Back a few years ago, when I was really rabidly anti-fast food, I enjoyed sending people to a site called “Fast Food, Ads vs. Reality.”
There, fast food ads were juxtaposed side-by-side with pictures of the same food, ordered from a fast food outlet. The results, you will not be surprised to learn, showed that the reality rarely resembled the advertising. To wit, a Burger King Whopper:
Now, another photographer has taken the same idea but ramped it up slightly — shooting the fast food in a studio and attempting to match the lighting and angles of the advertising. See what Dario D. has done with a Whopper:
I happily pitch the idea that lawmakers are committing a crime against us people by allowing us to be continually insulted by this advertising, and consequently this pursuit of technical correctness, in defiance of human perception.
Ha! Indeed! There is also a comparison made between the advertised burgers and the box that they come in, which would be too small to fit them if they were actually they size as advertised.
I have chosen to highlight the Burger King Whopper because it was the last fast food hamburger that I ever ate, just over seven years ago. And that was an anomaly — I stopped eating McDonald’s in mid-high school, and most of the rest of the fast food burger chains didn’t last much longer. That Whopper, seven years ago, which didn’t sit all that right in me, was kind of a test.
Caveat: I do sometimes eat fast food fries, or even dessert, but even that is very few and very far between. I will also confess to a love of burgers in general, but I prefer to find them at cafes and diners.
Strange that I am still so perturbed by the false advertising, when it doesn’t affect me at all anymore.
I installed Adblock Plus as soon as I heard about it, years ago, and I have enjoyed ad-free browsing of the Internet ever since.
Caveat: I know that it’s not completely ad-free. I don’t exactly love text ads, but they are unobtrusive enough that I can live with them. The jumping, screaming, in-your-face Flash ads are the ones that really get me.
But what if, like me (partially), you earn your living from Internet advertising, and you feel bad that you’re depriving others of this very income stream?
After all, it’s not like you can easily ignore those stupid Flash ads. So why not try this trick, as tweeted by @Cabal:
Flash ads got you down? Do what I (always) do: right-click them and choose “Zoom In” a few times. Result: ad becomes pop art.
Brilliant!
Now if only there was some way to set up your flash to automatically zoom in. Adzoom Plus, anyone?
Here’s a recent ad from Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada. It is designed to frighten and intimidateeducate drivers in Ontario with information about recent changes in the impaired driving legislation there.
Here’s a key bit of the narration for you:
The number of drinks we can each safely consume varies, but when you drive [over 0.05% BAC], the penalties stay the same.
So, this ad is telling me, the careful listener, that I might actually be okay to drive after a couple of drinks — or more! it varies! — but I shouldn’t, because it’s against the law anyway.
Which, if it didn’t come with such a condescending and paternalistic tone, would actually be a nuanced position to take. Except MADD is not known for their ability to be nuanced. They’ve spent decades getting the bar for “impaired driving” blood alcohol lowered — first to 0.08% and now to 0.05% and I’m sure they’ve love to see it at 0.00%.
And their whole argument rests on the word “impaired.” If I drink too much, it will impair my ability to drive a car. I won’t be able to drive as well.
If people are “impaired” at 0.05%, then they shouldn’t be driving. But some people will be impaired at less than that. And others may still be okay to drive — as their ad now admits.
I am against drunk driving. But, I kind of think you should be allowed to go take a road test, like when you first get your license, after a few drinks. And if you can pass it, they’ll give you an on-the-spot breathalyzer. Whatever you blow will be your own personal “impaired” level.
Let’s say I can pass a driving test at 0.09%. Why not give me that extra leeway? Just put the number on my license, next to height, weight and whether I have to wear glasses.
(Of course, this cuts both ways. What if you’re a real lightweight, and get loopy at a BAC of 0.02%. Well, that number would be front-and-centre on your license, and don’t think you’d be getting through that checkstop after just a single drink.)
In the meantime, I will simply continue to drink and blog. No danger there!
Well, fancy gadgets and smooth moves wouldn’t pay off quite as well, at least that’s the subtext in this Stella Artois commercial.
It was co-directed by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola. Which is kind of awesome, but also kind of depressing. I mean, it’s great that there’s this fantastic new commercial to enjoy, and the presence of some top Hollywood talent really shows off how lazy a lot of ads are, but wouldn’t you rather they be working on something artistic, not shilling for brewskis?
In Santiago, Chile, security company ADT has launched an ad campaign that involves surreptitiously placing empty boxes inside peoples’ apartments, with the slogan, “Breaking into your apartment is easier than you think.”
The trick? The box is spring-loaded and can be slid under their door, while flat:
I like this ad — it’s cute — but I really like the little meta touches, like the fact that it is an ad for advertising, so they should you people watching an ad on a TV.
And it works on two levels. Because now I kind of want a dog. And, third level, I think I should go to a shelter to get one!
The minds behind this ad have done an interesting thing: they’ve anthropomorphized bad breath into adorable little figures, so much so, that I actually feel sad when they the guy gets rid of them with some gum.
No really, their little faces when he pulls out the gum? Heartbreaking!
Little Mr. Coffee, Donut, and Onion just want a friend! They think, “finally, someone will let us hang out with them!” and they are devastated when the guy decides that getting some action is more important.
I don’t think Excel should make me feel sorry for bad breath. Advertising fail.
