You may know what you're putting in your body, but do you know what you're putting on it? A new app called Think Dirty is here to help.
Available for free in the App Store, Think Dirty lets you scan barcodes of personal care items in the store and analyze the ingredients. The Dirty Meter then rates the product using third-party data from nonprofit science, environmental and government organizations—to determine whether it's dirty or clean and recommending alternatives. If a product isn't in the database, you can submit it by entering the product name and taking a picture of the back label.
For the launch, Think Dirty is teaming up with the Breast Cancer Fund and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics for an initiative called 30 Days of Dirty—in which Think Dirty will donate $1 per product scanned in October, up to $20,000, to the Breast Cancer Fund.
Huggies and Ogilvy & Mather Argentina made a belt for men that allows them to feel their unborn baby's kicks. The belt is synced up with the real-time movements of the baby in the mother's belly, apparently through some kind of wireless sorcery. It's a neat idea, although the description of it as "something special to compensate fathers" is a little weird, like pregnancy is some kind of cakewalk that they're missing out on. But, whatever. It's hard for me to get on my high horse about this when things like the Daddle exist.
A print ad that uses solar power to charge cellphones? At long last, mankind's prayers have been answered! Giovanni + Draftfcb in São Paulo, Brazil, developed the ad, which includes a wafer-thin solar panel and phone plug, to promote the Nivea Sun line of skincare products. It ran in Brazilian magazine Veja Rio, and there's a sun-soaked beach video that shows the device in action. Of course, the ad is mainly a gimmick to generate publicity through media coverage, which we're pleased to provide, though the work also suggests that adding novel functionality to traditional campaigns could be a smart way to stir things up. What will they think of next—a billboard that generates drinking water out of thin air?
'Tis the season for male-grooming brand extensions. Old Spice introduced its shaving gel last week. And now, Axe has updated its range of hair products for men. It's advertising them with four new 20-second ads from BBH London that have launched in Europe and will reach North America this weekend. The creative idea is that well-styled hair is crucial when you meet someone for the first time. The spots present various quirky first-meeting scenarios—the most faux-provocative of which is probably the home-invasion scenario, in which burglar seduces buglee with his perfectly slicked 'do. "We wanted to capture a simple truth about guys and their grooming habits," says David Kolbusz, deputy executive creative director at BBH. "Whenever a man sees a woman he fancies, he tends to touch up his hair before making the initial approach. We dramatized this behavior by setting it in the most extreme of circumstances." More spots and credits below.
CREDITS Client: Lynx/Axe Agency: BBH London
BBH Creative Team: Matt Fitch & Mark Lewis and Harry Orton and Robin Warman BBH Creative Director: David Kolbusz BBH Producer: Charlie Dodd BBH Strategic Business Lead: Ngaio Pardon BBH Strategy Director: Dan Hauck BBH Strategist: Tim Jones BBH Team Director: Heather Cuss BBH Team Manager: Cressida Holmes Smith
Production Company: Outsider and Station Films Director: Harold Einstein Executive Producer: Eric Liney Producer: Jon Stopp/Richard Packer DoP: Danny Cohen Post Production: The Mill Editor/Editing House: The Mill Sound: Factory
Today in useless marketing-driven product innovations, we have Huggies TweetPee, a little sensor dreamed up by Ogilvy Brazil that affixes to your baby's diaper, syncs with an app and tweets at you whenever it detects pee (in the form of a higher humidity level). This will work great for people whose parenting consists of the occasional diaper change in between marathon Twitter sessions. Evidently (it's somewhat hard to tell from the case-study video) the app also keeps track of the number of diapers you go through, and alerts you when you're running low. That may be the whole idea here—getting you to blow through diapers quicker by prompting you to change them every time the kid pees a little bit. In that regard, TweetPoop might be more useful than TweetPee—getting the kid out of a poopy diaper faster has its benefits. (You could call it "DM Your BM.") The problem, of course, is you don't need a fancy sensor to detect that. Via Adverblog.
