NZ church keeps up its irreverent Christian holiday ad tradition

St Matthews in the City Church in Auckland, NZ, is known for its controversial billboards. This Christmas, they did not disappoint:

Via stuff.co.nz and Copyranter

Here's a clearer image:

Via The Daily Mail

Well, how would you react if you were an engaged homeless virgin who just found out she was pregnant?


Vicar Glynn Cardy says the irreverent ad has a serious Christmas message:

"It's real. Christmas is real. It's about a real pregnancy, a real mother and a real child. It's about real anxiety, courage and hope. This billboard portrays Mary, Jesus' mother, looking at a home pregnancy test kit revealing that she is pregnant.   Regardless of any premonition, that discovery would have been shocking.  Mary was unmarried, young, and poor.  This pregnancy would shape her future.  She was certainly not the first woman in this situation or the last."

Screw the haters. I love these guys.

Other great St. Mathews billboards:

• This billboard will rise again
• God is an All-Blacks fan
• God is a hard act to follow
• Beware of God
• "Hell no, we're giving up pizza for Lent"
• Same-sex couples on Noah's Ark

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: Craigslist ad is fist-pumpingly awesome

Via Copyranter

F'd Ad Fridays: But what about the smells?

"Stops the noises"

Via Copyranter

F'd Ad Fridays: Rover, gently run over

Ad by Bates, Singapore for for ACDelco "ultrasoft" shock absorbers.

Isn't that cute! I guess all the car did to him was turn his insides into paté. But at least the driver didn't feel it.

Via Copyranter

Barbie's big gay Malibu wedding?

Copyranter posted this pic with the observation that Barbie appears to be hooking up with Ellen Degeneres.

It's actually supposed to be Ken in this colouring book, and the scenario is actually a movie premiere. The illustrator just seems to have Bieberized Ken for the little girl market.

Too bad. Since Ken went all lavender anyway, in the early '90s, Barbie might as well expand her horizons.

And it's not like homophobic parents should have any problems with a Sapphic Barbie. I've had a good 41 year run with heterosexuality, despite early exposure to Big Jim's very special friend, Jack.

I think it was the homemade pants.

F'd Ad Fridays: Hot little Italian number

This Fiat ad has been making the rounds of Copyranter, Adrants, etc., to a mixed reaction.



My reaction is not mixed at all. I hate it. It's offensive to both men and women, and manages to negatively (or positively, if you're a male masochist) stereotype Italians while it's at it.

Steve Hall disagrees:

"It's not offensive in an way, shape or form. It's just a true statement of fact: men are perplexed, dumbfounded and all out distracted when in the presence of a hot woman or a hot car. The ad is a dead on depiction of men and their relationship to women and cars. And that's just the way it is."

I guess I've just never felt a sexual attraction to a car. And I don't find the idea of being with a clearly insane women all that hot, either. I guess I'll be turning in my man card now. But I think this ad is stupid.

Also, the Cinquecento is a small car.

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..."

The only thing I like about this McDonald's ad is its ending

And I mean that in two senses. The ending did not, luckily, end up with the child catching a fry-hungry fish. And after 30 seconds of unrelenting sap, I was relieved when it was finished.

And this is coming from a man who takes his son fishing every week. Without fries.

Via Copyranter

It's the end of the world as I know it, and I smell bad

Copyranter and AOTW shared this bit of apocalyptic partying, via Argentina.



At least it didn't have any goddamn angels in it.

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...

F'd Ad Fridays: Terrible logo idea for a maternity store

I guess it's cute how innocent Room for Two Maternity is, accidentally choosing the horrific symbol of back-alley abortions for their brand.

At least it's not as bad as this one:

Via Copyranter

F'd Ad Fridays: Throwing your own poo (it's not a good look)

Copyranter shared this one from Belfast:

'ranter points out that the URL is for the city's anti-littering site. It's actually a satirical art hack of this campaign:

F'd Ad Fridays: PETA is against human fur, too

I think this partnership must have been the idea of a horny male Art Director who spends too much time dreaming up euphemisms for vulvas and submitting them to Urban Dictionary.

Or he's a big fan of Etsy.

