Gillette paints/shaves a big stupid 2,800 square meter Roger Federer field face.

(via) Big stupid "world's biggest shave" stunt for the Gillette Fusion ProGlide, tied to Wimbledon (started today). The big stupid stunt involved laser-guided robots, environmentally-friendly paint, and biodegradable foam. Gillette says they enlisted its facebook fans to help complete the big stupid stunt. What stupid people they must be. Video below. Go Nadal! Previously: big stupid Federer relaxing in one of his stupid Credit Suisse ads. Previously in big stupid field ads: Verizon • Papa John's • and a cyber stripper website.

Samsung to launch 100 paper planes 21 miles above Earth.

(caveat: this smells badly like a fake) Jesus, what a bombastically stupid stunt, via London's Viral Factory—your worldwide stupid-quarters for bombastically stupid ad stunts. Just typing up this event is giving me a fucking headache. Here's what they're doing to try to help sell Samsung memory cards:
They're sending paper planes up in a weather balloon which will be launched next month sometime from somewhere in county Cambridgeshire, UK. In the planes will be the cards with messages on them from you. Go here if you're itching to upload a history-changing missive. Once launched from "the edge of space," Samsung is I guess hoping that most of the planes land on land, not sea. The few people (uh, none?) who find the planes will also find instructions to contact Samsung so that sender and receiver can come together and be friends and maybe fuck each other, I guess. Just, plane, stupid.

Prankvertising Is The Worst Thing To Happen To Advertising Since The Starburst.

Pageviews.

Today’s world has deemed them so vital, that it’s turned them into one word. Say the word in a marketing meeting, and ears prick up, eyes sparkle, and sometimes drool comes out of mouths.

That’s because a video ad’s pageviews instantly turn advertising into science, which it absolutely most certainly is not. But marketing hacks love definitive numbers, "verifiable" results, and pretty, multicolored graphs. And ad agency account hacks love providing them with all three. It justifies both of their jobs.

(The pathetic starburst)

Nevertheless, the best way for ad agencies to get their clients big pageviews is to make a video ad designed to go “viral.” Not designed to sell a product benefit, no. Just to get “eyeballs".

Enter Shockvertising, aka Prankvertising, aka Stuntvertising, aka “experiential” marketing, aka “Jackass”vertising (my term). It’s what more and more agencies are relying on to appease clients in lieu of creating ads that actual give people a reason to buy their fucking product.

Dove: Patches

Dove’s current branding position is “real beauty” (which isn’t real). They’ve established it by shoving women’s insecurities in their faces, as with their much-lauded thee-minute ad “Beauty Sketches.” Dove hired a forensics artist to draw two sketches: what women thought they looked like, and what strangers thought they looked like. It just won top honors at last week’s Effie (short for “effective”) Awards. That means the ad directly led to a substantial increase in sales, supposedly $24 million. But that number is based solely on Dove's own research, so caveat emptor.

This non-product. no-benefit Dove campaign is posing as empowering to women when it actually passive aggressively belittles them. And that makes it worse than traditional “beauty” advertising.

Their latest gotcha! ad (above) was released in April, and has racked up over 20 million YouTube views. Unilever’s (Dove’s parent) chief marketing and communications officer Keith Weed has probably been rubbing them out as fast as he can reload as he monitors the page. Weed’s background, fyi, is as a mechanical engineer, so he’s probably one of those who wrongly believes advertising is a science.

This time Ogilvy Brazil got psychologist Ann Kearney-Cooke from the Cincinnati Psychotherapy Institute (which specializes in body image issues) to dupe insecure women by prescribing them the RB-X patch, which she told them was supposed to “enhance their image of their own beauty.” (What conscious being would actually believe that?) The women wore it for a couple of weeks and reported back. Apparently, most of them said they felt better about themselves.

At that point, Kearney-Cooke revealed to the women that they had been wearing a placebo. Amazingly (and very suspiciously), none of them were upset. One woman even cries, she’s so happy. You can bet that some less-than-positive responses were left out of the final cut.

