Bloglove is in the air... #saveadland

When I started this blog, in early 2009, I decided I had better carefully study the style and success of some of the more popular ad bloggers. Quickly, I realized that there was a small group who I ended up reading most often: AdFreak, Copyranter, Adrants, Adland, Osocio and (of course) Ads of The World - the place everyone goes for content.

As I found my voice and my niche, I also found that these blogs were run by a close-knit fraternity of ad nerds who were completely modest and approachable. Tim Nudd of AdFreak is an Anglo-American family man who balances being edgy and fun with the demands of representing a corporate brand. Steve Hall of Adrants is an apparent ad convention junkie who also writes for Playboy's "I just visit it for the articles" blog. Åsk Wäppling of Adland is a Swedish design nerd and single mom who is the veteran of the group (having blogged since 1996). Marc van Gurp of Osocio is a Dutch family man and digital designer who has a passion for great work that inspires social change. Ivan Raszl of Ads of The World is a Hungarian family man, designer, and now New Canadian. Even the anonymous Copyranter, the cynical Rorschach of the group, is surprisingly humble and accessible and on his comments thread.

It has been a pleasure to find myself accepted into this group, even though I'm a noob and don't have a massive following. All of the above have shared content from this blog, from time to time,  and have respectfully linked back. Tim and I chat frequently on Google. Steve runs a Facebook club, of sorts, for fellow enthusiasts. I flirt shamelessly with Åsk on Facebook. Marc and I are now good friends (although we've never met in person) and collaborators on Osocio. Ivan and I just recently had a meet-up at a pub when I was doing focus groups in his new home base. And Copyranter, he occasionally gives me a nice shout-out.

But the real sense of community occurred to me just today, when Åsk found herself at the business end of an unpayable server bill. She put out an appeal, and... well... I'll let her tell it:

"We've raised $1,287.15 for the $2,658.50 so far, but that's not even the best news here. The best news is that so many of you care enough to retweet and donate and post blog posts and tell your friends. I honestly wasn't expecting this much love, and I am humbled by it.

@Adfreak asked everyone to please help save us, @agencyspy put a link in their tuesday morning stir to longtime adgrunt Purplesimon's appeal post. I didn't ask @purplesime to do that, and I didn't ask @imperica to post this appeal post either. I'm grateful they both did. 

Turns out that Imperica have a good grasp of how much I do here (read: everything), and some readers revealed they had no idea. Thus came the tweets showing me building hardware (acme, apex and acme again) which was quite fun for a bit. At least for me. :)
Even the End days of advertising joined in making a special sarcastic toon just for adland. Sweet. 

And to top it all off, my ex-ex hosting place Memset contacted me over twitter to see if they can help. They must have forgiven me for almost taking down their network a few superbowls ago. 

And today, Amazon in Ireland phoned us up, they've not just extended the deadline, they're going to help figure out how to make a better setup that won't cost a fortune each month."

It's a Festivus miracle!

So I'd like to do my part to give back some blog love as I entreat those of you who also love reading or writing adblogs to donate now to keep the lights on at Adland. (I hear those Swedish winters are really damn dark, too!)

And thanks to all my adblogging friends for teaching me the ropes.

F'd Ad Fridays: When in Romania...

Earlier this week, Marc posted an article on Osocio about a Romanian candy company's campaign to rid Google's search engine of prejudicial stereotypes about their country and their people.

In response to suggested searches like this, which result from disparaging Googles done mostly by other Europeans, the advertiser asked people to do positive searches instead.

Nice, eh? I thought so, anyway.

And then, also this week, I catch this Romanian tourism campaign by Lowe&Partners online:

"Visit Romania, get drunk, get laid and meet Dracula". Not really helpful, is it?

Why I hate these anti-SIDS shock ads

Shock advertising is on its way out in social marketing in general. But if there's one target audience that still responds strongly to fear, it's new parents.

Which is why this campaign by the City of Milwaukee Health Department (via Osocio) does everything I hate. It dramatically overstates a risk, increases the fear and anxiety of new parents (especially mothers), and it is a lazy bid for attention and/or awards by the agency, Serve:

Co-sleeping is one of those issues that really polarizes parents. On one side, you have the "rule follower" parents, who accept the risk-averse dictates of public health authorities who say that babies sleeping in their parents' beds are more likely to die. Then you have the "intuitive" parents who question these dictates, based on their own feelings and diverse cultural practices.

According to celebrity baby-care expert Dr. Sears, there is a third way to look at the issue: statistically.

"During the 8-year period of this study, about 34,000 total cases of SIDS occurred in the U.S. (around 4250 per year). If 65 cases of non-SIDS accidental death occurred each year in a bed, and about 4250 cases of actual SIDS occurred overall each year, then the number of accidental deaths in an adult bed is only 1.5% of the total cases of SIDS. 

