Advertising Is Good For You

Do you see the obscenity on this drink label?

Source: Collateral Damage

Campaign for Orbit Mist

Advertising Agency: Energy BBDO, USA

Source: Ads of the World

Vatican Radio starts selling ad time

For the first time in its 80-year history, Vatican Radio is broadcasting commercial messages.

The move towards accepting paid advertising is related to the Vatican's $22 million deficit last year.

Sean-Patrick Lovett, director of Vatican Radio's English and Italian sections, said of Vatican radio:

It's like having an 80-year-old child living at home all this time, and you say, 'Darling, we still love you, you can go on living here, we're not going to kick you out, but it would be nice if you would contribute to paying the phone bill, the gas bill or something.

According to the LA Times:

The first commercial aired July 6. Only ads by Enel will be broadcast during a three-month trial period, and even then, the energy giant's spots interrupt Vatican Radio's regular "gavel-to-gavel coverage of the pope," as Lovett describes it, only four or five times a day.

Party at Barack's

Tonight, President Obama will host Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. Jim Crowley of the Cambridge, Massachusetts police department. Over beer, the three will discuss recent events.

(If you only just emerged from a sealed underground bunker with no Internet connection or TV reception and you'd like the story behind the meeting, CLICK HERE.)

What brand of beer will be served? Here are the preferences expressed by each of the three men.

Sgt. Crowley will be drinking:

 

Professor Gates asked for either of these two:

 

And President Obama will be having:

And in case you were wondering, I will be in my living room having my usual:

Coke calls it a 'vibrancy drink' (probably because it sounds more palatable than 'carbonated fruity milk beverage')

Coca-Cola is test marketing a sweetened fizzy milk beverage that comes in four fruit flavors: Citrus Burst, Peach Mango, Very Berry and Tropical Colada.

Ray Crockett, a spokesman for the brand, said "We created what we call a vibrancy beverage here. A sparkling milk-based beverage."

If you'd like to try Vio, you'll have to go to NYC where it's available in very limited distribution."

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Believe it or not, 7-Up had a similar idea in the 1950s.

Source: Slashfood

At least they didn't hire Burt Reynolds

Bliss Spa in New York is hiring people in gorilla suits to walk the streets and hand out coupons proclaiming, "We're wild about hair removal."

I don't really like the idea of having my body compared to that of a gorilla.

On the other hand, I can't resist a gorilla suit.

By the way, the shaving and hair removal business made approximately $1.8 billion in the U.S. last year.

Image: Buy Costumes                         Source: Jezebel 

Remembering David Ogilvy

Last Tuesday, July 21, was the 10th anniversary of David Ogilvy's death.

Ogilvy was sometimes referred to as The Father of Advertising. A copywriter by trade, he was one of the founders of Ogilvy & Mather, now called simply Ogilvy. If you want to know more about him, you can look HERE and HERE.

An innovator (as well as a product of his times) Ogilvy famously said, "The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her."

In the early days of Ogilvy & Mather, if two employees married, the wife was expected to resign -- it was company policy.

Anyway, in 1983, I was a baby copywriter and totally in awe of Ogilvy. So when Ogilvy on Advertising was published, of course I bought a copy.

And when Ogilvy's book tour came to Boston, I went to hear him speak at the Boston Public Library and dutifully waited in line afterward to get him to sign my copy of his book.

I wonder what a signed first edition of Ogilvy on Advertising goes for these days? Probably not that much.

Ogilvy's fallen out of favor. If an advertising creative is to maintain his/her hipster aura, ridiculing Ogilvy is a requirement.

Which is stupid, I think. Sure, by today's standards his work is dated. But the man was a pioneer and he deserves respect.

 

Banned in alabama

Cycles Gladiator wine has been banned in Alabama because of a law that forbids the display of "a person posed in an immoral or sensuous manner" on any alcohol packaging.

The "immoral or sensuous" Cycles Gladiator wine label:

Source: The Consumerist

What it might be like to be Friends with Bill Gates

To enlarge mock Facebook wall, click image, then click image again.

September editions of fashion magazines lose too much weight

September editions of women's fashion magazines are traditionally big, fat advertising-laden publications that rival old-school phone books for number of pages.

This year, not so much.

According to Advertising Age, advertising revenues from September editions are down significantly. Here are the numbers comparing this September's advertising revenues to last year's:

Subaru TV spot celebrates hand-me-downs

Love this spot. 

CLICK HERE to watch the Subaru commercial.

I wasn't the youngest, but I was the immigrant child with American relatives. You know what that means? Hand-me-down EVERYTHING.

Celebrity Saturday: Dita Von Teese for Cointreau

Cointreau has named burlesque queen Dita Von Teese a Cointreau Ambassador -- advertising spokeswoman would be another way of putting it.

Here are some photos of Von Teese for Cointreau taken by Ali Mahdavi.

 

To see more of Dita Von Teese go to Cointreau's interactive website.

Greenpeace ads from Romania

Advertising Agency: Scala JWT, Bucharest

Source: Ads of the World