axe pulse: “earthquake” + axe lynx: “because you never know when”.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge critic of Unilever’s soulless corporate hypocrisy for how they manage their Axe and Dove brands. That’s why it’s really frustrating for me that Axe, all around the world, has some of the most visually-interesting, cinematic advertising around. I don’t use Axe, I abhor Unilver, but I adore most of Axe’s advertising. I’m torn, and that’s just how it is.

This Axe ad aired in Argentina in 2007, and it’s kick ass:

(Agency: VegaOlmosPonce – Buenos Aires)

This ad, for Lynx 24-7 (the Axe brand is known as Lynx in the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia – but it’s all the same shit), is a bit more stereotypical of Axe (the models are stereotypically hotter, they’ve just had a one night stand, Axe gets you major tail, yadda yadda) but the reason it’s interesting is because I watched it. I was curious, it had me to the end, then I realized it was Axe. Damn them Damn them Damn them. This ad is older, from 2005, but won big time accolades and festivals world-wide rushed to throw awards at it. Why? Because, feminism aside, sexism aside, this is a really effective ad.

(Agency: Bogle Bartle Hegarty – London)

axe: chocolaxe.

What frightens me the most about my personal vendetta against Unilever and it’s morally-opposed advertising for Dove and Axe is that the ads are so damn good. They’re an evil genius.

Check out this Argentine spot for Axe:

(Agency: Vegaolmosponcey)

I feel less guilty about liking this spot because the whole stereotypical “girls love chocolate” thing is so over the top that it somehow seems less sexist. While still being completely sexist. Why I’m trying to justify this in my brain I’m not totally sure…

dove + axe = unilever’s hypocrisy.

As I brought up in my first Axe post, I have a personal vendetta against Unilever. In case you don’t know:

• Dove has made a monumental world-wide splash with it’s Self Esteem Fund and online ads “Evolution” and “Onslaught”.
• Axe has gotten huge web play and a booming market share with wet dream, mega-horny, Porky’s style advertising.
• Unilever is the huge mega-corporation that owns both brands.

Watch this great vid and check out the Dove vs. Axe advertising for yourself:

Here’s the thing: both campaigns are amazing. They’re doing their intended jobs perfectly. The Dove ads, created by Ogilvy + Mather Toronto, are inspirational and groundbreaking and tap into the growing female backlash against the beauty industry and the need to love yourself for who you really are. The Axe ads, created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, are hilarious and actually pretty witty and tap into the genetically inherent male desire to watch boobs jiggle and fuck as many people as you can. One plays on breaking stereotypes and one plays on supporting them. It’s win-win. Good for them.

use axe. get (a)head.

Ugh. Axe. Unilever is evil and the Axe brand is their fun-loving minion. There’s just no getting away from it. I would hate this Axe ad if I didn’t like it so much. I mean, let’s face it, selling body wash to males 18-29 isn’t the most nuanced brand push in the world…

Although, since Axe and Dove are both owned by the same parent, Unilever, I would be interested to know if the hard-working lady in the tub just watched any of the Dove Self-Esteem Fund vids. Just a thought…unless maybe this is how she gets her self-esteem. In which case, go get ’em girl.

Agency: Lowe MENA UAE (Art Director Dominic Stallard and Copywriter Clinton Manson)

cbc + the accident factory: macs vs. pcs.

So, I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the fuck is going on here. At first it’s not so confusing: we’ve got Macs, we’ve got PCs, we’ve got “West Side Story”, and we’ve got “Dawn of the Dead.” It’s almost Hallowe’en, they’re hoping this shit goes viral (and I’m blogging it, so I’m contributing to its viral-ness.) Got it. Then I realized that it’s commissioned by the CBC, and that’s where I’m lost.

For those of you who don’t know, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is a media dinosaur; generally dull and plodding and slow-moving and about as hip as trucker hats. But it’s Canadian and it’s ours and Canadians love anything that’s been around for 100 years and we’re not about to do something crazy like criticize it. Like the monarchy; we simply don’t question it.  It’s a very Canadian thing to secretly believe that any kind of major change will lead to the downfall of our society. It’s possible that universal healthcare is somehow based on the existence of the CBC, so let’s not rock the boat. We like to keep on keepin’ on.

For a general example of how quick the CBC is to trend-spot, they’ve recently discovered… reality television! Basically they like to wait until something becomes really popular everywhere else, wait a few more years so that it can start to become unpopular, and then do a not-quite-as-good version of what’s now almost throughly unpopular… and somehow hope it becomes popular again.  I imagine a bunch of men, scratching their heads, sitting around a boardroom wondering to themselves “what will those whacky kids do next?” So, the fact that they managed to catch on to something culturally current while it’s still actually culturally current is a little mind-blowing. If they can make it a trend, good for them. I won’t hold my breath though.

Also, since the CBC is publically-funded, that means my taxes have somehow funded the making of this vid. And, thus, I’ve given myself a producer credit. See below…

(Agency: The Accident Factory. Director: Kirby Ferguson. Tax-Based Public Partial Producer: Jeremy Elder and all other tax-paying citizens of Canada.)

Via Wired

marmite: hate/love.