There are two pieces of critical data that are missing that would allow us to determine the risk of SIDS or any cause of death in a bed versus a crib. 

How many cases of actual SIDS occur in an adult bed versus in a crib? 

How many babies sleep with their parents in the U.S., and how many sleep in cribs? 

The data on the first question is available, but has anyone examined it? In fact, one independent researcher examined the CPSC's data and came to the opposite conclusion than did the CPSC - this data supports the conclusion that sleeping with your baby is actually SAFER than not sleeping with your baby. As for the second question, many people may think that very few babies sleep with their parents, but we shouldn't be too quick to assume this. The number of parents that bring their babies into their bed at 4 am is probably quite high. Some studies have shown that over half of parents bring their baby into bed with them at least part of the night. And the number that sleep with their infants the whole night is probably considerable as well. In fact, in most countries around the world sleeping with your baby is the norm, not the exception. And what is the incidence of SIDS in these countries? During the 1990s, in Japan the rate was only one tenth of the U.S. rate, and in Hong Kong, it was only 3% of the U.S. rate. These are just two examples. Some countries do have a higher rate of SIDS, depending on how SIDS is defined."

What is going on here?

"Who is behind this new national campaign to warn parents not to sleep with their babies? In addition to the USCPSC [U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission], the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) is co-sponsoring this campaign. The JPMA? An association of crib manufacturers. This is a huge conflict of interest. Actually, this campaign is exactly in the interest of the JPMA."

I understand that many parents would rather not go against authoritarian advice when they believe it is a matter of life and death. I wouldn't advise them to. But my wife and I made the informed decision to keep our infant son in our bed. It actually made breastfeeding much easier for her, as she barely needed to wake up for night feedings. We believed it was far better for him, too, because he was fed at the first signs of restlessness and never had to wake up feeling abandoned and alone. (Dr. Ferber is an asshole, BTW.) And safety? We believed that it was far safer to have the baby with us, where we could directly detect and address any issues of respiratory distress, rather than trusting wireless technology to do it for us.

We also believe that SIDS has many causes, that are not well understood. Second-hand smoke, parental drug (including alcohol) abuse, poor nutrition, and suffocating bedclothes have all also been blamed. Breastfeeding, on the other hand, has been linked to lower SIDS rates. There are various explanations given for this, but I have my own theory: that close encounters with an engorged breast while feeding strengthens the baby's awareness of, and response to, the anti-smothering instinct. But I'm not a scientist. I'm just an adman who plays one on his blog.

F'd Ad Fridays: Fuzzy font made of real leg hair

Here's the story:

"Twenty year old Mayuko Kanazawa, a student at Japan's Tama Art University, has created what must be the strangest font design yet - the Leg Hair Font! Inspired by a challenge from her profs at the Department of Design, and a hairy male friend that complained of leg pain, the enterprising young student was able to manipulate, twist and design the hairs into uppercase and lowercase fonts."

I guess it could have been worse. She could have aimed a little higher.

Thanks to +Marc for the tip.

F'd Ad Fridays: Consider yourself teased

Gabbo! Gabbo! Gabbo!

Thanks to Marc for sharing on G+

F'd Ad Fridays: Unfortunate condom ad copy

Brisbane Times reports that this condom ad is drawing complaints from parents who don't like seeing pictures of sexy body-painted models so close to their kids' schools.

The complaint came via the Australian Christian Lobby's Wendy Francis. The uptight Ms. Francis has previously lobbied (unsuccessfully) to get a gay-positive safe sex PSA poster banned.

This time, however, she hit on an actually point. She insisted that the bus shelter ad is sexually offensive and contained no positive message about safe sex.

While I see nothing offensive about the imagery (condom ads should promote pleasure and fun) the headline is not very responsible. "Zero or Nothing" may be a clever play on words that implies it is the only acceptable way to cap the Jimmy, but the implication of barebacking as the alternative is not exactly public health friendly. Not a great move for this category.

Lisbon gay film festival reveals the closeted characters in your favourite movies

Marc put this Queer Lisboa campaign on Osocio, but I wanted to share it here too. Some of them are pretty funny (if only for the accents).







This last one I thought was already acknowledged as a "gay movie". But anyway...

The most beautiful, nastiest, campaign nudes you will see today

These unsettling portraits are by by UK photog Rankin, known for his sexy and disturbing images. (As well as the most sexily disturbing PSA I have seen in quite some time—posted earlier on Osocio.)

For this job, conceived by Beta, London for the British Skin Foundation, the shock is toned down. The pictures are almost too beautiful for the message.

Heh heh heh... "bum crack"

Nice work, though. I hope it gets through.

Find out more about the campaign here.