Hasta La Creative!

Ha! It seems that McDonald’s aren’t the only ones equating fast food to sex (ex #1, ex#2, ex #3) – now some dude describing himself as a “street preacher” is really teed off by Sheetz’s posters advertising “Crispy Frickin’ Chicken”, he says it’s offensive to him because of the word “frickin,’” which he called a “euphemism for fornication.” Teeheeheegigglesnort. See LDNews

You can also check out this news report at Breitbart.tv, hat tip to Makethelogobigger.

NBC10 news adds that there are only roughly 100 of these billboards out there, but Sheetz has even received angry voicemails regarding the posters. Oh, the drama! NBC10 have a quote from spokesperson Monica Jones:

“We’re kind of known for edgy, kind of brash advertising tactics, and we knew this would spark a certain amount of controversy,” Jones said. “That said, we’re proud of the campaign.”

Yeah man, you’re so frickin’ edgy.

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“As far as I am concerned we made this ad for two audiences: our staff and our customers. We didn’t make it for the Australian ad industry.”

So said The Commonwealth’s Mark Buckman to Business Day regarding the recent hubub over their 60 second ad which launched on Australia Day on Channel Nine during the Cricket and Channel Seven during the Tennis. Adgrunts down under have been quite vocal in hating it, apparently Michael Lynch of Campaign Brief didn’t sugar the words when he said of the ‘Determined to be different’ campaign that the ads were lazy and old hat. “And they went all the way to America to get that.”
Commonwealth Bank – “Anthem” – (2008) :60 (Australia)

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Ho-kay, Taco Bell’s saucyscribe competition is “only open to current members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA)” and the winner who jots down a cute “sauce wisdom” not only gets to hone his craft of writing (gag!) but also free Taco Bell food (double gag!) – in the form of one $5 Taco Bell gift check per week for 52 weeks, redeemable at participating Taco Bell® locations). Approximate retail value of each prize is $260.00.

This is so backward. Taco Bell probably in all honesty just created this game meaning to show support for the striking writers. But listen, games where creatives of any kind (photographers, designers, writers, art directors etc) give away the craft that they would normally get paid to do, for the remote possibility of maybe perhaps winning something trivial are a big fat insult to our professions to begin with. Cut it the fuck out. This one is simply twice as insulting as it’s going on as support to a strike, which is about the pay all creatives have a hard time getting in the first place (because youknow, being creative isn’t really a job).

The backlash has begun, of course and MetroBlogging Los Angeles notes Taco Bell offer STILL better than AMPTP’s

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ABC news reports that the model seen moaning in the Szul.com jewlery ad has filed a lawsuit, and in it she claims that she did not “consent to or authorize the use of her likeness, picture, image or name to simulate a female having an orgasm or otherwise experiencing sexual pleasure.” The lawsuit also says that model Jane Doe “has worked hard to project a wholesome image and has been extremely careful to avoid doing any work in the industry that would cheapen or tarnish her reputation”. Did not consent? There was no model release form signed? Oh, speaking of those don’t you just hate when they ask you to sign one and won’t let you make a copy?

The woman is asking for $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages. That’s $5 million for a “cheap” internet viral.
Adfreak weighs in: “she only got $200 for the gig. She’s suing for $5 million. The appropriate price tag is probably somewhere in between. ”

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It was bound to happen, since Facebook is so popular and so wide open to attach ones own programs onto, now there’s both forced adware downloads on facebook and chinese hackers phishing scams in innocent looking “wall” scrawlings. You might want to log out of facebook now and never log back since if it’s not facebook itself spying on you, someone else will.

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Two months ago, Scott Aaronson discovered that an Australian Ricoh advert from Lowe had taken it’s dialog straight from his quantum mechanics lecture.

Ricoh Printers – Smart Models – (2007) :30 (Australia)

Now Scott and Lowe have reached a settlement, to make good for their boo-boo, Lowe Australia are now donating $2,000 of the settlement to BrisScience and $3,000 to the Physics Demo Troupe. Why BrisScience? Because nerds are really funny people, and Scott liked the name:

I immediately asked her to repeat the name.

“BrisScience,” she said.

“Spell it?” I asked.

“B-r-i-s-Science. Why, is there something funny about the name?”

“No, no, it shouldn’t be a big deal in Australia.”

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