Gratuitous exploitation of sinks and faucets in Joe's jeans ads

Inadvertently locked in the mens room without her blouse - again - she decided to get comfortable on the sink until help arrived. 

Longchamp: up a creek without a paddle

Impish, shrimpish model, Audrey Marnay got much less/more than she bargained for when she signed on to shoot the Spring '11 Longchamp campaign with Patrick Demarchelier.  Allegedly, fellow shrimp model and former face of the brand, Kate Moss, became so enraged at the idea of being replaced by Marnay, she contracted famously foul tempered thug and hitwoman Naomi Campbell to "get rid of 'er". After negotiating payent in "big, shiny diamonds; not those fucking dirty ones that South African bloke gave me", Campbell put her evil plan into action. Following a hearty breakfast of cigarettes, crunchy cellphone-parts and a recently employed Latina maid, Campbell boarded "Uncle Phil's" jet for the 5 day flight to deepest, darkest Papua New Guinea - location of the Longchamp shoot.  Upon landing, Campbell went right to work - burning villages, throwing flat screen televisions at the local tribespeople and bribing and berating cannibals to do her evil bidding.  The cannibals leapt at the work, delighted to be paid in "extremely rare and valuable dirty stones".  In rapid succession, Campbell's cannibals snatched Marnay from the hair and makeup trailer, gnawed off both her feet, stuck her upright in a dug out canoe and set her adrift with nothing but a Longchamp handbag (stuffed with tissue paper) and a thoroughly pissed off look on her face.  But every cloud has a silver lining.  On the way to the New Guinea airport, Naomi's armored tank was forced off the road by a rival cannibal gang and she was roasted on a spit and eaten.

Why do bad things happen to Calvin Klein models?

As this murky, undercover video shows, Calvin Klein model Tyson Ballou recently returned home to discover that burglars had stripped the place of all furnishings, rugs, art, photographs, food and comfort, leaving nothing but a hollow concrete shell; well that and Lara Stone, fellow Calvin Klein house model/burglary victim. Trooper though she is, Lara found it impossible to get comfortable on the cold concrete floor of the house, and following what seems like an eternity (by Calvin Klein) laying on freezing cold surfaces, poor Lara could take it no more. She confronted Tyson (in a minimalist, unemotional kind of way) about the lack of warmth in their now terrifyingly stark flat, and stormed off by convertible car and private jet (how very 2007 of her) into the arms, and more importantly, warmly furnished bedroom of her back up lover -- an unseen billionaire reported to be in the soft furnishings business.

The book that wrote the book on ingenuity

The book that wrote the book on Kiwi ingenuity.

My sister Jane and brother-in-law Roger flew in from New Zealand for a whistle stop visit recently, leaving me with a weeklong hangover, a renewed desire to visit my home country, and a slightly dog eared copy of a brilliant new book,

“EVERY BASTARD SAYS NO”

Written by Geoff Ross (a former Saatchi and Saatchi ad man) and his partner Justine Troy, “EVERY BASTARD…” is the gripping tale of how these intrepid Kiwis (and their global network of tenacious mates) created, nurtured and ingeniously marketed 42 Below, New Zealand's first premium vodka.  The happy ending to this tale is the amount of money Bacardi forked over purchase 42 Below in 2009.  NZ $140 million. (Which at the current exchange rate is about USD $19.95. 

A must read for marketers, entrepreneurs and people who like lots of big pictures in their books, “EVERY BASTARD…” details how a tiny premium brand in a faraway country became an huge international success by, in large part, exploiting its New Zealand-ness.  

If you’ve yet to meet a Kiwi (we’re an extremely rare and attractive people), you should know that a big part of our national DNA is a self-deprecating, piss taking, irreverent humor.  The advertising and promotions for 42 Below Vodka harnessed and exported this unique brand of humor to great effect, annoying liquor giants, earning countless awards and winning millions of vodka cocktail-sodden fans along the way.

Swollen as I am with national pride (at least I think that what it is), this will be the first of several posts devoted to the story of the little vodka that could.  Meanwhile, I'm off to the liquor store around the corner to pick up the second bottle of the week.  Cheers! 

LVMH and the case of the over romanced handbag

One thing I’ve learned during my 1,000 years spent in the trenches of advertising is there’s a fine line between romancing the product and bullshit.

LVMH got busted crossing their little toe over that line last week when the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority banned two Louis Vuitton print ads on the basis that they misled consumers into thinking its products are made by hand.  Their handbags are almost entirely sewn by machine.  In the offending ads, female artisans (one of whom looks suspiciously like Natalie Portman) fold the leather of a wallet and hand-stitch the handle of a handbag in gorgeous Vermeer-lit photographs. I actually like these ads a lot, despite the arduous copy.  “What secret little gestures do our craftsmen discreetly pass on?"  "Let's allow these mysteries to hang in the air”.  (Somebody, call my fabulous English agent and quick!) Telling a heritage story is a smart strategic way to add real value to a $5G handbag in these (almost) post recessionary times.  If they’d considered a discreet disclaimer, they could’ve gotten away with it.  Something like:

Objects in this ad appear much more hand made than they actually are

An accident waiting to happen

Apparently a $7 bottle of chianti and candlelight no longer does the trick.  According to these Cialis ads (yes, it's a campaign) there's nothing quite like a wall of cold white porcelain between you and your mate to turn "a relaxing moment into the right moment".  In order to facilitate the spark of desire, Cialis suggests arranging side-by-side tubs on a beach or overlooking a tranquil valley.  Perhaps the erectile disfunction experts at Cialis could also suggest the number of a crane company or a few burly prop stylists to help you get said tubs into place.  Call me old fashioned, but wouldn't this whole scenario be a lot easier if both participants began in the same tub?  Or better still, in the same bed?

P.S. To all - or both- my regular readers, i apologize for the brief interlude between posts.  My paid services have been in considerable demand...and naturally they come first.

Lemon Chiffon: A powerful new hallucinogen?

FRESH BAKED? Models tripping out in a fish pond.

The narrative of this new Pamella Roland ad is highly confusing.  I attempted to decipher the “story” last night (it was a slow Tuesday) and came up with far more questions than answers, i.e.

1. Do women really fantasize about wading in fetid fishponds wearing evening gowns?  

2. Is the forlorn looking model on the left plotting to escape the shoot by drowning herself?

3. Is the blonde on the right communing with aliens, pumping up her tan or tripping her tits off on mushrooms? 

4. Were Koi or any other decorative fish injured during the production of this ad?

5. Did the water damage the dress?  And if so was it insured?  

6. Was the models hair dyed to match their outfits?  And if so, were they insured?

Color me confused.