(Seriously though, I love those little guys, and I would totally commission some creative Etsy user to make me a little onion stuffed pal.)
Here’s how to win the war against climate change by simply ignoring the petty battle:
Winning an argument by defining the terms of debate in your favour is a classic technique. It’s done well here.
This is an entry in a video challenge called Living Climate Change. It was submitted by Alex Bogusky, who might just be the 21st century’s answer to Don Draper.
The League of STEAM (Supernatural and Troublesome Ectoplasmic Apparition Management) is an organization comprised of Inventors, Scientists, Adventurers, Craftsmen, Monster and Creature Hunters, and Paranormal Researchers!
For years — nay, decades — its been “The Other White Meat.” That’s been the official slogan of the National Pork Board in the U.S. since 1987. I can remember making schoolboy jokes about it.
Now, though, the pork industry is seeking a new slogan. Any ideas? I could get all snarky and Fast Food Nation-y, but I think I better prefer the approach taken by Saskatchewan:
So, assume that we’re not talking about hostage-taking, AK-47-wielding Somali cargo ship commandos — you know, pirate pirates — and that instead we’re talking about middle-class, white downloaders of entertainment — you know, fake pirates.
If we’re talking about those “pirates” — or, less inflammatorily, “copyright infringers” … or, more romantically “copyleft freedom fighters” — then the following post will make a lot more sense.
We all know the “You wouldn’t steal a car…” line of reasoning, right? It appeared (and for all I know, continues to appear) at the start of movies in a ad for the RIAA.
You wouldn’t steal a car, goes the reasoning, so why would you steal a movie?
Leaving out the god-awful production values of the ad (don’t these people work for, you know, Hollywood?), it’s tempting to respond with a facile — “actually, I would steal a car, if I thought I could get away with it.” Or, more honestly, and a little less flippantly, “I would definitely download a car, if I could point my laptop at a neighbour’s vehicle, and create a perfect copy without depriving him of his own.” And wouldn’t GM be in trouble then!
Come to think of it, we’re ages away from Star-Trek-style replicators, but I wouldn’t be surprised if simple 3-D printing was only about a decade away from being a reality like desktop publishing is now.
Imagine if you could buy bags of potato starch, bring them home, stuff them in your “printer,” and have new, biodegradable, items printed out every day.
Potato starch isn’t good for everything, of course, but it would be great for children’s toys — a new one every morning, if you’re good! — and I’ll bet with a good-size device, you could even make patio furniture with it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone figured out how to make 3-D printing work with ceramic and glass, too, which opens up a whole range of household goods you could make.
Instead of just having a little miniature printing plant in your home, you’d have a little miniature factory.
Of course, your home printer didn’t completely obviate the need for real printing plants (and neither will the iPad), nor did it completely kill the publishing industry.
But I know a lot of people who are printing their wedding invites at home, rather than having a professional do it. (Of course, they’re all buying wedding-grade paper, and cool design kits, so it’s not like there’s zero industry there.)
But imagine the hypothetical post-scarcity society — one in which your super 3-D printer would be like a magic box that could give you anything you wanted. Just say the words, and “tea, Earl Gray, hot” would appear steaming in your just-created mug.
Wouldn’t that devastate the tea farmers? Would there be an industry backlash? Would people accuse tea-replicators of stealing from the farmers? Would the tea farmers’ union pop little ads on the side of the bags, “You wouldn’t clone a human…”?
Because the truth is that it would hurt the tea farmers. Just like printing wedding invites at home hurts independent print shops (who are largely out of business now, anyway). Just like me downloading all my mp3s has probably hurt a lot of artists — and the associated lawyers and executives who also made a living from them.
But it’s just that the post-scarcity society seems to have come to the entertainment industry before other industries. And while they’re going through the pains of a transition to some new economy, we’re all being guilted into sticking with the old economy.
(I wonder if there was a lot of guilt fed to consumers during the Industrial Revolution — think of all the people those machines are putting out of work?)
This really turned into a rant, but I intended it to be a short, quick-hit post. I only really wanted to embed this video, a parody of the RIAA “You wouldn’t steal a car…” ads.
So who does piracy really hurt? Oh, won’t somebody think of the gay porn models!
Speaking of advertising, we all know that it’s whole purpose is to make you want to buy something. So what if you don’t need that something? Well, effective advertising creates a need.
So what about the cognitive dissonance that erupts when you realize that these artificial needs don’t actually fill a void in your life?
Although I take issue with our ad-soaked society, I’m not against advertising as a concept. In theory, it can both entertain and inform. Unfortunately, too often it is shrill, annoying and repetitive, with little or no useful information.
Here’s an ad that I can support, though:
It works as a short film — let’s ignore the fact that it’s ripping off the first 10 minutes of ‘Up’ — and also as advertisement.
If John Lewis had executed this poorly, it would have come off as supremely creepy that one store could claim to take care of you for your whole life. It might have seemed totalitarian and Orwellian. Instead, by tying it in with family life, they’ve emphasized the commitment — that they are there, for you to choose.
Interestingly, Wikipedia notes that the department store’s slogan, “Never Knowingly Undersold” has been in use for 76 years.
Heck, if they can stand by a three-word phrase for that long, I actually do have some confidence that I can buy my shirts there for the rest of my days.
