Hasta La Creative!

You're walking down the street and you see a giant 3-D mouth singing opera. Maybe you see an enormous, realistic rugby player taking a shower. Perhaps a gigantic Marilyn Monroe dress blowing in the breeze grabs your attention on your way to a bus stop that plays disco music if you touch the weird medallion-adorned hairy chest of a swarthy dude.

Well, if you're in France and you encounter any of these scenarios, you've probably come across the latest outdoor campaign from SNCF French Railways and agency TBWA\Paris. These crazy larger-than-life ads aim to inspire people to travel to places they are passionate about. 

If you are not in France and you see these things, you may want to seek therapy. 

Separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine released the American journalist Simon Ostrovsky on Thursday, three days after he was taken prisoner in Slovyansk while reporting for Vice News.

As if the Photoshop-perfect faces on outdoor ads weren't nightmarish enough, German street artist Vermibus ratchets up the horror by using chemicals to transform such posters into grotesque visions for an art project called "Dissolving Europe."

This guy's acid wash has nothing to do with jeans. He targets noses, lips, cheeks, chins, ears and eyes. By the time he's done, his subjects resemble nuclear-blast victims, their features twisted into misshapen parodies of the human form.

Of course, "ugly" is in the eye of the beholder. Some will find his creations possessed of a certain warped beauty that exposes the truth underlying our pervasive consumer culture.

That's a valid interpretation, and it's clearly in line with the artist's view as he traversed Europe, removing promotional posters from their displays and replacing them with his freakish creations. (You can view more of his projects on his website.) A 10-minute film chronicles his journey, and it's fairly hypnotic. The best scene shows Vermibus wearing a gas mask to protect himself from toxins, like some hybrid artist/terrorist, as he defaces/transforms an advertisement.

Of late, there have been many examples of public advertising being replaced or subverted to make broader social statements. There's Banksy, of course, railing against capitalism. And those fake ads about NYPD drones. Outdoor ads were swapped out for classic paintings in recent French and English installations. And Richard Sargent's photographs of decaying billboards in California were especially evocative.

Ultimately and unfortunately, these efforts become footnotes on the overloaded media landscape. They're fodder for thoughtful articles and blog posts, but all too quickly forgotten. Billboards brake for no one. Ad campaigns keep coming. There's always another pretty face.

Via Fast Company.

Photos and artwork via Vermibus.com.

« Europe In 8 Bits » est une vidéo réalisée par Device qui explore le monde du chiptune (ou 8 bits-music) en Europe. Le concept de cette musique est de reprendre les sons de jeux vidéos de Game Boy, NES, Atari ST et Amiga pour en faire de la musique et un mouvement musical innovant.

Male chicks are adorable, majestic, tragically doomed waste products in this student-created ad that PETA loved enough to turn into an official spot.

German director Djawid Hakimyar tells AdFreak the story behind this Easter-themed spec ad that he and his fellow film school students created and donated to the anti-cruelty organization:

"We rescued three male chicks from a hatchery in Germany. Usually they would have been killed by a grinder or gas. We shot just half an hour with them on a farm with a Phantom Flex camera and a blue-screen background. The three little male chicks now live free on this small farm.

"After we finished the 'Flying Chicks' ad, we showed it to PETA and they loved our work. We and the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg donated the ad to PETA and they will spread it in a couple of days on the Internet."

CREDITS

Production Company: Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg
Scriptwriter, Director: Djawid Hakimyar
Producer: Dominko Gudelj
Director of Photography: Simon Drescher
Editor: Henning Nolte
Music: Schnack Music Manufacture
Supported by: Leithaus Filmproduktion, LBBW-Stiftung, Der Sonnenhof, Dedo Weigert Film
Presented by: PETA Deutschland e.V.

It's not so strange for folks to bring cookies, cakes and candies to work and share them with colleagues. But for job applicants to prepare treats and serve them to prospective employers before even landing an interview? Not exactly business as usual.

Still, that's how Crystal Nunn applied for a junior designer position at We Are Social in London last August.

Nunn, an avid baker, prepared a batch of cookies using ingredients from Beyond Dark chocolate, a brand cofounded by We Are Social creative director James Nester. She designed a special box for the goodies labeled "Beyond Ideas," attached a thumb-drive containing her traditional résumé and portfolio, and hand-delivered the package in a brown wrapper marked "Urgent." Within an hour, We Are Social contacted Nunn for an interview; she got the job—and Beyond Dark, suitably impressed, sent her some chocolates and consulting work.

