Advertising F*** Up of the Year #6

I was originally going to do these once a month, until they came flooding in so thick and fast that they just demand being published. For today’s it’s All Hail the Mighty Target, (Australian branch), who, in an interesting wrinkle on recent controversies, (forgive the pun), are here found guilty of not air-brushing their models [...]

Hilarious animation. Why isn’t it an ad? What’s that? Not everything in life should be an ad? Sheesh. Now you tell me. (Slinks off, muttering …)

This little animation is very amusing and brilliantly executed. What’s really sad is that when I looked at it I just kept thinking “I bet this is an ad for a watch company”. Then at the end I thought, “this should be an ad for a watch company”.  You know what they say, “You can [...]

This is great advertising – and this is how it’s done

So, dear reader, I was meandering through a very funny blog on vegetarianism – I recommend it, by the way – and I came across this ad for a restaurant. Ten seconds on Google and it turns out it’s in Minneapolis. Their website is here: jdhoyts.com. I have no idea if they’re any good, but [...]

Advertising f*** up of the year #3. And it’s not even February yet. I think I sense a thread coming on …

OK, so, what can we learn from this, kiddiwinks? Well, we can learn that it’s not enough to design a nice poster for the window of your supermarket. You have to actually make it fit the window. Yep, go that extra mile. Still, at least if you do the hard yards you can avoid being [...]

Advertising F*** Up of the Year #2 – yes, already!

Oh dear. Oh dearie, dearie me. Oh no, really. Stop it. You’re telling me NO ONE at the Belfast Telegraph thought this was unwise? Less Guinness at lunchtime, boys … (Thank you, Tamara.)

Early contender for advertising F*** up of the year

Sometimes one simply has to fall to one’s knees to give thanks for life’s little mercies. On the right, a billboard for a laudable new safety at work campaign, highlighting the distress when police turn up at a suburban home to tell a wife and her daughter that the husband, er, won’t be home from [...]

Hilarious French condom ad. (And I try and make some serious points.)

Unless you are completely humourless, or a fundamentalist religious fanatic of some persuasion, have a long, hard look at this. It’s clever, funny, (in that delightfully witty way that the Europeans do so well), and it is strategically clever and brilliantly well executed. I have spent some of my working life addressing so-called social advocacy [...]

The best car ad I’ve seen in years

Memo to all American and Australian car manufacturers and their ad agencies: THIS is how to advertise cars and be liked and remembered. Totally relevant to the Hyundai positioning “The Smarter Choice”, brave, hilarious, cute, likeable. Bravo.

Don’t you wish your company was as cool as this?

Many years ago, I advised a client to (temporarily) mis-spell the name of his company on a billboard to make more people look at it. He didn’t understand the point, and has since gone out of business. Have a look at this. No, I don’t know how they do it, ’cause animation’s not my thing [...]

The best ad wot I never wrote

For years, I have been wracking my brains to tell people about an TV ad for whitegoods in the UK which I thought was utterly brilliant, in the way it used the brand name to drive home it’s core promise – which was durability. But while I could remember the brand name and the kicker [...]