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING!What's next soiled diapers or menstrual?What is wrong with u ppl? Ur advertising dept is morbid SICK!!! Contributing 2 the vile sickness in this country! Hope u fire them all!
— Carrie (@CarrieHKP57) July 6, 2018
Has anyone else seen the #Gain detergent, jockstrap commercial... where the kids sniff their dad’s jockstrap? I’m like super disturbed by it and want to know who the hell ok’d that? #wrong
— Jason Engler (@JasonJEngler) July 6, 2018
Read the restThe #Gains Flings commercial showing the son sniffing his sleeping dad’s jockstrap for a prank he’s trying to pull is the creepiest thing I have seen all year!
"101 degrees in the shade..."
It's been hot in the Bay Area and I was joking with a friend that we should take the "Nestea Plunge." They had no idea what I was talking about which surprised me, given the iconic ad campaign ran from the 1970s through the 1990s (and came back in 2014).
I grew up on Cape Cod, so we didn't have a pool, we just went to the beach when it was hot. For hours, my friends and I would put our arms out and fall backwards into the Atlantic, trying to reenact the Plunge we saw on TV. It was like an in-water trust fall with only the waves to catch you.
Cripes, you all remember it, don't you? Surely it's just an anomaly that my friend didn't know about it.
"Temperature was up around 103..."
"The temperature was up around 111..."
"Come on, taste the taste of wetness..."
Even legendary groupie Pamela Des Barres took the Nestea Plunge
They're *still* taking the Plunge in the Philippines Read the rest
"Red Coke," aka Riunite on Ice, was largely inspired by the 1940s "Man, Oh Manischewitz" ads. Here, voiceover genius Bob Crane does several impressions for that Robitussin-adjacent wine beloved by middle-class boomers both Jewish and gentile. Read the rest
Mr. Friendly Toilet (via Neatorama)Every gentleman knows that a toilet break is a moment of relaxation. This is when we have “time on our hands”. We seize that perfect moment with our unique Mr.Friendly urinal. Sponsors of environmentally friendly urinals are happy with that moment when they can display a nice video to introduce themselves.
As a location holder you can also use the built-in display. Communicate your message at a unique moment.
Ram used a sound clip from a Martin Luther King Jr. sermon, played over a montage of stereotypically patriotic imagery, as an ad for a truck. In response, Nathan Robinson took another quote (reportedly from the same speech) of MLK's thoughts on advertising--specifically, automobile advertising--and put it to the same video.
The agency knew what it was doing. They knew it would upset people. What a rotten, cynical ad. Read the rest
Donning a much-glitzier version of the black western bowtie and white suit that Colonel Harland Sanders is famous for, country music legend Reba McEntire is now playing an androgynous version of KFC's iconic founding father in a new ad campaign. Read the rest
Visual artist and photographer Eli Rezkallah has turned the tables on some of the most nauseatingly-sexist (and 100% real) midcentury ads in his latest project, In a parallel universe.
Last Thanksgiving, I overheard my uncles talk about how women are better off cooking, taking care of the kitchen, and fulfilling “their womanly duties”. Although I know that not all men think that way I was surprised to learn that some still do, so I went on to imagine a parallel universe, where roles are inverted and men are given a taste of their own sexist poison. “In a parallel universe” is a series of fictional images, recreated from real ads in the mad men era, that question modern day sexism: showing it through a humorous light to spark a conversation through role play - a conversation that we need to have, uncles.
Click on each image to enlarge and take note of the cat litter scooper used in place of a plastic kids shovel in one of the Leggs' ads!:
photos by Eli Rezkallah, used with permission
Back in the 1800s, a curious retailing trend began where strangely costumed women would pose for cabinet cards advertising various businesses, like Heinz pickles or J. M. Dolph & Co. Furniture & Undertaking, above. Read the rest
Beijing's subway system now includes some experimental cars decorated to look like fanciful, book-lined rooms; scan the QR codes and you get free audiobook downloads for popular Chinese novels. Read the rest
This is a TV commercial from Japanese milk company Rakunoh Mother’s. What's the deal with this Uddered Flying Object (UFO)? For the cattle mutilation-inspired backstory, see the equally unusual TV spot below.
Platinum FMD created this series of spec ads featuring the tagline "some people should never have been born." Read the rest
Bad taste. And I'm not just talking about the drink. Crushed has just deleted the Tweet.
(via Reddit and @CrushedUK) Read the rest
When you got it... flaunt it.
"As we eavesdrop on these odd couples trying to outflaunt each other, we hear everything that has to be said about Braniff (International airlines)," wrote famed designer and adman George Lois of his 1968 campaign for . "We also imply that you might bump into a celebrity or two on a Braniff flight...They are not idealized celebrities—they are famous people who are portrayed as lovable extroverts, combined to radiate a surreal kind of believability."
(r/ObscureMedia and Dangerous Minds)