Every country and culture has one of those inherent tastes you grow to love. The kind of social oddities that bind certain groups together while simultaneously disgusting the rest of the world. It’s kind of like the secret handshake to your national culture club. Then you can go backpacking to some other country and give a little nudge nudge wink wink to a fellow national as you hash out the difference between Pop and Soda (by the way, in the Southern US they call all flavours of pop “Coke”. How’s that for being top of mind?), or the great Canadian/American dilemma: Macaroni & Cheese vs. Kraft Dinner.

If you’re British, you’ve got Marmite. The non-British hatred and mockery of Marmite is so universally stereotypical that I feel like a boring wannabe for getting on the bandwagon. I like to think of myself as a little more worldly and open-minded, with the discerning palette to match. And so I tried Marmite once. Upon tasting Marmite, there is one very immediate, logical, and overwhelming conslusion: Marmite absolutely tastes like a yeast infection. There’s no other way to imagine it. It’s heinous almost beyond words. Even the little jars it comes in look nasty:

If you’re Australian, then you’ve got Marmite’s evil twin, Vegemite. Never say never, and maybe I’ll be totally loaded in Australia one day and throw caution to the wind, but based on my Marmite experience I can fairly safely say I would need to be water-boarded for several hours before I’d even consider trying Vegemite.

If you’re Canadian, then you’re likely all too familiar with the pure liquid evil that is Buckley’s Mixture. Famous for its brilliant tag line “It tastes awful. And it works.”, your first time drinking Buckley’s is a physical and mental experience akin to losing your virginity or getting waxed for the first time. It’s simply something you don’t forget. That’s how overwhelmingly vile it is. If you haven’t tried it, it boasts a consistency and flavour similar to what could really only be described as salted, mentholated snot. Or, let’s all be honest, semen.

Both brands have taken the perfect angle of not fighting against their inherent grossness, but instead capitalizing on it. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. In their latest print campaign from DDB London, Marmite has created a series of posters where each image is a play on either loving Marmite or hating it. You can check out the full series here, but this one is my favourite:

Officially, it’s supposed to be a play on either putting a Marmite rice cake either into your mouth or into a garbage can. I’m pretty sure that nobody at DDB London missed the fact that what it really looks like is pulling a Marmite rice cake out of someone’s ass. Or, if that’s your sort of thing, putting it in someone’s ass. Which is appropriate, because ass is pretty much what Marmite tastes like.

As for Buckley’s, they recently knocked it out of the park with a viral and TV campaign showing the iconic “blind taste test” where people couldn’t tell the difference between Buckley’s and a host of other disgusting fluids, my personal favourite being “Buckley’s vs. Spring Break Hot Tub Water”:

Other highlights include Used Mouthwash, Snail Trail, Trash Bag Leakage, and the terrifyingly vague “Public Restroom Puddle”. Ah, the subtlety.

denis darzacq: hyper.

From flight to gymnastics to the circus to space travel, no matter how much gravity holds us all together the human mind is always enthralled with new ways to make it seem as if we break free from the Earth’s hold. There’s something fascinating about seeing humans suspended in space, and in “Hyper”, the latest series from Paris-based photographer Denis Darzacq (who also did similar work in his serene, monotone series “La Chute”) we see a beautiful mix of gravity defiance and the cool, clean lines of modern spaces.

To me, “Hyper” is like a collision between the work of two of my favourite photographers: there is the similar visual play of seeing the human body in mid-air, like in Lilly McElroy’s “I Throw Myself At Men”, but now it’s taking place inside the sort of ubiquitous, flourescent-filled, brain-dead, colossal chain-store that Brian Ulrich investigated so tellingly in his series “Copia”.

What really interests me about this is that even though it must have taken a lot of physical exertion to jump in the air, these photos completely belie any supposed effort. Everyone appears as if they’re slowly levitating, and sometimes it’s as if they’re so relaxed that as they float up the very weight of their limbs is what contorts their bodies, not the effort of the jump

Their location makes me not just interested in the fact that they’re floating, but why they’re floating. To me, it’s as if each of them has suddenly just had too much of daily life: like the overwhelmingly mundane task of buying another carton of milk is the the last straw and so their spirit has literally freed their bodies from the Earth. That our physical reactions to having too much consumerism thrust upon us might just be for our bodies to involuntarily rise into the air… sometimes with rage, and other times limp like our souls have been drained out of our skins.

Even though it looks like these works are digitally manipulated, his sites say they aren’t. He used dancers and athletes to pose for the series inside a local grocery store. Obviously it would take someone totally in tune with their body to bring that kind of airborne relaxation to life, but I wonder what happened when they hit the floor? Sometimes, art is pain.

There’s also a short documentary on Darzacq that gives us a total look into his process and interviews with his models on what it’s like being shot by Darzacq. Lucky breakers…

Via SwissMiss via It’s Nice That

luciano podcaminsky + nike women = “surgery”.

Working with @radical.media, the same brainstorming studio that produced Christopher Riggert’s recent Aussie Nike Air Force 1 spot, Luciano Podcaminsky is the man behind the much-hailed viral “Surgery” for Nike Women online. One of my fave directors, for “Surgery” he picked up a well-deserved 2007 Bronze Lion for Clothing and Footwear. When you check out the spot it’s not hard to see why:

Besides creating much buzzed about adds for Sprite, Axe, and Canal+, he’s also behind this great ad for the apparently never-ending “Got Milk?” campaign: