copyranter
'Styled For Action'
Hamilton Nolan · 08/27/09 02:05PMAd Industry Hates Earth
Hamilton Nolan · 04/21/09 03:25PMNo, No, No
Hamilton Nolan · 04/14/09 02:41PMNasty
Hamilton Nolan · 04/01/09 02:31PM'Fun Which You Need to Lubricate'
Hamilton Nolan · 03/23/09 11:37AMPooch Will Beej For Food
Hamilton Nolan · 11/14/08 10:49AMSex sells fruit. Sex sells condoms. Sex sells magazines. Sex sells charity. Sex sells cheap clothes and pseudocool clothes. Even child sex sells cosmetics. So people are pretty cool with sex, and its selling implications. But does dog sex sell? We can only hope. Click through for the big version. [via Copyranter at Coilhouse]
Wash Your Hands Or Eat This
Hamilton Nolan · 09/19/08 03:51PMYou know what's gross? Germs. You know what's even grosser? A cupcake made out of hamster. This ad for Lifebuoy soap features an incredibly lifelike rodent dessert, to send the message "You eat what you touch." You can't deny it's an effective way to get the point across, although if you think about it too much (I'm eating my boss!) I imagine a backlash could start to form. Click through for an appetizing close-up picture.
Still With The Balls-In-Face Ads, Nike?
Hamilton Nolan · 09/12/08 01:01PMSo earlier this summer, Nike upset certain gays and their allies with an ad showing a basketball player dangling his balls in another guy's face, bearing the slogan "That Ain't Right." And everybody got so pissy about it that the company pulled the ad, which even we were surprised by. But that was just one in a series of similar Hyperdunk ads—and what's the point of pulling it when, as Copyranter points out, other ads in the campaign that are still on display might be considered even worse?* EWWW:
All Music Now Represented By Gadget
Hamilton Nolan · 09/04/08 10:06AMIf you want to grab the public's attention in this crowded luxury real estate market, you can't just name your new development something bland like "New Condos in Chelsea." Better to call it "Tempo." It evokes movement—movement right into your new development, ha! Marketing people get paid to come up with these names, really. And how best to communicate the power of music and rhythm, the primeval sense of melody that you want to inextricably link to your building's brand? Find a way to work an iPod (or a knockoff of one) into your logo! Because music is made of iPods. Here's how you attract the true connoisseurs:
Do Not Think About What This McDonald's Ad Could Imply
Hamilton Nolan · 08/21/08 01:17PMFast food is essentially made up of low-quality byproducts of better food. Leftover cow parts, ground pig parts... you can use your imagination. So it's best for fast food companies to stick with happy clowns and assorted other mascots in their ads, staying as far as possible from any image that could make you consider what's actually in the food you're buying. And they should especially make sure they never draw any parallels between their product and human flesh. I mean, yuck. So tell us, McDonald's, what went wrong here?:
American Apparel Ad Spoofer Becomes An Art Critic
Hamilton Nolan · 08/13/08 11:22AMThe anonymous American Apparel ad remixer has consistently shown-along with a love for pornography and a belief in the dildo-ness of AA boss Dov Charney-a marked devotion to actual "art." We're not dealing with just another vandal here; we're dealing with a vandal who may have gone to art school at some point. This valuable education enables not only the clean, porny line drawings on the ads, but now, a new frontier: a reference to pop artist Jeff Koons. And a nude woman! I don't think it's exaggerating the case to call this fake postermaker an educator. The seminal work: Jeff Koons' "Equilibrium":
Never Have Sex With A Belgian
Hamilton Nolan · 08/12/08 02:29PMPerhaps we need a "Text-only" law for condom advertising. Leaving prophylactic communications in the hands of human art directors is just too risky-particularly when you're dealing with the strange sexual mores of foreigners. Because while the result might come off nice and cute (like the Chinese Olympic condom ads), there's an equal chance that it will be grotesque. This Belgian ad campaign for super-thin condoms has Photoshopped a man and a woman together into a terrifying image of a conjoined connubial monstrosity. I know Europeans have different ideas of "personal space," but really. Click through for two full (freaky but SFW) ads:
Nipples: Dependably Driving Web Traffic