This is what Steve Miles, global senior vice president of Dove, said about their latest prankvertising:

"I just want each film to work and engage women," Miles, female expert, said. "For me, it's not just the crude numbers game per se. It's are we getting the right sort of response?"

First off, they’re not films, they’re ads. And Miles? Get your presumptuous ass out of the psychiatric field. You’re not in the business of mentally repairing women. You’re just preying on their neuroses to sell your “beauty” products. And who knows what psychological damage you’re causing?

And don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Miles. It is only about the crude numbers.

"In terms of market share, the ultimate proof of whether consumers are coming with us, on all of the brand equity measures I look at, we're on an ascending trend with Dove in almost every region of the world,” the buzzwordy bullshitter said.

Wall’s Ice Cream: Goodbye Serious

Also from last April, Wall’s (another Unilever brand) apparently paid some Plumas County, California Sheriff's deputies to fake-pull over some drivers and, instead or ticketing or arresting them, the cops gave them ice cream cones.

Eh…

Hey, why not? Everybody adores cops nowadays. Luckily, they didn’t pull over an anti-government militiaman with a Sig-Sauer in his crotch and a lack of medication in his veins, or an agoraphobic with a weak heart.

Not to worry. This was just another bullshit controlled fake stunt with amateur actors.

Pepsi Max “Unbelievable Bus Shelter”

Erected at a busy London bus stop in March, this digital shock ad has over six million views (fist-bump-explosions all-around). I wonder if they blocked senior citizens from entering the bus stop to avoid possible deaths? I can just picture the Max marketing team meeting scenario: giddy schmucks shouting stuff like “LOOK AT THE COMSUMERS ENGAGING WITH OUR BRAND!” (and) “THEY’RE LAUGHING, THEY’RE SMILING! THEY REALLY LIKE US!”

Know this: if surveyed, a vast majority of the people who remembered this stunt would not remember the brand. I guarantee it.

Antiseptica “Handvertising”

To Germany, and last year’s Hamburg Marathon. Hand sanitizer brand Antiseptica doesn’t have a big marketing budget. So, via their German agency Grabarz & Partners, they evilly tried to put ads on people’s hands with high-five-vertising. First off: fuck you, fucking assholes. Secondly, how many of the imprints do you think were actually this readable?

Oh, you provided free product for people to wash their hands? How nice of you. What if your product sucks, and your stunt runner transferred herpes to me from some deviant who likes to masturbate while watching road races? Why did no one, after noticing what the asshole stunt runner did, run after him and tackle him?

Yovis-Viaggio (anti-diarrhea probiotic) “The Great Escape”

This is the other insidious part of prankvertising: almost all of the pranks are completely fake, while falsely portraying themselves as spontaneous—like with this “Elevator Murder Experiment” promoting the movie Dead Man Down. NYC ad agency Thinkmodo (tagline: “BE CREATIVE. BE ENGAGING. GO VIRAL.”) claims it used unaware strangers exhibiting real reactions. All you have to do is think of the possible lawsuits involved to realize they are lying through their scum-sucking teeth.

The above stunt was performed at the City of Milan Airport, last November, by Publicis Italy. Like with the elevator prank, these are all actors or tipped-off volunteers, because if they weren’t, the dupes would be freaking the fuck out. And people freaking the fuck out at Italy’s busiest international airport is not an option the authorities would allow. That’s also why this ambush ad stunt by Nivea at a German airport last year was likewise 100% fake, despite the bullshit backup info provided by the agency.

Toys “R” Us “Busload of Kids”

Lastly, there was this prank video and TV spot from last holiday season. Toys “R” Us put a bunch of kids on a bus ostensibly heading to a forest field trip, but instead took them to one of their stores and gave them a free toy. Haha, fuck learning, fuck the environment. Predictably, educators were nonplussed.

This is what company senior vice president of marketing Peter Reiner had to say about the stunt:

"It's very real. Our campaign theme is around 'wish.' Last year, it was more rational…talking about reasons for a consumer to come to us. This year, it's a much better balance between the rational and the emotional, while bringing them both together."

