Drinking the Chicago River water would be healthier.

(click image, via) Leo Burnett and McDonald's jumped on the annual Chi-town tradition of dying the city's river green for St. Patrick's Day with this impressive ambient stunt. What, exactly, is in a Shamrock Shake has of course long been a point of speculation/disgust. Previously in BIG ambient ad stunts:
• Alfa Romeo.
• Hubba Bubba Bubblegum.
• Giant cleaver train crossing warning.

Google Android logo "crushes" car in Amsterdam.

(via) I don't know what Mr. Explainer is saying, but if you have to explain your ambient ad stunt, it sucks. I think he's explaining that telecom retailer The Phone House now carries Android? Help, Dutch readers. This happened Tuesday.
Previously: Android ad attacks iPhone Alarm-gate. Ambient Ad Archive here.

Ridiculous Ambient Advertising of the Week.

(click images) It's, yes, lingerie placemats, for K-Lynn Lingerie, a chain with locations in Kuwait, Lebanon, and Dubai. They were placed in "selected cafes," where dining Middle Eastern women and cross-dressers experienced how they might look if they were wearing slutty stockings and garter belts. This won an award at this year's Dubai Lynx ad festival. It is creepy Ad Creep (by JWT Cairo, images via). Previous ridiculous ambient ads: hairy. scary. pukey. meaty. dusty. speedy. punchy. pissy. disgusting.

The Chicken McNuggets Dipping Sauce Elevator.

Ambitious ambient execution for one of the vilest foods in the world. Installed recently in Shanghai's busiest mall. Ad agency: Leo Burnett, China. Previously in McDonald's ambient advertising: Huge Shamrock Shake spilling into the Chicago River • Big Breakfast BIG bags • and, you just burned 1/100th of a fry.

Fake woman drops real skirt in public.

(click images, via) Sigh. Yes, this is a real (stupid) ambient street ad for 120-calorie Cup Noodle, via South Korea. I guess the idea is that her skirt fell off because she lost weight on her noodle diet? Note the fake noodle (DICK) in her mouth. Ad agency: Adrich, Seoul. Previously: ridiculous ambient ad roundup.

Guerrilla Advertising!

(click image, via) OK, it's actually for Orangutans. But whatever! Let us just applaud the creative minds at Y&R Jakarta who turned those ugly abandoned monorail trusses (L) into ambient advertising for the Friends of the National Parks Foundation in Indonesia. May you ad peoples win lots of awards, and maybe actually help save an Orangutan or three.
Previously in: Guerrilla and/or Ambient Advertising.

Oversized ambient advertising, Times Square, 1955.

(click image) Pre-Miami Ad School, pre-Mad Men, pre-your "original" idea, modern ad guru. Via The Denver Egotist. Recent big ambient ads:
• Smart Car.
• Terminix.
• Clarks shoes.
• drunk driving in Israel.
• McDonald's Big Breakfast.
• McDonald's Shamrock shake.

Stupid Ambient Ad Stunt of the Week.

(click image, via) Well, there is an idea here, it just ain't working. From the agency press note: "With 188kW of power, the Volkswagen's Golf R is the fastest Volkswagen ever. To create hype around this awesome vehicle, we hired people to walk around busy public areas with prosthetic mouth pieces that mimicked the physical effects of G-Force."
The guy on the left works a little better with his slicked-back hair. Otherwise, the stuntmen just look like scary freaks in VW t-shirts. Maybe a pack of about 10 guys would have made the stunt more readable. Maybe not. Ad agency: Ogilvy, Cape Town. Here's 10 previous stupid ambient ad stunts. And here's some more.

Doggone Sick Ambient Advertising For Pet Insurance.

(click image to view the fake tragedies) Oopsie doggie! The location is Santiago, Chile. The advertiser is Ripley and the product is pet insurance. Don't know if the fake dogs are fake jumping from one of Ripley's offices, or what. But, uh, THANKS for the macabre, ultra-tasteless reminder that accidents happen, you fucking sickos. (image via) Previously in Just Wrong ambient advertising.

Sphinctertising.

(click image) Another day, another asshole-centric ad. Shockingly unappealing piece of public bathroom ambient advertising via Denmark—but it get its point across, I guess. Silk soft TP is made from 100% recycled paper. So Danish ad agency By Far says they put these stickers over toilet paper dispensers in public restrooms around Copenhagen. What they probably did was put it over one dispenser, took some photos, peeled it off, and then ran out cackling like 10-year-olds. They could have at least waxed and bleached that anus, though (image via). previously in scary ambient bathroom advertising: one, two, three.

Karate studio ambient ad chop chop cheap.

(click image, via) No, it's not brilliant. But it is effective and cost-effective. So, bravo Toronto Academy of Karate. We've all dreamed of being able to chop a piece of wood in half with our black-belt lethal weapon hands, amirite? The cinder blocks with head move, I'm not so keen on. Previous cheap effective ambient ads: one, two, three.

Kebabs with Sperm Sauce.

(click images, via) RakO was the first branded condom in Hungary. This nauseating bit of ambient advertising was created by their Budapest ad agency Insomnia. Yes, the copy line translates as "Non-drip pleasure." From the agency press notes:

"Many (young people) visit fast-food restaurants where they often eat kebab packed in the well-known foil which protects clothes from having unwanted sauce-drops on them. So this foil secures protection for everyone to enjoy the pleasure of eating a kebab. And it is a coincidence that RakO condoms have the same function: securing safe sex for people - with no dripping."

