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Category — Sneaky Labeling

Ad Altering: Photoshopping Ads In A Berlin Subway

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Some enterprising culture jammers have done a nice job altering a subway ad in Berlin’s Kaiserdamm metro station. The original poster was a record company ad for Britney Spears, Leona Lewis, and Christina Aguilera’s new albums. Now it’s a work of street art.

The jammers put some really quality made stickers on the ad in all the right places to make it look as though it’s being edited in Photoshop. This is the kind of ad altering I like. It’s not overly didactic; it’s not really trying too hard to make a point; it’s just clever, quality work. By putting up those stickers, the jammers are really stripping the gloss off of the ad and showing some of the architecture behind it, they’re bringing it down to earth. Well done. I have to give props to the people behind it: Mr. Tailon, Baveux Prod., Kone, & Epoxy, nice work. Read on to see more pictures of the altered ad:
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January 17, 2009   Comments Off

NSFW-ish: Jean-Yves Lemoigne’s Pictures Passed Off As Lego Ads

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I don’t know who added the Lego logo and the For Adults on the bottom right hand corner, but these are most definately not new Lego ads. Don’t get me wrong, I think they’d make really awesome Lego ads, except for the fact that they’re not made out of Legos, but still; you know what I mean. Either way, the truth about these interesting pics is that they’re taken for a French magazine called Amusement by a photographer named Jean-Yves Lemoigne, who’s work I’m actually quite fond of.

He’s done ads for several different companies before, but Lego is not among them, sad to say. Nevertheless, they’re cool pics, so read on to see the rest of them in full size:
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January 14, 2009   Comments Off

PETA Renames Fish “Sea Kittens” Because They’re Lunatics

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Doesn’t Savvy look delicious?

Just when I thought I couldn’t hate PETA any more, they go and do something like this. The cult of PETA has decided that fish need better PR, so they’ve replaced the term “fish” with “Sea Kittens”. Yes, Sea Kittens. This is for real, check out their website, and a quote from it:

People don’t seem to like fish. They’re slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads — which is weird, to say the least. Plus, the small ones nibble at your feet when you’re swimming, and the big ones — well, the big ones will bite your face off if Jaws is anything to go by.

Of course, if you look at it another way, what all this really means is that fish need to fire their PR guy — stat.

Normally, when silly cults with illogical beliefs do bizarre things, it’s funny, and this is no exception, but there is more to PETA than just jackass publicity stunts. The thing about PETA is that they get a good deal of support from regular, generally solid-minded folks; at least, as solid-minded as regular folks can be. Unfortunately, not too many of those regular people really understand what the group is all about. PETA wants total animal liberation, they’ve said it many times. That means no pets, no guide dogs for the blind, no zoos, no fisheries, no beekeeping, no earthworm farms, no animals kept by humans, anywhere; and all those animals would be set free.

On top of that, PETA gives money to the Animal Liberation Front, which is a terrorist group who firebombs buildings and assaults people in the name of total animal liberation. And the money going to these groups is coming from the regular suburban folks who think they’re just helping baby seals. This Sea Kitten business is funny, but PETA’s other business isn’t. Read on to see some videos about how PETA really operates:
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January 13, 2009   9 Comments

Jones’ Big Ass Truck Rental & Storage Facility Drunk Discount Sale

According to the Jones’ Big Ass Truck Rental & Storage Facility website, Toby Jones is an aspiring rapper turned “street pharmaceutical sales rep” turned warehouse owner. His current warehouse supposedly cost him 1 dollar, and he’ll store whatever needs storing. Anything from Firebirds to elephants. The thing is, it’s not for real.

I called the number a few times, and nobody ever answered. It has an away message saying it’s Jones’ Big Ass Truck Rental & Storage, but it’s a cell phone, and the mailbox was full. Plus the website directs viewers to this website, belonging to a sketch comedy group called Big Dog Eat Child. So it looks like Jones’ Bis Ass Truck Rental & Storage is a clever viral marketing campaign for a comedy troupe. Well done guys. Unfortunately for them, the Jones Storage commercial is the funniest video on the site. See for yourself:
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December 16, 2008   Comments Off

TiVo Debuts “Pause Menu” Ads During Fast-Forward And Pause

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One more reason to get a TV tuner card for your computer:

In the eternal arms race between advertisers and viewers, the DVR is the viewers nuclear weapon. Finally we have a way to completely bypass commercials. It doesn’t matter how clever or interesting or infectious the ads are, we just hit fast forward and don’t have to deal with them; or at least that’s the way it was, until now. There is no equilibrium in any arms race, and advertisers, who were immediately looking for some way around the DVR loophole and back into the brains of viewers as soon as the digital recording technology came out, have been offered a clever new way to display ads by TiVo.

