Hasta La Creative!

Have you ever heard what people say about Latinos? They’re intense, passionate and “macho”—a quality that’s often seen as protective.

Obviously, these are stereotypes. Another side of the “Latin man” is that he can be sensitive and expressive. But embracing “machismo” for its good qualities, without examining the bad stuff, can have unpleasant cultural side effects—like controlling behavior, which can lead to femicide, not to mention relatively unpunished rape. 

(Hey. Sounds familiar.)

To show its support ahead of an Aug. 13 protest in Peru, Grupo el Comercio-owned newspaper Peru 21, one of the most popular papers in the country, tossed its cover pages into the ring. With help from McCann Lima, the paper converted its front and back pages into signs that protesters could grab off newsstands, flip open and carry in the streets. 

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In an infinitely classy and gracious move, Lucasfilm took out an ad in the Irish Examiner to thank the communities of Crookhaven, Goleen and the Brow Head peninsula, where parts of the upcoming Star Wars movie (Episode VIII) were shot, for putting up with them.

The ad references the “tireless commitment of our Irish crew” in glowing terms, and states that “the enthusiasm and support of all the people of West Cork have made our Irish adventure one we will always treasure.” 

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One month after a Florida newspaper called its gun show ad placement over murder coverage a “regrettable coincidence,” Charleston’s Post and Courier has trotted out the exact same excuse for a similar judgment error.

In today’s example, the South Carolina newspaper ran a sticky-note ad for a gun store over its coverage of Wednesday’s horrific killings of nine church-goers at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. 

“The front-page sticky note that was attached to some home delivery newspapers on the same day as this tragedy is a deeply regrettable coincidence,” the paper told a Facebook commenter, according to Poynter. “We apologize to those who were offended.”

These apologies (especially those that seem quite literally copied and pasted from previous instances of ridiculous ad placement) do little to appease critics and, if anything, highlight the newspaper industry’s repeated inability to show common sense when it comes to ads that are 100 percent guaranteed by their very nature to appear over high-profile news stories.

While it surely wasn’t an intentional act of malice, these errant ad placements are clearly avoidable and even predictable. They’re absolutely bound to happen, and preventing these gaffes should be a daily aspect of putting out a responsible newspaper.

Accentuating the irrationality of the Charleston news, the paper puts an ad for a gun shop on the front page today. pic.twitter.com/GyAW4EcKF1

— Jonathan A. Neufeld (@jneuf) June 18, 2015

On Sunday, a stick on newspaper ad for tree service TBF Services with the headline “Got Stumps” appeared above a story about an amputee who lost the lower half of her leg in a car accident.

The tree service purchased the ad a year in advance. Incredibly, no one involved in the sticking of the sticker process thought it worthy of, oh, yelling “stop the presses” and, you know, exhibiting a bit of common sense.

Alas, this crap still happens all the time. The owner of TBF Services was alerted by friends on Sunday when the newspaper was distributed.

Can you say Make Good?

Ahh, the good old days, when men were men, women were women, the Internet didn't exist and one had to troll at a much slower pace.

According to this personals ad from 1973, found by a Redditor, there was still plenty of shenanigans happening in the hot social media of the day—aka, the newspaper.

These days, of course, men still troll their partners via newspaper personals. They just do it to their current ones, not their exes.

Via HuffPo.

What a load of bulgogi.

The grilled, marinated meat from Korea is suddenly on the media's plate after this strange ad was placed in The New York Times last week. Texas Rangers outfielder Shin-Soo Choo—a huge star in his native South Korea, but not so much in this country, where he actually plays—offers up a morsel with chopsticks. Copy begins: "Spring's here and I'm ready to play! And do you know what got me through training? Bulgogi. Try some at your favorite Korean restaurant. It's delicious!"

Thanks for the tip, Choo! Sure, the ad is random and goofy, but I'm surprised it has sparked so much attention. Maybe it's because it doesn't tout any specific brand, group or eatery, just the beef dish in general.

