"Learn English Abroad" ads hit my communication sweet spot

I really like these Swiss learning travel ads in today's Ads of The World:

The copy reads, "Exciting conversations don't come out of your schoolbook.
Language courses abroad: www.smallworld.ch".

This struck me as such a perfectly true insight. So true, in fact, that there's no way it can't have been done many times before.

It also hits home. As an English Canadian of a certain age, I studied French as a mandatory school course from Grade 3 to Grade 10. Today, I cannot speak French to save my cul.

A few years later, I learned to speak Italian. Not grammatically perfect Italian, but enough to keep my culo out of trouble as I mingled with new friends in bars, clubs and parties — exactly the scenarios shown above.

And this is why I love the ads. Real language immersion is a full-contact cultural experience. You learn what you need to learn naturally, simply because you really want to communicate. And the payoffs, in lifelong beyond-tourism experiences, are immediate and more than worth the effort.

F'd Ad Fridays: Vintage "educational" video warns of homosexual dangers

We keep seeing parodies of the old '50s educational films. It's such a well-known trope that I sometimes wonder if the people making them have ever seen an original.

The thing is, those original films are a really special kind of awful, from a time when conformity was considered so essential to society that they had to constantly program kids through propaganda techniques learned in the recent war.

So watch this clip. You'll either laugh or get angry. But you'll have to admit the medium is still a powerful cultural reference, decades later.

What are we teaching the next generation of creatives?

Student work that makes the blog rounds is very telling. On the one hand, it shows us what the next generation of creatives has to offer. On the other hand, student (and often junior) work tends to be an exaggerated reflection of what these impressionable young adpeople think is great.

This Maxim/Humane Society CSR spec from Miami Ad School, Brooklyn, is a prime example.

It's a digital campaign that asks men what type of woman they want to hook up with, and suggests a breed of dog to adopt to attract her. It also provides stereotype-specific pickup lines.

So, what are we teaching today's ad students?

Well, "sex sells" is a given. But wait!  There's more:

Lesson One: It's okay to sexually objectify women as long as it's for a cause 


Thank PETA for that one.

Lesson Two: Porn is reality

Is any Maxim reader going to meet women like this? No, because they do not exist. They are stereotypes ripped from the hand of a Letters to Penthouse reader, as portrayed by surgically and digitally enhanced models. Hey, look! The smart girl has glasses! (Don't worry, she's taking them off.) Note that most of them are white, and "Latina Princess" has no personality beyond her exotic ethnicity.

Lesson Three: Bitches are disposable commodities


What a great idea. Imagine if you could borrow a dog just long enough to attract a girl like this, just long enough to bed her. Then you can go back next week and get a chihuahua and maybe bang the Latin girl! Because attracting non-committed pet owners is what the Humane Society is all about. And tricking women into sex is what being a man is all about, big guy!

Lesson Four: You can insult people all you want, as long as it's a joke

If someone questions the appropriateness of your campaign, "Get the sand out of your vagina!" is a proper response. If the critic is a woman, this both reminds her that she is defined by her sexual parts, and outs her as a humourless prude. If the critic is male, it implies he is no man at all (and is probably gay) because he refused to fist bump a bro for putting the hos in their place. Also, he is probably gay.

Lesson Five: To get ahead in advertising, think like a man (with your penis)


If you have already seen this campaign (in I Believe in Advertising or elsewhere) you probably skipped straight to the comments to tell me what an idiot I am. The credits, you see, are "Art Director: Jennine Punzone
Copywriters: Jaclyn Shelton, Kaley Coon".

Young women. Trying to impress middle aged creative directors by selling out their own dignity.

They'll go far.

Sex, lies, and the politics of hate

Remember last week's awful ad (new window) from the "Institute for Canadian Values" about Ontario's proposed sex ed curriculum? With its blatantly anti-GLBTQ message and manipulative imagery, it even got the National Post to apologize for running it in the first place.

Well, there's another one. A pamphlet. And according to Torontoist it was paid for by Ontario's Progressive (ha!) Conservative Party:

The Globe and Mail gives Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak's defence of the publication:

When asked if he supported the message, Mr. Hudak turned the question around on the Liberals and suggested the party was out of touch with mainstream voters.

“My little girl Miller – it’s her birthday today – is just four and she has started JK,” he said. “The notion that Dalton McGuinty thinks a priority in education is sex-education curriculum starting at Grade 1 when they should be learning their ABCs and how to tie their shoes is another example of how Dalton McGuinty has lost touch with mainstream Ontario.”

The Globe has also endorsed the Liberal Premier, Dalton McGuinty, for re-election on Thursday's provincial vote.

Interestingly, the quotes in the ad are not from any proposed provincial curriculum, but rather from a Toronto District School Board booklet on "Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism".

And as CBC points out, the copy is full of misrepresentations and outright fabrications.

The flyer includes one quote from the document —"cross-dressing for six-year olds"— that can't be found anywhere in the TDSB document. The flyer also says the quotes are taken from the K-12 curriculum. But the quotes are not included in the curriculum, only in the anti-homophobia resource guide.

This election campaign was already ugly. Now it's evil, too.

(Thanks to Martha W. for the tip)

Raise your hand if you think schools are underfunded

Here's a cute ad that showed up on Reddit. Looks like someone's spec idea, however the supposed sponsor, A Day Made Better, is a very real teacher-supportive CSR effort by Office Max in the USA.


Here in Canada as well, classrooms are grossly underfunded and teachers (such as my better half) end up spending this much and more out-of-pocket just to make sure their students have what they need to learn in a positive and fun environment. Yet political pressures to reduce school budgets continue to reduce the quality and availability of classroom resources and insult the professionalism of teachers.

So the ad above may well be fake (since it is so tonally different from the "real" campaign) but it certainly expresses a real frustration faced by educators.

The Jennifer Aniston Foundation

The Stiller Foundation (FB link) is a real charity, founded "to support children around the world by providing educational opportunities to help them realize their full potential."

The PSA, however, is just good old fashioned Stiller humour:



The URL is the best part, considering Aniston is one of the more modest and guarded blockbuster actresses out there. (Don't worry/get too excited, it just redirects to FB.)

Via Illegal Advertising