"The great thing about cookies is that they're perishable, so people are going to have to deal with it, even if it's just to throw them away," Nunn tells AdFreak. "Plus, who doesn't like cookies?"

Elaborate résumés and job applications are all the rage. Along with Nunn's cookies, notable examples include a detailed, Lego-esque model sent by a prospective account-service intern to ad agencies, and an impressive series of Grand Budapest Hotel trailers created by media artist Youyou Yang to demonstrate her filmmaking skills to Wes Anderson.

"If there's a place you really want to work for, show them why," Nunn says. "Build a rapport with them by having a voice—comment and share what they put on their blog and social media channels. Go above and beyond. Find out who your future bosses will be and tailor you job application to them.

"I've done the sending digital CVs online, 100 a day in some cases, and it's really not effective when you're competing against hundreds of other applications. You need to blow the rest out of the water and do something different. Think outside the box."

And if you do think inside the box, don't forget the cookies!

@doodlefool Thanks so much for your wonderful box of @BeyondDarkDrops cookies. You will have to come in and meet us! pic.twitter.com/SKaFcd3GUv— Graham Jenks (@TheButchersDog) August 12, 2013

@TheButchersDog @BeyondDarkDrops Hi Graham, I'm so glad you like it, I would absolutely love to come in and meet you!— Crystal Nunn (@doodlefool) August 12, 2013

@TheButchersDog @doodlefool They look amazing & beautifully presented! Does this mean we've played a part in a new professional relationship— Beyond Dark Drops (@BeyondDarkDrops) August 12, 2013

Via Design Taxi.

The town of Clifton in central England hasn't had a grocery store for almost 15 years, so a local engineer invented a giant vending machine that dispenses milk, eggs, bread, toiletries, pet food and even umbrellas for the village.

Refrigerated compartments keep perishables cool and a "basket" system allows bottles and egg cartons to be dispensed without breaking or spillage. Located in a parking lot, the unit's brick motif and awning make it look somewhat like a traditional English village shop. It takes cash and credit cards and boasts various security features (alarms and such).

Creator Peter Fox hopes the machine is the first of many. It carries no advertising, but that's probably just a matter of time.

Via Design Taxi and Daily Mail.

Do black people and fat people deserve to earn less money than skinny white people? 

Well, no, but the arguments in favor of such a wage gap are somewhat entertaining in two new spots from equalpayday.be, a Belgian organization whose mission is to raise awareness about equal pay for … another demographic. (You can probably guess where this is going, but we won't spoil the surprise.)

The comparison certainly isn't perfect, and this tactic likely won't win over many who are unconcerned with the real wage gap at issue. It also probably won't go over too well with people who earnestly do feel held back in their careers because of their race or weight. But with ads so joyously sarcastic, it's hard to hold too much of a grudge.

Via Creative Criminals.

What's more refreshing: A Coca-Cola, or a Coca-Cola ad poking fun at the brand's consumers?

To encourage moviegoers to stay quiet during a film, Saatchi Denmark filmed audience members milling around the lobby sipping soda through straws and pulling stupid faces, then quickly edited the footage into the background of a fake movie trailer. In the middle of the supposed preview, viewers suddenly saw themselves on the screen, ruining a perfectly cheesy sex scene with their odd expressions and obnoxious slurping sounds.

It's hard not to wonder if the stunt is staged, or if everybody who goes to the cinema in Copenhagen just happens to look like they could work at an ad agency. Regardless, the point—don't make yourself part of the movie by being a noisy jerk—holds up well enough, both in the case study and in a handful of related clips. The other spots, which you can watch after the jump, aren't real-time editing stunts, but they're still pretty amusing, especially when the young woman offers a perfectly smug deadpan, munching popcorn while she gets buried alive alongside a cop.

Of course, when it comes to customer-shaming ads that encourage considerate moviegoing, the gold standard will forever be Alamo Drafthouse's transcript of an ejected texter's irate voicemail. Because sometimes the truth is just too good to beat.

The Italian government is taking aim at Illinois gun manufacturer ArmaLite, which offended Italy's entire cultural ministry by using Michelangelo's David in an ad for the AR-50A1 rifle.

Italy's culture minister, the Historical Heritage and Fine Arts Board curator, and the director of Florence’s Accademia Gallery (where David is currently on display) have all denounced the ad, and ArmaLite has been issued a legal notice to retract the image because the statue is considered government property and can't be used commercially without the proper rights and fees.

Part of me wonders if the offended party might have let this go if the ad hadn't been for an American gun manufacturer. Or if the gun in question were a bit less over-the-top. I grew up with GI Joes and even I think that thing is overdesigned.