Hamilton Nolan · 08/05/08 11:15AMPosters for Cabana Cachaca, a brand of Brazilian rum that is determined to bully its way into the market through sheer advertising mass, are plastered all over Manhattan. But they're cropped so that the model is just barely free of nipple (a body part banned in the USA). But the posters direct you to the company's website where-in a keen display of digital marketing strategy-you can see the model's nipple (Copyranter made sure of it). I think they've hit on a solid online agenda here. Click through for the (NSFW) uncensored version of the ad. None of this contributes to high quality rum, as if you cared:
Bayer: Barbecuing Babies Guilt-Free
Hamilton Nolan · 07/23/08 01:58PM[UPDATE: The ad agency in question has contacted us to say that these spots are spoofs from an unknown source, not actual ads approved by Bayer. Please note that as you read this post]. Well. Health care giant Bayer is advertising its new burn cream [actually, is not] by reaching out to cannibal mothers, apparently. The tagline on these ads out of Egypt reads, "Heals their burn and your guilt, fast." Ha, yes, ummm, we'll just back slowly out of the room now and call the authorities. Even serial fount of outrage Copyranter is left speechless at these. Click through for the other, equally horrific cartoony ad. If you are some sort of monster:
Somebody Please Pun-ch Kenneth Cole. Get It?
Hamilton Nolan · 07/18/08 12:47PMKenneth Cole is not just a middling designer and outspoken advocate for responsible journalism; he's also, for reasons we can't fathom (narcissism), his own advertising copywriter. A bad advertising copywriter. It's not every CEO of a massive fashion brand that's too cheap to hire someone to write his own billboard taglines. But in Kenneth Cole's case, coming up with them only robs him of mere seconds of thought. That's how his poor clothing line ends up with billboards like this one on Houston St.—presumably the balls are there to distract you from the slogan itself:
Oh It's So Obvious
Hamilton Nolan · 07/08/08 04:39PMEsteemed angry ad blogger Copyranter says this new Ketel One ad just might be "The Most Annoying Ad Ever." That's tough, but its use of blatant trickery and time wasting as a marketing technique is certainly cruel. The target (drunk) audience might stare at this for hours with no satisfaction. Click through for a larger pic.
American Apparel Spoofer Goes Retro-Porny
Hamilton Nolan · 06/30/08 01:06PMThe now-famous but still anonymous American Apparel ad spoofer has always done his or her part to portray the hipster robot clothing company's ads as they are in CEO Dov Charney's mind: tasteful porn. The spoofer knows that the mandate to actually put clothes in his ads is just a necessary evil to Dov; he'd rather just see naked, self-stimulating, shaven women writhing around in space—perhaps accompanied by a cute animal. But now the spoofer is urging a return to the unshaven days of yore; a move that fits in with AA's faux-natural branding quite nicely. Clever viral marketing (doubtful)? Or just an unspoken call for variety in AA's secret full-on nude ads, to be unveiled as soon as society is ready for them? After the jump, full photos of the spoofer's latest porny—yet natural—line drawings:
How To Sell A Porn-Blocking Product With Class
Hamilton Nolan · 06/25/08 10:41AMJust like you can block pop-up ads on your computer, you can also buy software to block porn, if you wanted to do that for some odd reason. But that very software has to have its own ads—preferably ads that incorporate porn, for clarity's sake! You can see the quandary. One German porn-blocking company solved the problem with some strategic Photoshop work [UPDATE: A concept pioneered at Something Awful], and the result is so creative you almost want to buy their purifying product just to applaud the effort (not really). Two of the company's ads, via Copyranter, are after the jump. They're perfectly SFW, as long as you don't use any imagination.
American Apparel Spoofer: Bambi Porn Edition
Hamilton Nolan · 06/12/08 03:58PMThe anonymous American Apparel ad prankster strikes again. This time with more animals! Also—it must be said—with even more poon-tang than usual. Copyranter says the new installment is a spoof of this bambi-themed ad. If Dov Charney doesn't find this vandal and put him or her on the payroll immediately, he's even crazier than we think. Click through for two uncensored photos of the (explicit, artistic) latest work: