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

A Jewish joke? Really?

And it's in Manhattan, too.

This is part of an ongoing campaign to sell cheap vodka by insulting everyone.

But unlike sex workers, Jewish people are not likely to take it lying down. Nor should anyone else.

Update: It's going down.

Get your Monday morning naked billboard action here

Click to enlarge. Via IBiA

Cute idea to promote The Hangline, an American blog dedicated to improving the quality of local and small-agency outdoor advertising. Although I disagree with the idea of rating ads on their "beauty" (rather than the more practical qualities of their message, art direction and placement) at least these guys have an ethos.

Toledo billboards wage holy war over whether God makes people gay

First there was this one, by an affirming church in Toledo:

Via The Advocate

Nice, isn't it? A very Christian message of inclusivity and unconditional love. But it didn't sit well with the entire Christian community in Toledo, particularly with Rev. Tony Scott of the Church on Strayer. He was moved by some unknown force to respond with another billboard:

Via AdFreak

Rev. Scott has some very strong feelings about Biblical orthodoxy. He told the Toledo Blade:

"I love everyone. There's nothing on that billboard about hate. I'm getting hate mail from lesbian and gay people, but my point is that I love them too much to let someone believe a lie. I love this city too much to let a lie be sown." [...] "What the gay organizations have done is they have misused the biblical passages, according to the experts."

He then gives his own interpretation of the Genesis creation myth:

"God's definition of marriage is that he plumbed [Adam] and he plumbed [Eve] so that the two of them could procreate. Anything relationally between the sexes that does not have that potential, and that opportunity, does not come from God."

But thge real question is, "What Would Jesus Do?"

Thanks to AdFreak for the tip.

Sleeveface: the greatest photo meme lives on in radio station ads

Long before today's trend of stupid photo memes, there was Sleeveface. Although earlier examples exist, the fad was named and made famous in 2007 by proud Welshman Carl Morris.

Following the success of his user-generated site, in 2008 Morris and his friend John Rostron published a book of Sleeveface pictures. Having fallen in love with the concept from the start, a bunch of us at Acart Communications had submitted our own, photographed by our colleague Rob Wilson. Most of them made it into the book.

So sliiiiide over here, and give me a moment...

I've always wanted to find a way to use Sleeveface in a campaign. So I was a little bummed out when I passed this billboard in Ottawa last week:

It's a little obvious to do it for a classic rock station, but I guess I'm glad that the meme lives on.

Close-ups below:

Jammin' in the cubicle

Sisters are doin' it for themselves?

Is this student Victoria's Secret QR tease good targeting?

Ad students really do have all the fun, mostly because they don't have real marketing departments, focus groups or pesky old budgets to get in the way of single-minded creativity.

This one from Miami Ad School (via I Believe in Advertising) takes a nice angle on the basic promise of expensive lingerie: that it's actually sexier to wear a little bit of fashion than nothing at all. And then it uses QR codes on apparently naked models to sucker (presumably) men into spending time with the message.

As I said, I presume the target is men who will then be aroused into buying VC frilly underthings for their beloveds.

According to Wikipedia, "Victoria's Secret was started in San Francisco, California, in 1977 by Tufts University and Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus Roy Raymond, who felt embarrassed trying to purchase lingerie for his wife in a department store environment."

But that was the '70s. What about now? According to the She-conomy blog, 85% of branded purchases are made by women. And sales are up at VC. Are those increases still being driven by men who want their wives or girlfriends to look like underwear models?

A case study for an online campaign (found on Slideshare) implies that men are still the target. However, a couple of years ago VC also launched "PINK" — a line targeted directly at teen and pre-teen (!) girls.

This is where I will give the opinion that these student ads are off. Because while sexy print ads, catalogues and online fashion shows attract aspirational female consumers as well as horny dudes, how many straight women are going to publicly lift up their iPhone at a billboard in the hope of seeing another woman's bare tits and ass? It's a pretty exclusive appeal. And I'm betting that young women are the brand's future.

As a publicity stunt though, admittedly it would keep the brand in the headlines.

What do you think? Are men still buying most of the lingerie?

Ambiguous copywriting kills God

Well, that's unfortunate.

This real church billboard was placed in Mansfield, Ohio, as a response to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's "Good without God" campaign.

It caused Hemant Mehta of The Friendly Atheist to comment:

"Not only are they telling us that god doesn’t exist (in a large font, no less), they’re also telling us to be skeptical of what we hear! I couldn’t have said it better myself :)"