UPDATE: Huggies got in touch and clarified that the clip-on humidity sensor is only a concept device and will not be available to purchase. The app is apparently intended simply to help parents in their purchasing of diapers. Here is the statement from Huggies:
"Huggies Brazil is excited to announce we will launch TweetPee in Brazil this July—a new iPhone app that is designed to help parents better keep track of the volume of diapers they use and provide easy integration with online retailers to make life easier for busy moms and dads. In conjunction with the TweetPee app's debut in Brazil, feature videos will highlight the experiences of 10 moms and dads who use the app to streamline and more effectively plan for their purchases.
In the promotional video referenced, the clip-on humidity sensor is intended merely as a concept device to help showcase these 10 parents' experience with the app. It will not be made available for purchase, nor are we suggesting parents are unable or too busy to notice when their babies' diapers need changing! Please visit huggiestp.com.br for more information as news develops."
In the annals of advertising, there are some songs we just keep coming back to. "Baby Got Back" is one of them. From hawking Burger King's SpongeBob meal to bustin' out the D-grade talent for Butterfinger, Sir Mix-a-Lot's timeless 1992 ode to wide rears is basically an advertising supersong. Still, I didn't see a brand like Charmin leveraging the ditty by taking its tubby animated bears and having them break into the worm from the unmitigated joy that comes from having a nice clean ass. Clearly, Charmin itself is a little shocked, which is why the latter half of the video consists of the red bear staring with disbelief at the breakdancing, ass-slapping blue bear. I mean, you can "Enjoy the go," and then you can revel in Rabelaisian ecstasy. Anyhow, if you like big prizes, you can like Charmin on Facebook and partake in the Charmin Baby Got Back Sweepstakes.
More goofiness from Old Spice and Wieden + Kennedy—a scratch-and-sniff banner ad, which of course they're calling the world's first. It's running over on The Onion's sports section. Clicking on it takes you to a form you fill out—after which they'll send you something in the mail that will let you "smell the Internet." It lacks the immediacy of real scratch-and-sniff gimmicks, perhaps, but spares you from looking like an idiot at the office with your nose to the computer screen. It promotes the Wolfthorn line of products.
Dude's got the right stuff! Talk about a payload specialist! No "Houston, we've got a problem" for this rocket jockey! Etc.! BBH London and Blink director Tom Tagholm score with its latest, interestingly shot "Nothing beats an astronaut" spot for Axe's Apollo and Deep Space body washes, thanks to playful morning-after imagery. A woman's clothing and underwear are strewn around an apartment, along with astronaut gear like boots, a helmet and a spacesuit. She wakes up looking supremely satisfied, while her lusty inner-space traveler showers with Axe, all systems presumably "go" for re-entry. Remember to practice safe sex, people, and keep your helmet on! Credits below.
CREDITS Client: Axe Agency: Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London Creative Director: David Kolbusz Creative: Gary McCreadie, Wesley Hawes TV Producer: Ruben Mercadal Production Company: Blink Director: Tom Tagholm Producer: Bruce Williamson Executive Producer: James Bland Photography: Vincent Warin Production Designer: Andy Kelly Production Manager: Ellie Britton Postproduction: Framestore Editing House: Stitch Editor: Tim Hardy Audio: Wave Sound Designer: Aaron Reynolds Music Production: Beacon Street Studios
Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" quickly became a viral phenomenon. But as it blazed past 1 million views on YouTube, the video has racked up its fair share of critics, too. The Ogilvy-produced clip, which shows a police sketch artist drawing women as they perceive themselves versus how strangers see them, has been praised by thousands of women as a heartwarming wake-up call for women to stop being so hard on themselves. But some feel the video actually reinforces beauty stereotypes by depicting one sketch as "uglier" than the other. Below, we catalog a few of the specific complaints about the campaign that have been bouncing around the Web this week.
1. It features too many traditionally attractive white women. Jazz Brice on Tumblr: "When it comes to the diversity of the main participants: all four are Caucasian, three are blonde with blue eyes, all are thin, and all are young (the oldest appears to be 40). The majority of the non-featured participants are thin, young white women as well. … Out of 6:36 minutes of footage, people of color are onscreen for less than 10 seconds."