This is what it sounds like when marketing people have no fucking clue what the words coming out their mouth mean, which is pretty much always.

Even the shock ads that do sell a product benefit, like this fake end-of-the-word interview prank by LG, are harmful to the industry because they inspire agencies to get even more stupid. (Again, the interviewees in this video are obviously actors.)

When will this hot trend end? Smart ad agencies are already mercilessly mocking it. Maybe somebody has to have a heart attack? Or maybe, somebody will stab “Chucky” to death? Or maybe some dupe will win hundreds of millions of dollars in a lawsuit?

Or maybe, CEOs and CMOs will eventually figure out that a short-term bump in social media mentions caused by a “provocative” prank ad is not doing one good goddamn thing for their brand.

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.

Samsung fake stunt video better than most.

Via Austria, agency unknown. The eco challenge: Which printer—a Samsung CLX model or a "traditional" printer—can copy two color pages to one B/W page in 40 seconds. Setting, good. Casting, good. Music, good. Even the fake rocket launch and crash are pretty good. And I'm sold on the speed-of-use of the Samsung. Much better than Samsung's fake hockey stunt video created for the Vancouver Olympics to promote mobile recording. There're two more videos in the campaign, both not as good, featuring a cliffhanging truck and a giant fan (view here). Previous fake stunt videos: IBM Thinkpad (lame) • Surfing sheep (lame) • MTV (fake dog shit) • Diesel (funny) • Ray-Ban (stupid) • Ray-Ban (stupider).

Link Haze, 7/11/08.

 • An ad urging Arab women to wear veils utilizes a tasteful, metaphorical visual of a lollipop and flies. (link)
• An image of Angelina Jolie shows up on a Chinese "massage hoop" box. (link)
• Timely Kool-Aid Man street art. Very funny. (link, via)
• What would the ultimate art director's Mac Pro cost? $26,988.95. (link)
• NYPD's new recruitment ads are a bit dubious. (link)
• Bill Green of MTLB was one of a half dozen white men to attend this week's NYC Human Rights Commission hearing on advertising diversity. (link)
• And what about women in advertising? Mocked by Google ads. (link)
• Ian Curtis's headstone has been stolen. Until it is recovered, the members of Interpol are not allowed to touch their instruments. (link)
• Buddha carved out of phone books. (link)
• A Bon Jovi/Journey cover band is called Bon-Journey. Here's their logo. (link)
• The worst pair of men's shoes ever designed. (link)
• Peach Mobile ad showing Robert Mugabe as a gorilla gets banned. (link)
• Sean Hannity's homepage: very flaggy. (link)
• Faceless Wimbledon attendees were a particularly lame Lotus stunt. (link)
• Che Guevara abused yet again, this time in Brooklyn. (link)
• How stupid is America? This stupid. (link, thanks Sean Comeaux)
• To the anon commenter who said that this slutty American Apparel model was not porn star Faye Valentine, suck on your wrongness. (link)
• Lastly, Leaked pics of Heath Ledger as the Joker as a red-headed nurse. (link)

Link Haze, 4/04/08.

• Fawn ice-cube tray (see more, link)
• ANIMAL New York is back! Jesus Fucking Christ, it's about fucking time. A great daily NYC/culture read. (link)
• Aerosmith, for NASA. Somebody had "toys in the attic." (link)
• Gas cap advertising. (link)
• Botox company's tagline is "It's All About Freedom Of Expression." (link)
• A Brazilian beer Website allows you to place a tattoo of your name on their beer babe. How fucking idiotic. (link)
• Ohio man caught fucking his picnic table. (link)
• I freely admit, I am a pretty stupid writer. But not this stupid. (link)
• David Barton gym in Chicago seeks hot androgynous members (heh). (link)
• John Adams's emails to Abigail Adams. (link)
• Chris Farley spotted at Yankee game. (link)
• What do you get a bed-wetter for Christmas? Depends. HaHaHaHaHa FUCK YOU it's Friday. (link)
• Cottonelle wallpapered a NYC subway train. (link)
• I love that people keep fucking with the Philosophy Works subway posters. (link)
• Nina Desea is a million watt beacon for all women in advertising. (link)
• Canadian Club's latest campaign, which I have absolutely no opinion about, seems to be working. Bravo? (link)
• Erotic Falconry. (link) Why? I don't fucking know. Many people have a combo of too much time and too little imagination. (thanks to Jewess Newton for the tip)
• Finally, the best April Fool's Day stunt I came across: the Lou Dobbs tortilla chip eBay auction. (link) Also, if you missed it, watch the xenophobe almost call Barack Obama and Condoleezza Rice "cotton-pickin'"something or others. (link)

