Bogus ads that never ran are a scourge on advertising award shows. But now, you can make sure your bogus ads actually did run—thanks to a new magazine in Canada that will print them, no questions asked.
Faded actors frequently do self-deprecating commercials for a buck. But these new spots for Mattress Firm, from agency Ideaology, really push the lighthearted self-mocking into fairly cringe-worthy territory.
For starters, the whole concept of the campaign is for Fairchild and Estrada to liken themselves to old, worn-out mattresses that need replacing. That’s pretty brutal, even when played for laughs. But then Fairchild goes the extra mile of using the phrase “saggy and baggy,” while Estrada freely admits to being “past my prime.”
After 13 years playing for the Boston Red Sox, David Ortiz will retire at the end of the 2016 baseball season. And he’s contemplating some unusual plans for his next career.
In a thank-you ad from Red Sox sponsor JetBlue, the designated hitter and nine-time All Star finds work at different children’s birthday parties—whacking the literal stuffing out of their piñatas.
It’s been more than six years since Old Spice advertising started getting very peculiar indeed, with help from Isaiah Mustafa and, particularly, Terry Crews. But Wieden + Kennedy Portland has now outdone itself in the oddities department, taking two strange Old Spice spots from last year and remixing them, with help from video artist Nick DenBoer, into—in the brand’s own words—a “horrifying mutant nightmare abomination.”
The wireless wars have been getting notoriously dirty, and now Sprint has come up with the most deviously clever attack yet—signing up Paul Marcarelli, who worked for years as Verizon’s “Can you hear me now?” guy, as its own spokesman.
Social media has not been kind to this Twentieth Century Fox billboard for X-Men: Apocalypse, which shows the titular villain, Apocalypse, choking Mystique, with Rose McGowan urging others to yell at Fox about using imagery of a violent act against a woman to sell the movie.
If you believe nothing is good enough to give Dad on Father’s Day, Century 21 has the perfect gift idea for you: Why not give the big guy a parcel of land in Nothing, Ariz.?
After all, he’s got plenty of sweaters, ties and cologne already. And when you ask Dad what he wants for his big day, the dude always makes with the awe-shucks routine and mumbles, “Nothing.” So getting stuck with a piece of bone-dry, ghost-town real estate in a sweltering desert, 120 miles from Phoenix, would serve him right!
In eyebrow-raising Twitter fodder this week, the French former professional soccer player and coach Raymond Domenech tweeted, “#JeNeSupportePasLesBleus,” which translates to “I can’t stand the Blues.”
This was weird—especially in advance of the Euro 2016 event, which France is hosting this year. “The Blues” is a nickname for French national sports teams (because, you know, of the blue uniforms). But it refers most often to the national soccer team … which Domenech used to coach.
Boy, Elizabeth Banks can sure get inside your head.
The actress returns for a self-consciously wacky house party in Pereira & O’Dell New York’s latest work for Realtor.com. In new ads, she invades the homeowner fantasies of prospective buyers, to tout the client’s site.
The past couple of years have given us numerous disruptive examples of advertising in the feminine care space, including comical ones from HelloFlo and the award-winning inspirational video from Always. Bodyform joins the fray with its latest spot, and it’s pretty badass.
From price gouging to tax evasion, the pharmaceutical industry has made some pretty hefty missteps in recent history, leaving many Americans with a bad taste in their mouths—one that can’t be washed down with a tall glass of water.
So, drug maker Pfizer has set out to repair the industry’s crumbling reputation, without even naming a single product.
Jonathan Goldsmith’s Most Interesting Man in the World might have said adios (and flown off to Mars), but Dos Equis is hardly finished with its “Most Interesting” theme.
As if self-checkout and bagging our own groceries at the supermarket weren’t humiliating enough, now we’re expected to harvest our own vegetables in the produce section!
Supermarket chain Zona Sul recently transformed shelves at its Rio de Janeiro-based flagship store into vegetable gardens, encouraging customers to dig into the soil to pick lettuce, basil, peppers and scallions.
“We mainly wanted to reach Zona Sul customers who shop for vegetables in other locations, such as street markets or vegetable-specific stores,” Fábio Onofre, creative director at agency WMcCann Rio, tells AdFreak. “Those are the customers that still think they can find fresher food elsewhere. This way, we could truly show them that at Zona Sul, everything is really, really fresh.”
Absolut Vodka’s #AbsolutNights campaign centers on archetypes that don’t get much attention in traditional advertising—including a widow, a woman attracted to other women and now a transgender person.
Most people don’t like running. That’s OK. We can’t all be masochists, pining to destroy our knees before their time. But to incentivize would-be runners, sneaker brand Kalenji found a motivating carrot on a stick—a lush dinner, paid for in miles.
Organized by Paris agency Rosapark, the #EatYourRun campaign promoted a new collection of Eliorun shoes by sending spankin’ new pairs to journalists (including me) and inviting us to hit the dirt. A few weeks later, on May 24, they organized a dinner at the Bistro Paul Bert—known for its epic gastronomy—at which we could exchange our clocked miles (well, kilometers, since this is France) for ultra-fancy food.
The news is like the ocean. On the surface, everything might seem pretty, but the further down you go, the worse things look.
That, at least, is the metaphor behind a new ad from Veja, a popular right-leaning (if not right-wing) Brazilian magazine that featured President Obama as Che Guevara on its cover in 2014.
You thought Havas Worldwide’s giant mic drop was the end of the agency #postitwars down on Canal Street. But Getty Images and New York magazine picked up the mic and had the fat lady sing on the (probably not) final installation of #canalnotes.
Ahead of Father’s Day, Young & Rubicam Mexico launches a spot for the Special Olympics that follows an expectant dad in a frenzy of anticipation over an upcoming blessed event—the birth of his son.
“When I found out you were coming, it was the happiest day of my life,” the voiceover begins. “A boy. A boy that would love football as much as I did. I waited nine long months, and then you were born. And you gave me the most unexpected surprise.”
Can discordant screaming sell ice cream?
Snickers sure hopes so, because that’s the angle it’s going with this new spot for Snickers ice cream bars. Playing on the “I scream, you scream” rhyme, the ad shows a mom and son, a crab, a tattooed bodybuilder, his tattoo and the boardwalk caricature of a married couple all screaming at one of those ice cream trolleys you see around the beach.
Snickers has dreamed up one of the cooler online/offline advertising-meets-point-of-sale hybrid campaigns of the year, introducing a “Hungerithm” that gauges the mood of the Internet and adjusts the price of its candy bars in 7-Eleven stores accordingly, in real time.
The angrier the Internet, the cheaper the candy—to make everyone a bit happier.
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