International Ad Men Falling Over to Give Each Other Award-Winning Blow Jobs

June 28, 2007 6:33 AM

Not without some controversy, the advertising industry collectively patted itself on the back again while competing for lions at the Cannes Advertising Festival last week. All the winning commercials are now viewable on-line. The Cannes Fringe provided more insight, while others attempted to distill the festival's essence via text-mining; meantime, Cannes't had its ears to the ground. One of the few alternative events: The Coney Island Advertising Festival (which could presumably feature the best illegal advertising). My personal short-list among the winning films (all .mov's): Epuron - The Power of Wind ; Pot Noodle - Intro, Italy/Wales ; Altoids - Banana Hands Allen ; Axe 3 - Crashes ; Vaseline - Sea of Skin ; Big Yellow Storage - Tide ; Discovery Channel - In A Man's Life ; as well as the Grand Prix winner Dove - Evolution.
posted by progosk (18 comments total)

Wow, that "Fair and Lovely" ad is disgusting.
posted by jdotglenn at 6:59 AM on June 28, 2007

Seriously, is there a more sycophantic industry? Hollywood doesn't have as many award shows.
posted by DonnieSticks at 7:19 AM on June 28, 2007

McGrady provokes an incident!
posted by parmanparman at 7:20 AM on June 28, 2007

I can't believe those absolutely hideous Mac vs. PC adverts got even a mention. Macintosh has a great fucking product, but the only way they can think to sell it is to try to slag off the competition (and resort to lying to do it). Sigh. Really creative, that.
posted by slimepuppy at 7:24 AM on June 28, 2007

Best commercial ever. (Epuron - The Power of Wind).
posted by uni verse at 7:33 AM on June 28, 2007

Advertiser/Client: NIKE
Product/Service: WOMEN

No kidding. What an awful ad.
posted by nasreddin at 8:22 AM on June 28, 2007

[Bill Hicks was right:]

By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself.
Just a little thought. I’m just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they’ll take root. I don’t know. You try. You do what you can. Kill yourself.
Seriously, though. If you are, do. No, really. There’s no rationalisation for what you do, and you are Satan’s little helpers, okay? Kill yourself. Seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No, this is not a joke, if you’re going: “There’s going to be a joke coming.” There’s no fucking joke coming. You are Satan’s spawn, filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked, and you are fucking us. Kill yourself, it’s the only way to save your fucking soul. Kill yourself. Planting seeds.

I know all the marketing people are going: “He’s doing a joke.” There’s no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend – I don’t care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations.
I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too. “Oh, you know what Bill’s doing? He’s going for that anti-marketing dollar. That’s a good market, he’s very smart.” Oh man. I am not doing that, you fucking evil scumbags! “Oh, you know what Bill’s doing now? He’s going for the righteous indignation dollar. That’s a big dollar. Lot of people are feeling that indignation, we’ve done research. Huge market. He’s doing a good thing.” God damn it, I’m not doing that, you scumbags. Quit putting a goddamn dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet! “Oh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill’s very bright to do that.” God, I’m just caught in a fucking web. “Oh, the trapped dollar. Big dollar, huge dollar. Good market, look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar …” How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don’t you? “What did you do today, honey?” “Oh, we made arsenic childhood food. Now, good night. Yeah, we just said, you know, is your baby really too loud? You know … yeah, the mums will love it, yeah.” Sleep like fucking children, don’t you? This is your world, isn’t it?

posted by DreamerFi at 8:29 AM on June 28, 2007

Hmm, but isn't it interesting that some of the most artistic, creative people work in advertising? There was a line in, I want to say Alfred Bester's "Demolished Man" but maybe not, anyway there was a line years ago to the effect that the modern day Shelleys and Shakespeares are all to be found writing ad copy. Now the money is in television but the point holds. It takes an enormous amount of creativity to tell an enjoyable, engaging story in 30-60 seconds (not all of these ads tell stories, but you get the idea). It don't know that it means anything but it's quite interesting.
posted by Grod at 8:31 AM on June 28, 2007

It takes an enormous amount of creativity to tell an enjoyable, engaging story in 30-60 seconds.

It takes a virile man to make a chicken pregnant.
Doesn't mean impregnating chickens makes you Don Giovanni.
posted by nasreddin at 8:52 AM on June 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Hmm, but isn't it interesting that some of the most artistic, creative people work in advertising?

Since there so much money to be made in advertising, this isn't really "interesting" so much as "inevitable."
posted by camcgee at 9:36 AM on June 28, 2007

ha. ha. ha. But in the advertising scenario the potential is there for artistic genius, necessity drives it into the slightly sordid realm of commerce. That doesn't mean it isn't creative, engaging, and sometimes brilliant. Your objection suggests that talent and vision are less significant than the purpose one wields their talent and vision in service of. And the highest service of art is art? Haven't we gotten over that yet. Is it a waste of creativity? Possibly. But the again, the concept of art for arts sake is relatively new. No one called Michelangelo a sell-out or a chicken fucker for working on commission. Was Johnson a toady? Is genius, or even extreme cleverness, only legitimate if exercised only for the aesthetic gratification of the creative mind? Is a play written to honor Queen Elizabeth less of a play because it was written for a purpose? Is a ceiling painted so a rich renaissance family could show off their wealth and piety any less sublime than one painted for the sake of painting it? Is a story created to sell instant noodles an inferior act of creation because it serves a purpose? Are stories with morals creatively bankrupt because they were intended to instruct?

on preview camcgee, indeed.
posted by Grod at 10:09 AM on June 28, 2007

There was a line in, I want to say Alfred Bester's "Demolished Man" but maybe not, anyway there was a line years ago to the effect that the modern day Shelleys and Shakespeares are all to be found writing ad copy.

Kornbluth & Pohl's The Space Merchants, I think.

Both great novels.
posted by LinnTate at 10:10 AM on June 28, 2007

Grod:

You're ranting against a straw man. I don't think advertising counts as "not art" because it serves a purpose or is done for money. I think this particular purpose, namely selling products, is not conducive to making what I would count as great art--anything comparable to Shakespeare, for instance.

I don't see any support for your claims, anyway. I see these clips and they are far inferior to actual films and books that I have seen and read recently. What makes you think there's all that much genius here?
posted by nasreddin at 10:35 AM on June 28, 2007

'Head On, apply directly to forehead' was robbed.
posted by Tacodog at 11:12 AM on June 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

LinnTate, that was the one, thanks!

Nasreddin. Nothing in those clips, really, other than I thought the noodle one was a nice piece of light comedy and the vaseline skin one was lovely. Especially with the sound off. None were great art, but then again film is too recent and evolving far too quickly for a mere viewer (as opposed to an historian/critic/creator/avid fan) to feel comfortable pointing to something and calling it great art. In Shakespeare's time he was a popular artist, his plays are filled with sex and violence and most of his plots are adaptations from much older pieces. His genius was his use of language, words arranged in such a way that they still make the mind sing and the body thrill today. Maybe in a few hundred years when our new media is old people will point to some figure known for directing condom advertisments and say "see, how he directed that scene, that's brilliant, no one will ever compare to that" who knows? Not me.

Sadly, I do have to get some work done now.
posted by Grod at 11:27 AM on June 28, 2007

I like Grod.
posted by Mister_A at 11:32 AM on June 28, 2007

Oh, the chicken fucker market. Big market, chicken fucking.
posted by ryanrs at 3:48 PM on June 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

I guess that serves me right for having the text-to-image toggle turned on at work.
posted by kisch mokusch at 5:36 PM on June 28, 2007