What NOT to mail out as a marketing stunt: live goldfish.

(click image)
Because, as you can see, some will arrive dead.
Be the big fish in a smelly, fish-less pond!
In an attempt to reel in some business for South Australia, not-for-profit Advantage SA sent out bowls of goldfish (and a six-month supply of food) to 55 media agencies across the country. As complaints started coming in, Advantage CEO Karen Raffen took to the radio to apologize over the idiotic stunt, saying “In hindsight we would probably not do this again.” She also said Advantage would take back any living Nemos and "provide them with a good and healthy home.”
It boggles. Via Mumbrella. Previously in: Stupid Ad Stunts.

UK's Viral Factory puts vitriolic copyranter rant on its wall.

(click image) VF's CD Henry Cowling sent this pic featuring a sparkling piece of artwork with a line from my review of their Space Planes stunt for Samsung's memory cards (I did enjoy writing "stupid-quarters"). He says they "enjoyed" my review and exhorted me to "keep up the good work." Jesus. Tears in the eyes. Truth be told—if I may leave this copyranter character for a sec—I do admire that they're pushing the creative, as opposed to all the sweat shops that pull punches. OK, back to being copyranter: you, too, keep up the paradigm-shifting, out-of-the-box hooey, fuckfaces.

Inner Monologues of the DIRECTV Marionettes.

NOTE: Click on the images to watch the commercials.

THE SON

How come I don't have a penis yet? ... Dad's got a penis ... I ain't even got a knob ... I wonder if mom has a vagina. Of course she has a vagina, dummy! YOU came out of her vagina, according to Miss Abernathy ... I wish Nathan would stop trying to light me on fire ... and showing me his penis ... I know we need the money cause of Dad's "problem" but why do we have to do so many takes? At least I finally got a TV in my room ... Run my Mac on it ... watch that dirty puppet stuff Nathan showed me ... Gonna watch Team America after this ... Sigh, here we go again...

 

47 TAKES! W-T-F! AND THEY'RE STILL ALL LAUGHING ... JERKS ... LIKE I'M REALLY ACTUALLY STUPID ENOUGH TO LET THIS HAPPEN ... HOW COME THEY CAN'T USE A STUNT PUPPET ... YOU DON'T GET A GOOD LOOK AT MY FACE ... LOOK AT MY DAD ... HE'S SMILING! ... HE'S NOT ACTING ... HE CAN'T BE MY REAL DAD ... I'M LOOKING HIM UP ON THE INTERNET ... JERK.

THE FATHER-IN-LAW

Scale ... I'm getting paid fucking scale for this horse-hockey ... To look like a pussy-ass ... Fuckers at the VFW gonna ... GOD dammit ... Fuck em ... Got em free fucking DIRECTV ... Sure as shit ain't payin' for beer for awhile ... Can't believe my baby married this smirking pantywaist ... Let's hook some strings up to his ass, see what's he really got ... slip his manipulator a twenty... Coldcock him back to Pussyville...

THE WIFE

There's a black man in our home ... That's a first ... I don't think Rich has any black friends ... I certainly don't ... Rich says he's a well-known commercial actor ... He's good! He really seems freaked out ... Is lemonade racist? Jesus, my manipulator sucks ... They shoulda got the guy from Being John Malkovich ... I can't believe I'm wearing this short slutty dress ... They said I could keep it, though ... Shit, tonight's book club... 

