F'd [Eastern European Agency Self Promo] Ad Fridays

Wow. Just wow.

Copyranter quotes their press release: "Press ad that ran in the most read (and most conservative) business journal in Slovakia. We needed to disrupt and break free of the clutter..."

How not to handle agency self-promo #sapientnitro

Copyranter unearthed this example of what he called "the absolute worst ad agency self-promo ever" from Sapient Nitro. And thus the feeding frenzy began. And deservedly so, because if there's one thing ad people hate, it's other ad people without a healthy dose of ironic industry self-loathing.



Have you stopped fidgeting uncomfortably yet? It gets better.

AdFreak just reported that the agency started deleting mocking Facebook posts from their wall, and even banned a few users. This prompted one Twitterer to say,

Oh, dear lord.

I kind of felt sorry for them for the video, which showed a painful lack of cynical self-awareness. But the Facebook failure I have no sympathy for.

If you screw up in social media, you screw up in public. You own it. You laugh about it. (Or apologize gracefully) And you move on.

Otherwise...

Creative team threatens to "get gay married" if they can't land a job

What a clever, but terrible, idea.

Creative self-promo pieces are usually pretty kooky. In this one, according to Adland, Charli Hoffmann and Alex Otis threaten NYC agencies that they will have to get married to keep Charli in the country unless the Hoffmann can renew her work visa before October 7 by landing a job.

It's funny, if two straight girls making light of the struggle to get same sex marriage recognized in NY doesn't irk you. Your call.

The joke works in the ad world because creative teams do become like married people after a time, no matter what their sex or orientation. But putting intent to defraud U.S. Immigration on a Facebook Page?

Not a smart move for a foreign worker these days. Even in jest.

Good luck with that.