The new “Pause Menu” feature from TiVo will insert single-line, targeted ads whenever a user pauses or fast forwards a program. Advertisers will be able to pick specific genres or keywords of program descriptions so they can reach the right audience. The ad will be on single line of text, and another line will link the viewer to TiVo’s Universal Swivel Search. Swivel Search lets viewers find info about the program and the any related content via the programming guide. TiVo is selling the new Pause Menu as an “upgrade“. Check out the official press release:
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December 10, 2008   Comments Off

Thief gets his own billboard after robbing advertising agency

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It’s a very common crime in my part of the city: a thief puts on a orange reflective vest and maybe a hard hat and steals some a)electrical equipment, b)large bits of metal, c)whatever. Thief then sells his booty for scrap, collecting a tiny fraction of what the goods are actually worth to their original owner. Here in Philadelphia, thieves have been known to actually steal manhole covers and sell them as scrap metal. Indeed.

A similar thief in New Zealand may get what’s coming to him though. He stole 15 transformers worth almost $5000 dollars, most likely because he wanted to sell the copper in them, which is worth about $150 dollars. But the equipment he stole belonged to an advertising company, and they’re doing what advertising companies do best… advertising it. They captured an image of him on a security camera, and put up a billboard with his face on it.
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December 2, 2008   1 Comment

More WTF Products: Introducing, The Tiddy Bear

I think this just might be my favorite thing ever, this week. The Tiddy Bear (IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE IT SOUNDS LIKE TITTY!) is a little bear-shaped pad that keeps the seatbelt from digging into your… shoulder. It’s basically a Beanie Baby that fits on your seatbelt. Man, Beanie Babies… what ever happened to those? 85% of all grandmothers out there have a large portion of their life savings investing in those ridiculous things. Fifty dollars for an elephant with a fireman’s hat? Come on!this

Really though, Tiddy Bear thing is genius. They already sell high-quality seatbelt pads at Target for under 10 dollars. The makers of the Tiddy Bear took that idea, and made it shaped like a bear so they could use their ultra-hilarious double entendre name, and charged an extra 5 bucks. Well played, makers of the Tiddy Bear Comfort Strap, well played.

(via Tiddy Bear)

November 14, 2008   10 Comments

Classmates.com Sued Over False Advertisement

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A former customer of Classmates.com has filed a class-action lawsuit against the company, saying their claims are fraudulent and they tricked him into upgrading to a gold account. Sound like a simple false advertising case, but if the case progresses, it could force Classmates.com, and other websites like it, to change they way they advertise.

Anthony Michaels signed up for a free member of Classmates.com last year. However, with only a free membership, Michaels couldn’t interact with other members or do anything interesting at all. He said that he began receiving emails from Classmates.com claiming that old classmates of his had been looking at his profile and trying to get in touch with him through the site. The thing is, he had to sign up for a paid membership to gain access to any messages his old classmates were trying to send him.
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November 14, 2008   15 Comments

Philip Zimbardo: How ordinary people become monsters … or heroes

This is a great talk by Philip Zimbardo about what evil is. Evil, he says, is not a individual condition, it’s the result of circumstances. He cites the Stanley Milgram’s experiment on human behavior, and the Stanford prison experiment and the problems at Abu Ghraib, all leading up to the conclusion that all humans are equally capable of evil.

What does this have to do with advertising? Advertising is social psychology. To understand how advertising affects people, you have to understand why people follow the group and how the brain works. This is a wonderful video on that subject. Check it out.

October 27, 2008   2 Comments

McCain Linking Obama to the Current Financial Crisis

In two new ads, and in a recent speech, McCain is trying to link the current financial badness to Obama. In the first ad, called Advice, we hear that one of Obama’s economic advisors is Franklin Raines, former CEO of Fannie Mae. The rest of the ad is essentially irrelevant, since all it’s trying to do is show you that Obama is being advised by someone who is connected deeply with the current economic collapse.

The same thing happens in the second ad. We hear about another former Fannie Mae CEO being associated with Obama. Trouble trouble. Guilt by association. This kind of thing works, no matter how logically silly it many be.
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September 20, 2008   Comments Off