I told the manipulator to make it look like I was doing "Running Man". Asshole ... I'm going on YouTube and apologizing to all of womankind for this misogynistic bullshit ... Rich is going to ask for another "no splinters" blowjob tonight ... Like I can help it ... I'm gonna make him fuck me ... I just want another child out of this sham of a marriage, a girl ... Rich doesn't ... But Bobby needs a sister ... I stopped taking the Pill ... He'll never know... 
__________

Ad agency: Grey, NYC, an agency that was known as a shitty sweat shop in the 1980s and 90s, has done some great work in the last 5-10 years (guided by creative director Tor Myhren). This campaign, however, is a huge step backwards. Awful. Unfunny. NOTE: DIRECTV has removed the "Do You Still Think I'm Pretty?" spot from their YouTube page.

The Viagra Missile.

A crazy little blue pill-popping man keeps driving this "Viva Viagra" missile through NYC's various tunnels and the cops have not once inspected the fucking thing. Are you watching terrorists? Design your next attack as an ad stunt and you'll be able to blow-up whatever the fuck you want. Plus, stupid Pfizer is suing the goofball. What idiots. They should be calling cash-strapped NASA to sponsor every one of their future rocket launches. (link, via)

Useless Green Marketing Stunt of the Week.

(click image) It's actually left over from my noteworthy Cannes 2010 advertising festival winners collection. It's a street tree canvas created for the China Environmental Protection Foundation by DDB China. Here's how it worked: the canvas was placed in pedestrian crossings in Shanghai. (My guess, knowing how these fancy ad award-grab efforts work? It was placed in exactly one crossing.) On both sides of the crossing were sponge cushions soaked with washable green paint. Pedestrians—knowingly and unknowingly—stepped on the sponges and subsequently turned the barren tree into a leafy environmental statement. This won a gold design lion and soiled many a pair of shoes. (Wonder if any dawdling walkers were killed?) Considering how China has just recently fallen fast in love with automobiles, this feels more like an ironic art project to me.
Previously in: stupid Green Marketing.

AFLAC Duck Takes Over USA Today Quotes Page.

(click ad, scanned from today's USA Today) Though the Gilbert Gottfried-voiced fowl's 10-year run is probably soon dead (Gilbert, you should contact the Fleshlight people), he temporarily lives on with this invasive blind ad in the national paper's money section. The youdontknowquack website first makes you answer two stupid true/false questions about curing hiccups and dim-light reading, before getting to the point—that you probably have misconceptions about the comprehensiveness of your health insurance coverage. I guess since it made me visit the site, it's a successful ad. That media placement cost a bundle, and approving the distracting duck shadow was not much of a risk for USA Today—who the hell still reads stock quotes in a newspaper?
Previous insurance ads: AccuQuote guilts you to death. Iggy Pop is chairman of the bored. Chubb's raging sexual harassment ad. Pet insurance ad stunt one of the sickest things I've ever seen. And 1926 Prudential ad was pure fucking evil.

Russia's David Blaine trapped in a block of ice for three days to help sell liquor.

(click image, via) His name is Gennady Palchevskyy (not sure of that spelling). And Belarusian hooch brand Bulbash set up this endurance stunt at the "ProdExpo 2010" trade show apparently going on now in Moscow. As of this post, he's been in the branded frozen cell for about 45 hours (here's a webcam inside the hollowed out block of ice). Doctors and representatives from the "record book of Russia" are monitoring the illusionist. Za vas, comrade Palchevskyy! Related: The Blaine Bubble™ merchandising opportunities.
Previous stupid PR stunts:
—The Ricola mystery cougher.
—The ironic Kleenex tissue tree.
—The Economist mechanical bull.
—PETA bleeds Canadian bus beheading.
—Earth Day treehuggers made of cardboard.
—Cell phone company exploits Mumbai floods.
—To read World Water Day mailer, you had to waste water.