A Web address in the ad, ForTheNextGeneration.com, contains links to English-language news about South Korea, and holds a clue to the strange ad's origin. NPR, among others, investigated, and traced the placement to Sungshin Women's University visiting professor Seo Kyoung-duk—a passionate promoter of Korean food and culture—and restaurant chain Chicken Maru, which apparently picked up the tab.

Wade Boggs famously ate chicken before every game and wound up in the Hall of Fame. Maybe they should get Choo on that next!

Isn't this the most romantic newspaper ad you've ever … oh, wait.

This two-part classified ad appeared on Valentine's Day in Australia's Launceston Examiner newspaper. Hopefully Jodie has a sense of humor.

Via The Blaze.

Lorde is a humble, homegrown New Zealand star, and she's taken out a full-page ad in the New Zealand Herald to make sure everyone back home knows she hasn't forgotten that.

Ahead of her performance at the Laneway music festival on Wednesday night this week (apparently her only summer show in New Zealand, where it's summer, Yankee suckers), the singer of anti-materialist anthem "Royals" penned a handwritten note for the ad celebrating her performance Sunday night at the Grammy Awards in L.A., not to mention the two awards she picked up there, for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance.

"hiya if you're reading this, Joel & I won. HOLY CRAP," reads the letter, referring to her producer Joel Little. "I just wanted to say thank you for the time you've given me over the past 14 months… without your support there's no way I would've ever gotten to stand in the middle of the Staples Center and perform in my school shoes."

It's a classy, charming statement of appreciation that fits nicely with her acceptance speeches, and broader down-to-earth positioning—a nice example of when marketing can perfectly align with honesty. Or at least, with an exceptionally convincing illusion of it.

See the full ad below.

A mother bought a full-page ad on the front cover of the Chinese Melbourne Daily—a newspaper for the Australian city's Chinese community—begging her son to come home for Chinese New Year and promising not to pester him about getting married anymore.

The ad reads: "Peng, we have tried to reach you so many times by phone, but in vain. So maybe you will hear from us here. We hope you will come home for Lunar New Year. Dad and Mom will never again pressure you to marry. Love you, Mom."

Now everyone in the community will be curious to see whether Peng actually comes home—but you know, no pressure or anything. The mom's promise references a common problem among Chinese youth, who don't like getting nagged by their parents about their love lives any more than the rest of us do. This might also explain why Chinese online megastore Taobao.com's "Rent a Boyfriend" service exists.

Sadly, there's no girlfriend option for the poor guy being targeted by the Melbourne Daily ad, so he might just have to go home on Jan. 31 and make the best of it. His mom spent almost $2,500 on that ad, judging by the newspaper's advertising rate card. It would be a shame to see that go to waste.

Photo via CNN.

The media revolution has come full circle.

To promote Inside Llewyn Davis as Hollywood awards season ramps up, CBS Films paid The New York Times a lot of money to run a full-page print ad on Saturday consisting of mostly white space and an abbreviated version of a tweet from Times movie critic A.O. Scott praising the Coen Brothers' folk-singer flick. "I'm gonna listen to the Llewyn Davis album again. Fare thee well my honeys," said Scott's tweet.

After the ad ran, Scott wrote, also on Twitter:

we have reached a strange new place in marketing when tweets become full-page print ads.

— a. o. scott (@aoscott) January 4, 2014

Why bother abbreviating a tweet for a print ad, you might wonder? Because the rest of the tweet name checked The Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle:

You all keep fighting about Wolf of Wall St. and Am Hustle. I'm gonna listen to the Llewyn Davis album again. Fare thee well, my honeys.

— a. o. scott (@aoscott) December 31, 2013

According to Mashable, the Academy considers it a no-no for movie ads to mention the work of competitors.

It's a good strategy insofar as it'll earn more attention than the run-of-the-mill movie ad quoting a gushy critic. Beyond the buzz it invites among marketing and social-media geeks, who are sweating whether the use violates Twitter's rules by including content from the platform in advertising without the author's permission, it's really just another newspaper ad—meaning nobody really knows how effective it will be.

The studio's execs missed an opportunity to amp up Twitter enthusiasts further, though, by throwing an "MT" into the layout. Maybe they worried that most of the audience reading the Times in print barely knows what a Twitter is anyways.