Pic via Copyranter

"Alibis" fragrances cover the smell of baby powder, desperation

Copyranter posted this rather clever campaign for Mavericks, a South African strip club.

From the Mavericks blog:

"Mavericks Revue Bar, Cape Town’s premier Gentlemen’s Club, is extending its entertainment brand with a range of fragrances entitled ‘Alibis’, aimed at prividing gentlemen with ‘Alibis’ for a range of day to day situations.

The fragrances, aimed primarily at men are entitled:

‘My Car Broke Down’ with the scent of fuel, burnt rubber, grease and steel
‘We Were Out Sailing’ with the scent of fresh ocean spray, sea salt, aqua and cotton rope
‘I Was Working Late’ with the scent of coffee, wool suits, cigarettes and ink

All are available exclusively to purchase at Mavericks Revue Bar in Cape Town and will retail at ZAR 295 [$36.50 USD]."

I was rather surprised that the products are actually for sale. You'd think you could achieve the same marketing effect for the club without shelling out for risky novelty product development.

I can't really complain about the sexism or ethics of these ads, because those things kind of come with the territory in this entertainment category. But I do wonder if Alibis also makes a Tide-to-go-type glitter and skid mark remover for men's clothing.

F'd Ad Fridays: Is this Pert ad deliberately this awful?

It's hard to believe they didn't set out to make a truly horrifying ad: the smelly jokes, the bad special effects, the delivery... it must be what Tim Allen hallucinated when he did too much coke.

Via Copyranter

How would ad agencies prefer to depict women's body issues?

Copyranter shared a link about a challenge South Africa's Marie Claire put out to agencies there:

"We asked six advertising agencies to design posters that challenge our perceptions on what the perfect body is. Would any of  these campaigns alter the way you feel about your body? ‘We don’t all have the same body type but, regardless of this, we are all perfect. So, what is it going to take for you to love your body?’ says ed Aspasia Karras. What are your thoughts on the various campaigns?"

Here are mine:

This one by Jupiter Drawing Room is pretty good.

This other one by Jupiter seems a little weak.

TBWA's seems like I've seen it on a T-shirt or video a poster or something

Jesus, TBWA. Come up with something new already.

Not bad, Canvas Lifestyle. Not groundbreaking, but at least it tells a story.
(Fun fact: I did not know Barbie had pink permapanties)

Cool one from King James RSVP. Very Dovesque, but I like the copy.

Morbid and uncalled for, M&C Saatchi

Ogilvy, meanwhile, let a Client Services intern write and design their entry.

Which ones do you like? Which ones do you hate? And has any of these agencies come up with a new insight?

A smarter way to stop drunk driving

Copyranter just featured this NZ anti drunk driving spot, and I'm reblogging it because I really love it:



Here are all the things it gets right:

• It accepts that teens like to get drunk
• It recognizes the social pressure not to take a stand
• It's funny and culturally relevant
• The language, characters and setting realistic

Here are things it didn't do:

• Guilt
• Preach
• Shock
• Tell youth not to drink

Through my work with the Traffic Injury Research Foundation I've come to understand that positive reinforcement is the only way to really get through to anyone. To completely denormalize drunk driving, you've got to normalize the culture of refusing to participate in it.

This isn't the first time New Zealand has taken a more progressive approach to encouraging responsibility. The "4 Mates" series, aimed at men, also showed that being a designated driver for your drunken friends sucks, but is sometimes necessary.



(There is something wrong with the vid, though. It shakes.)

F'd Ad Fridays: Enjoy getting screwed by your bank for once

According to Maria Bloghu: "Komerční banka in the Czech Republik is a member of the Société Générale Group. KB ranks among the leading banking institutions in the Czech Republic. Enjoy the first banking transaction - says KB in his commercials."

Via Copyranter

F'd Ad Fridays: "Life's a doddle!"

Pot Noodle is a UK version of ramen, which predictably markets to lazy men who can't (or can't be bothered to) cook.

Most of their ads are passably silly, but this one uses the old "yob in drag" trick to add visual gags a-plenty:



Why try harder, indeed? You had them at "easy life".

Via Copyranter