F'd Ad Fridays: Norte Photoblocker keeps you safe from being busted on Facebook

A recent study determined that British Facebook users are visibly intoxicated in 76% of the photos they get tagged in on the social network.

This campaign, from Argentina's Norte beer, promotes an individual beer cooler that senses when a smartphone picture is being taken of you and sends a counterflash to destroy the shot with glare.



It's a photo jamming tactic that has been popular with people who want to evade photo radar speed traps. So it is theoretically possible, even if this "innovation" is a gag.

Here's another ad:



Via Ads of The World

Postmodern beer advertising from Molson?

This is kind of hard to believe, but also quite remarkable.

After years of serving up ads that insinuiate that drinking their brand of beer will make you attractive to the opposite sex, Molson has decided to go meta.

The above ad, according to Sociological Images, appeared in Cosmopolitan. Just look at that sensitive, but ruggedly manly, dude with the adorable puppies and matching sweater and cap. A fine catch for any heterosexual woman! And look here! He's drinking a Molson!

While not very credible in its forced cuddliness, this ad probably went unnoticed between all the photoshopped boobs and bums that make up most of the ads in a women's mag.

But then someone caught wind of the other side of the campaign, that ran in FHM and Playboy:

Copy:

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF WOMEN.
PRE-PROGRAMMED FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE. 

As you read this, women across America are reading something very different: an advertisement (fig. 1) scientifically formulated to enhance their perception of men who drink Molson. The ad shown below, currently running in Cosmopolitan magazine, is a perfectly tuned combination of words and images designed by trained professionals.  Women who are exposed to it experience a very positive feeling.  A feeling which they will later project directly onto you. Triggering the process is as simple as ordering a Molson Canadian (fig. 2).
…
Extravagent dinners.  Subtitled movies. Floral arrangements tied together with little pieces of hay. It gets old.  And it gets expensive, depleting funds that could go to a new set of of 20-inch rims. But thanks to the miracle of Twin Advertising Technology, you can achieve success without putting in any time or effort. So drop the bouquet and pick up a Molson Canadian…

Sociological Images editor Lisa Wade (a respected blogging ally, I should disclose) was offended by the ruse, writing "The second ad, then, portrays men as lazy, shallow jerks who are just trying to get laid (not soft and sensitive at all). And it portrays women as stupid and manipulable."

But I think Molson was on to something here. And it has to do with the nature of the trick.

There is no way any male reader of those magazines would take the "Male" ad seriously. It is a parody of the many "how to pick up girls" ads that have been gracing those kinds of publications since the '60s.

It also needs to be seen in context of the culture of pranking Millennials have grown up with. While some women might be offended by the goofy trick, others may get as much of a laugh out of it as the men.

What do you think?

UPDATE: Åsk, from Adland, tells me this campaign is old. Like, real old. (It's always good to know the internet's longest-running ad blogger!)

F'd Ad Fridays: Beer versus Wife

As awful as the message of these Australian ads is, the execution is quite hilarious:

By BBDO. Via Ads of The World

F'd Ad Fridays: Fishing with beer, bugs, bombs and balls

Not your average beer ad:



Via Adrants

Gay lifestyle beer ads are just as lame as straight ones

Buzzfeeder hgrant just posted this collection with the comment, "Apparently gay men will only drink beer if it's low in calories, because you know, they totally don't want to get fat."

To me, it looks like the same "party on, dudes" and "you're gonna get laid!" tropes we're used to in lowbrow beer marketing. Except this time, it's dudes getting laid by other dudes.

Welcome to the world of beer marketing stereotypes, my gay friends. Party on.

F'd Ad Fridays: Four words... "imagine they were black"

It's actually a very clever guerilla marketing stunt by Carlsberg. They packed a cinema with rough-looking bikers and left only two seats vacant for unsuspecting "nice" couples.


(via Illegal Advertising)

But it really bugged me. Probably because I'd feel intimidated too. And as I watched the couples who turned away, I couldn't help but imagine this kind of prejudice happening in a cinema full of African Americans in the deep south, or any other oft-maligned group of your choice.

Yes, the couple who sit deserve a beer for being open-minded. But what does that say about everyone else? That's what's F'd here.

Women: How to keep your boyfriend/husband from drinking your beer

At least, in public:

Yep, the latest effort to niche market beer to women is this pink-packaged "premium light" beer. And it hits all the 21st Century marketing-to-women stereotypes:

"We are proud to introduce Chick Beer, the only American beer created just for women.
Chick Beer is a premium, craft-brewed light lager that has just 97 calories and 3.5 carbs. We brew Chick at America’s second-oldest brewery, located in beautiful southern Wisconsin. 

For centuries, beer has been created, produced and marketed by and to men.  At Chick, we think that it’s time for a new choice. 

Chick Beer celebrates women: independent, smart, fun-loving and self-assured women who  love life and embrace all of the possibilities that it has to offer.

Above all, we think that beer is supposed to be fun!  For centuries beer has been the most sociable of beverage……good times with good friends!

So enjoy! Grab a cool Chick and Witness the Chickness!"

Okay, I guess. But if they want to appeal to more women drinkers I'd rather see mainstream beers just stop insulting women in their ads.  Most of the women I drink with like the same brands I do.

Tip via eater

The minimalist beer commercial

And by "minimalist", I mean that there is nothing to get between the viewer and its three key messages:

1. Women are anonymous objects of men's sexual desire
2. Beer is good
3. Women are anonymous objects of men's sexual desire

Now let's review:



Classy.

Via Illegal Advertising