It sells condoms. It doesn't sell kebabs (at least with yoghurt sauce), though.
Previous ambient condom advertising:
• Flash Mob of Human Spermatozoa.
• Jontex condom umbrellas—it's raining (Se)men.

Eyes on the road, drunkey!

(click image) Headline translation: "Don't Drink And Drive." On behalf of the Or Yarok Association for Safe Driving in Israel, the Tel Aviv office of Y&R Interactive spent six months constructing this 60-foot tall, 15-ton bottle obelisk made of 80 wrecked cars. According to the agency press notes, 1,000,000 motorists a day will be exposed to the distracting thing over the next three months. It's a fairly impressive piece of ambient advertising which also happens to be unoriginal—a fact I'm sure the agency, if not the client, was well aware of.
Previous unusual ambient drunk driving ads:
• The VW's been drinking, not me.
• Public toilets turned into wheelchairs.
• If you can piss a straight line, you can drive.
• Puking chick floor sticker warns puking chicks about driving drunk.

Ad Creep Update: hairy straphanging.

(click image) Ponytailvertising. Unorthodox, skeevy ambient ad placement, via Indonesia. Johnny Andrean, a well-known local beauty salon franchise, sought to cheaply promote a new hair strengthening product. So, their ad agency, Fortune, hung these hair (fake, I hope) handles with product cards in some Jakarta commuter trains. I don't see this type of hype ever happening on my A train ride (image via). Previously in: scary ambient ads. Previously in: Ad Creep.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, from copy-o-ranter.

Drink your goddamn Shamrock shakes and green beer, faux Irish idiots, and then remember to get to the Chicago River to puke it all back up again.
(Ambient stunt erected by Leo Burnett in 2010.)

China apparently has a big domestic violence problem.

(click image) First, bleeding, disturbing DV awareness packages were mailed out to 20 million Chinese households. And now, starting in June, these in-your-face punchy ambient posters were placed on the doors of Beijing office buildings and shopping malls. Copy translation: Nearly 30% of women in China experience domestic violence. If you don't help to stop it, you're just adding to her problems. Call 12338 if you know a woman is being abused. The posters were created by Beijing ad agency DMG on behalf of the All-China Women's Federation. Again, like with the eye-tracking Berlin bus stop poster, this stunt seems like it was hatched mostly to be ad award bait (not a winner, in my opinion). But, I guess, if it makes one Chinese man pause his hand, etc. (via) Previously in: anti-domestic violence ads.

Human Trafficking Awareness Advertising Comes To The Supermarket Meat Case.

(click images) Is she Grade A? Well, the government of tiny Luxembourg is responsible for maybe the creepiest Ad Creep ambient effort yet. Via ad agency Mikado Publicis, these packaged prostitutes with authentic-looking labels were placed in amongst the meaty comestibles in local markets. Headline and copy translation, according to the press note: "If you pay a prostitute, you're financing human trading. Every year, 2,450,000 people become victims of human trafficking, of whom 92% end up being used for human sex. 98% of the victims used by the sex industry are women and children!" Certainly shocking and memorable, but the supermarket is maybe not the best place to target Luxembourger men, yes? Also, I have to point out: no nipples (images via).
Previously in: shocking human trafficking advertising.

There once was a young couple who lived in a shoe at the mall.

(click images, via) To promote that their shoes "are comfortable enough to live in" to Aussies, popular UK brand Clarks built two big fucking clodhoppers and installed them at the Parramatta Mall in New South Wales, Australia. The man and woman live in the shoes during mall visiting hours. For the next two weeks, they will cook, eat, read magazines, shit, nap, fuck, the whole works, it appears. I don't know if that last assessment is true or not. Previous Big Ambient Ad Stunts:
• Giant Fucking Cleaver Train Crossing Warning.
• Alfa Romeo in a shopping cart in a Belgian mall.
• huge McDonald's Shamrock Shake spilling into the Chicago River.
• 60-foot tall anti-drunk driving roadside bottle made from 80 wrecked cars.

Fat Clinic trots out offensive Before/After ambient stunt.

(via) This isn't quite as bad as these Romanian spa ads that compared heavy women to whales and cows. VIP Medicum is an Estonian "beauty" clinic where treatments include liposuction, local slimming (aka, hooey), and "lymphatic drainage." To hawk their suspect procedures, they paraded around zaftig and skinny look-a-likes in identical clothing to show "overweight" women the Utopian possibilities—a live, walking, smiling version of the type of Before/After ad you've seen forever in the back of women's magazines. Beverly Hills spas/under-employed Hollywood actresses, take note. Previous ads that mocked fatties.

One of the most creative interactive ambient ads ever produced.

(click)
I never posted this amazing mall installation on copyranter, but wrote about it back in March, 2009 on Animal NY. Yes, this was a real 225 square meter sticker promoting Frontline flea and tick spray that was placed on the main floor of three shopping malls in Jakarta, Indonesia. Brilliant.
Ad agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Jakarta.
For lots more Ad Creep ads, creep here.