2. It seems to define beauty as being thin and young. Kate Fridkis on PsychologyToday.com: "Looking at the two portraits of herself, one woman described the one meant to be prettier as looking 'much younger,' which seemed to be true of all of them. The more 'beautiful' facial representations seemed to all be thinner and younger-looking. If that is the crux of beauty, then I guess we're all pretty screwed by that obnoxiously inexorable bastard called time."
3. It positions beauty as the yardstick by which women measure themselves. Stacy Bias on StacyBias.net: "Is the pinnacle of success always beauty? Believing that others see us as beautiful? Believing that we are beautiful? I want people to question their negative self-perceptions, sure. But I would love for that to happen in a context where beauty doesn't always end up valorized. This is a mindfuck—'everyone is beautiful, so you are beautiful, too!' still reinforces beauty as an aspirational value."
4. It shows women as their own enemies rather than victims of a sexist society. Erin Keane on Salon.com: "All of that body image baggage is internalized by growing up in a society that enforces rigid beauty standards, and since the target demographic for this ad is clearly women over 35 with access to library cards (which is to say, women who have had some time to figure this reality out), it is baffling that Dove can continue to garner raves for its pandering, soft-focus fake empowerment ads."
5. It is hypocritical because it comes from Unilever, which also makes Axe, Slim-Fast and more. Charlotte Hannah on Twirlit.com: "[Dove's] long-running Real Beauty campaign has shed light on some important truths about the media's unrealistic portrayals of women, but given the fact that Dove is owned by Unilever, which also owns Axe (ugh) and the company that produces Fair & Lovely skin lightening cream (double ugh), the campaign comes across as hypocritical and patronizing—a way for the company to pander to women for sales while practicing the very evil it preaches against."
What arguments have we missed? Let us know your thoughts or share links to other reactions in the comments.
Gil Zamora is an FBI-trained forensics artist with over 3,000 criminal sketches under his belt. Dove (through Unilever's U.K. office) and Ogilvy Brazil hired him to interview and draw seven different women—two sketches of each. The first sketch was based on each woman's personal description of herself. The second was based on a description provided by a stranger the woman had just met. Of course, the differences are vast. Watching these women come face to face with the version of themselves in their mind and the version everyone else sees is extraordinary. It's one of the most original and touching experiments to come from the Campaign for Real Beauty in ages, because instead of making faux protests or annoying graphic designers with bullshit filters, they're actually empowering individual women to appreciate their inherent beauty, and in turn, allowing us all to wonder if we've been judging ourselves too harshly. Like all of the best work, the commercial elements are barely there. Beyond the logo, Dove doesn't even attempt to sell soap. Watch the documentary below, and mini-videos of selected women on the web site. Then enjoy the rousing comments section, where people are already attacking Dove for choosing too many skinny, white chicks.
CREDITS Client: Dove Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Brazil Chief Creative Officer: Anselmo Ramos Executive Creative Director: Roberto Fernandez /Paco Conde AD: Diego Machado CW: Hugo Veiga Sketch Artist: Gil Zamora Producer: Veronica Beach Junior Producer: Renata Neumann Business Manager: Libby Fine CEO: Luis Fernando Musa Group Account Director: Valeria Barone Account Director: Ricardo Honegger
Production Company: Paranoid US Director: John X Carey Executive Producer: Jamie Miller / Claude Letessier Line Producer: Stan Sawicki Director of Photography: Ed David
—Long Version Executive Producer: Jamie Miller / Claude Letessier Producer: Stan Sawicki Editor: Phillip Owens Music: Subtractive Sound mix: Lime Studio Composer: Keith Kenniff Mixer: Sam Casas Executive Producer: Jessica Locke Production Sound: Tim O’Malley Color Grading: Company 3 Colorist: Sean Coleman
—Short Version and Cinema Editorial Company: Rock Paper Scissor Executive Producer: Carol Lynn Weaver Editor: Paul Kumpata Assistant Editor: Niles Howard Online: A52 Executive Producer: Megan Meloth Producer: Jamie McBriety Music: Subtractive Composer: Keith Kenniff Sound mix: Lime Studio Mixer: Sam Casas Executive Producer: Jessica Locke Production Sound: Tim O’Malley Color Grading: Company 3 Colorist: Sean Coleman
Few brands have mastered the marketing non sequitur quite as well as Old Spice, which just rolled out two new, fascinatingly bizarre ads for its Fiji Bar Soap. Parodying similar spots from the 1980s, the ads quickly take a surrealist turn. In the 15-second version, the singing narrator struggles to keep up with the ad's transition from shower to basketball-watermelon to soap. The 30-second execution follows a handsome doctor being stalked by his shower, even during surgery. A third spot will debut this summer. As always, Wieden + Kennedy manages to barrel past the line of absurdity while still somehow managing to keep the product front and center. Weirdness weirdness weirdness … buy soap.
This Brazilian ad by Ogilvy & Mather for Dove's Men + Care shampoo line puts the tropes of women's shampoo commercials in a new, and weird, context. Apparently, using women's shampoo makes your hair move in slow motion all the time, and also makes it grow about a foot in the time between showering and getting to work. You'd think the afflicted man would have noticed this before his co-worker pointed it out. All that neck strain would have killed me. Directed by Hungry Man's Carlão Busato.
Just watch this astounding Tide commercial from Saatchi & Saatchi in New York. It came out in January, so quietly that we didn't even notice it. And that's the beauty of it. See the dad? He's an ordinary dad. I'll let that sink in. He's not a buffoon, the butt of a joke, a clueless child who needs his wife to take care of him. He's not afraid of washing his daughter's clothes, or even a guy who has to supplement his masculinity by doing pull-ups and crunches after he handles a princess dress, like Tide's overcompensating dad-mom from 2011. He's just a guy with a daughter—who also bucks gender roles, by the way, by managing to be a messy tomboy even while she's wearing a princess dress. Judging by the YouTube comments, parents are loving it. Tide deserves a standing ovation for this bold statement in the movement to take back fatherhood.
It says something about banner ads that the best ones—with a few exceptions, like this and this—are the ones that are laughably, shareably bad. You've seen them. And now Old Spice is parodying them. Or rather, its new marketing chief, Mr. Wolfdog, is parodying them. He posted the five banners below to his Tumblr today, with the same note on each: "I have achieved another mountain of a business achievement. I have made effective banner ads." Wolfdog may be a shameless, talentless moron, but he's not wrong—and in that sense, he may be the most hilariously prototypical CMO ever. Since introducing himself to the world on Monday, Wolfdog—the marketing brains behind the Old Spice Wild Collection "smell products" (influenced maybe a little by Wieden + Kennedy)—has been busy all over the Internet. He's posted more YouTube videos; made a Pinterest page, Vine videos and an album of inspirational business music; hosted Google+ Hangouts with his Twitter followers; posted a toll-free number (866-695-2407) to help those who need to look busy at work; played Call of Duty: Black Ops II on Xbox Live; made animated GIFs; and whipped up websites like worldsbiggestchart.com. In short, he's done everything (and much more) that a marketing director should do in social media—while inherently poking fun at how hollow and rote and mindless it all is. Which of course is what makes it actually amusing and worthwhile. Such self-referential anti-advertising could feel overly cynical, but here it rises above—as usual for this agency and client—by the quality of the writing.
"Sometimes you gotta eat people, America. That's how business works." Old Spice has a charmingly roguish new executive director of marketing, who brings a uniquely authentic vision for selling Old Spice Wild Collection "smell products." That's because he's a wild animal. But luckily, he has a futuristic wolf-to-human translator voice box contraption strapped to his neck, so he can explain himself to you, and why he's so awesome at what he does. His advice? "Follow my twitters" and "Readings my blog" to learn more about Old Spice. Failing to do so could result in your being swiftly devoured. Bring in the meat sacks! The campaign, by Wieden + Kennedy, follows the recent snarling-wolf- and screeching-eagle-heavy ads for the client's Wolfthorn and Hawkridge scents.
Mr. Wolfdog saying hi. I'm proud to be Old Spice’s first nonhuman Director of Marketing and look forward to being even prouder. End tweet.
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