Go With Jacko

Funny and clever. Well, more funny than clever. Still, it's good to see a poster that's not just a piece of graphic design with a logo on it. At least this has got an idea behind it.

The line, if you can't be bothered to enlarge the picture, says: "Navigation and entertainment in one."

Created by DDB Germany Berlin.

Like Lynx. But Better

Despite featuring a succession of scantily-clad women, this lovely new ad for Axe Bullet manages to be very sweet and refreshingly un-laddish. The excellent little-boy-lost casting helps, but it's mainly due to the underlying premise - that although it's obvious that he's looking for one thing, you know that he's also looking for something more. Great stuff.

Oh, and it really does help that the ad features The Seeds' fantastic Can't Seem To Make You Mine.

Created by BBH New York.

Hitler Bad. Cigarettes Even Badder.

Further to an earlier Jukebox post ("Smoke and Fire"), a ridiculous campaign by Brazil's F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi agency that basically tells us that cigarettes are more evil than Hitler. Note that it doesn't just say that many millions of people have died from smoking. They have to make, for some reason, a stupid and offensive comparison to get that point across.

But what else kills more than Hitler? Cars. Domestic accidents. Heart attacks (or, rather, fatty foods and alcohol). All sorts of things, in fact. So it'd be quite easy, say, for health councils to make Hitler faces out of hamburgers or bottles of beer. Or for road safety campaigners to form parked cars into the shape of a swastika. And they could all carry a variation on the same line: "Fatty foods/Alcohol/Cars etc. kill more". Brlliant.

Millions murdered at the hands of a genocidal maniac and they think it's appropriate to compare it with people who die from something they choose to indulge in - something, moreover, that anyone over the age of three knows is very bad for you?

And what do they think this ad will achieve? It's been proven that trying to get people to stop smoking by telling them that many people die from smoking just doesn't work. Which is probably something the agency is fully aware of - hence this crass, and rather desperate, campaign that, at best, might get a bit of attention for the agency.

Dickie Beasley - Ad Man

Once again, from the pages of Viz Comic, Dickie Beasley shows the world what life in an ad agency is really like - dead cats nailed to church doors and all.

Click the image for a closer look.

Stars What Sell. #4: Sammy Davis Jnr

Back when stars were stars... the incomparable Sammy Davis Jr (accompanied by a cartoon shell) dances and drives around 1950s London while extolling the virtues of a certain brand of petrol. He even gets in a nice bit of rhyming slang.

It's Fun To Fly!

Of course, if you want to fly anywhere these days you have to first ensure that everyone knows how full of self-loathing you are about doing it. But it wasn't too long ago that flying was fun. So much fun, in fact, that they even incorporated the concept into this airliner's very name. Lovely stuff.

Light Up Your Life

From Thailand, a very - very - strange ad for lightbulbs.

Stars What Sell. #3: God

The ultimate celebrity endorsement. Sort of.

Although God himself doesn't make an appearance, one of his trusted earthly representatives lets us know that New Testament cigarettes are His favourite: "I smoke 'em, He smokes 'em." And there's a lovely little dig at the competitor brand too: "Those are for sinners."

From Woody Allen's excellent Bananas (1971):

Dickie Beasley - Account Executive

From the pages of Viz comic, a stunningly accurate pastiche of what ad agencies are like. Or, rather, what many of them are like (hint: It's not like that here at Jukebox). It's very funny too.

Click the image to see the larger size.

Stork Monster

Another great Monster TV ad. As usual, it's very clever, very creative and bang on brief. But this time it's also quite moving. In fact, it gets you right there. Not there, there....

It's A Steal!

Who was it that said: "Talent imitates, genius steals"?

Advertising has always nodded to the various aspects of the culture it finds itself in. It'd be strange if it didn't. But it's a very thick line between invoking the zeitgeist and just ripping off other people's ideas. As has been the case with two very recent TV commercials: Sugar Puffs' 'homage' to The Mighty Boosh, and Berocca's cribbing of OK Go's Here It Goes Again video.

The problem perhaps isn't so much that they've stolen ideas, it's that they've done it so badly and so shamelessly. Both examples are very poor imitations of the originals. It's almost as if the 'creatives' behind the ads are telegraphing their utter contempt not only for the orginal works but also for their own industry. It's lazy, uninspired and does absolutely nothing for the companies advertising or for the marketing industry as whole. No wonder so many people regard advertising as a somewhat ignoble profession, full of charlatans and thieves.

Anyway, here are the ads - preceded by their sources.

The Mighty Boosh - Soup


Sugar Puffs


OK Go - Here It Goes Again


Berocca

KennedyKennedyKennedyKennedy....

It seemed apt to post this particular video on the day of our local elections.

From 1960, a sweet, and rather irritating, political advertisement for John F Kennedy.