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Showing posts from January, 2023

Valentine’s Day Cockroach Promotions

Cockroach-centered Valentine’s Day promotions by zoos appear to be expanding and spreading.

Bronx Zoo’s ‘Name a Roach’ promotion, now in its twelfth year, started as a way to simply name a cockroach after someone special but now has a host of add-ons that include a “Valentine's Virtual Encounter” with a roach. 

Bronx Zoo Name a Roach


In contrast, San Antonio Zoo’s annual event ‘Cry Me a Cockroach’, now in its fourth year, has moved on from calling itself an opportunity to mend one’s broken heart to labelling itself as a conservancy fundraiser.

San Antonio Zoo Cry Me a Cockroach


In addition to those zoos, Toronto Zoo announced a promotion that, like Bronx Zoo, invites you to give goosebumps to someone, but with a notable difference. 

Toronto Zoo Name-a-Roach

Are you being slurred?

From New Zealand: a new campaign for McDonald’s let’s us in on the inebriated utterances of its late-night patrons.

Five CheeseburgersDouble Quarter PounderFilet-O-FishA Big Mac combo

Knitwear that helps evade Facial Recognition

From Italy: a clothing startup is making news for a range of garments that supposedly help you avoid being detected by facial recognition technology.  To quote from one report:

An Italian clothing line, Cap_able, just released a collection of absolutely outlandish knits, all designed with the goal of fooling facial recognition software — no mask or face painting required.

The trick? Scrambled images of dogs, zebras and giraffes, knitted into the fabric with the specific goal of tricking facial scanning algorithms to identify the wrong species.


Link to demonstration video

‘Locked-in’ Pizza

From Canada: a new spot for fast-food chain Pizza Pizza mines comedy gold from the clichéd pitches of mortgage lenders and other financial-service firms.

Link to video

Dead-on Provocation

It’s a life insurance brand with a provocative name— DeadHappy.  Add to that a provocative logo— a laughing skull— and a provocative strapline— “Life insurance to die for”— and you might think that there would be little room for any more provocation.  Well, you’d be wrong. 

A recent ad from the brand— now retracted with an apology— carried the headline “Life Insurance— Because you never know who your doctor might be”.  Presumably to make sure that the message in that was clearly understood, the ad featured a mugshot of a real-life doctor who was found guilty of murdering over a dozen patients under his care.

Travel Reviews… by horses

In sharp contrast to the cheeky promotion from Iceland last year, for the people in Lexington, horse tourism (or whatever you want to call it) is no laughing matter.  We saw it when they portentously pitched yoga classes taught by horses.  We get to see it once again, in a new campaign that involves a psychic medium who gives us “the unbiased opinions of native and visiting thoroughbreds”.

Link to video

‘Phantom Pooper’ and a ‘Shoplifting Excursion’

A couple of delightfully-worded Facebook posts recently put out by the Tukwila Police Department in Washington state, USA.

17 January at 09:40

Dear Jeremiah,

You were in such a hurry to leave after your shoplifting excursion about 20 minutes ago that you left your backpack and wallet with your ID and multiple stolen credit cards behind.

Hopefully the address on your license is correct as that will be the one the coupon for “One Free Court Appearance” that will be sent to regarding the Theft 3rd Degree charges that are being filed. There is also the small issue of your collection of numerous warrants out of four different cities and two counties that will need to be addressed at some point.

Feel free to come down to our station to pick up your wallet and backpack at your convenience #itsalittlebitofatrap. At that time, we can also discuss the burglary tools that were discovered in your bag that probably had something to do with your recent burglary conviction.


20 January at 13:55

Burglary Suspect Leaves DNA Sample at the Scene

Things got a little stinky on Monday night at the Tukwila Community Center after the Phantom Pooper broke into an administrative office and proceeded to steal an iPad and charging cable along with a laptop. For reasons unknown, the suspect decided to leave behind a stool sample in a sink rather than dispose of the evidence in the toilet.

In addition to the DNA sample left at the scene, the suspect left some great digital forensic evidence for us when they merged the stolen laptop’s Apple account with their own personal account. Needless to say, we do not see a lengthy or prosperous criminal career in the field of hacking for the suspect. Said suspect is encouraged to (wash his hands with soap) then come down to our station to return the stolen items and discuss his options to save everyone some time.

Cow Verdict

To quote from a news report out of India:

A court in Tapi, Gujarat recently sentenced a youth to life imprisonment for illegally transporting cattle from Maharashtra, while noting that all of Earth's problems will be solved if cow slaughter is prevented.

In an order passed in November, Principal District Judge Samir Vinodchandra Vyas paid tribute to the importance of cows to the entire Universe.

"Cow is not only an animal but it is mother that is why it is given the name of mother. None is as grateful as a cow. A cow is the living planet of 68 crore holy places and 33 crore gods. The obligation of cow on the entire Universe defies description. The day when no drop of blood of cow drops on the earth all problems of earth will be solved and the well being of the earth will be established..."

Peanut Butter Kinks

Reese’s kicks off a new campaign in the UK with a spot that invites you to give in to some SFW kinkiness.

Link to video

Frenchness, pre-empted

From France: a wacky ad with, arguably, a wackier explanation.

I suggest you first watch the ad: link to video.

Then consider this explanation accompanying the ad:

We could have organised tastings in Parisian grocery shops to convince you that our pasta is the best.

​​We thought of inviting you to a recycling workshop to show you how unique our 100% paper packaging is.

We even considered asking the Italians whether they preferred Linguine or Coquillettes.

But no. We preferred to revive the irreverent, even slightly punk, but still contemporary, side of Lustucru, by imagining a campaign with French agency Artefact 3000 in Korean, German and Spanish to pre-empt our Frenchness!

Pizza dipped in Bacon Milkshake

That’s a recommendation from Domino’s Japan.  In case you suspect it is a case of something being lost in translation, the press release carries this helpful image:

Domino’s Pizza dipped in Bacon Milkshake


As for that milkshake, consider this description from the English version of the Domino’s website:

A premium milkshake made by hand in the store using ice cream, milk, and…bacon?! It might sound crazy, but we bet you'll love it!

‘World’s most successful case study’

From Canada: creative agency, The Local Collective, is marking its fourth anniversary with a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek promotional video that also has something to say about the advertising industry.

Link to video

Alternative link

Artist awarded $2.5m for painting he denies making

To quote from a New York Times report:

The artist Peter Doig, who fought efforts by a former corrections officer and a gallery to attribute a painting to him — even going so far as to sue him when he denied painting it — has won a $2.5 million judgment against those parties and their former lawyer.

Judge Gary Feinerman of the United States District Court for Northern Illinois ruled in the artist’s favor last month in an unusual case where Doig had been accused of disowning a landscape that the corrections officer and the gallery had hoped to sell.

The ruling comes in one of the stranger art authentication cases, one that had pitted Mr. Doig, a well-known artist whose works routinely sell for many millions of dollars, against the former corrections officer, Robert Fletcher, who sued in 2013 on grounds that a painting he owned, an untitled acrylic on canvas of a rocky desert scene, signed “Pete Doige 76,” was an early work by Mr. Doig.

Mr. Fletcher said he had met Mr. Doig in the 1970s at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. He said they met again in the prison where he worked and where he said Mr. Doig made the work, which he later bought for $100.

Mr. Fletcher and Peter Bartlow, a Chicago art dealer who agreed to help sell the painting, argued that Mr. Doig was denying authorship because of a vendetta against Mr. Fletcher.

But Mr. Doig testified that he had never attended Lakehead and had never been incarcerated. Instead, he and his lawyers said the work in question had been painted by another man, Peter Edward Doige, who died in 2012 and had been an inmate at Mr. Fletcher’s prison.

The Joy of Streaming Freely

Whatever you think that means, there’s a good chance that you’ll be surprised by what it is shown to mean, in this new spot from the Channel 4 creative team.

Link to video

Alternative link

‘Tale of intercontinental incontinence’

When the news first broke that a passenger on an Air India flight had allegedly urinated on a co-passenger, the Indian media took a tried, tested, and tortured approach to label the incident, so as to grab attention.  Falling back on a much used-and-abused suffix, they’ve been widely referring to the incident as ‘Pee-gate’.  Well, a leading business website has struck gold in what seems to be a quest to look beyond that for wordplay to amuse its readers.  To quote:

The seating arrangement in the alleged peeing incident on an Air India flight adds a possible twist in this tale of intercontinental incontinence.

Eyebrows @ McDonald’s

The term ‘body language’ takes on a literal meaning in a wacky new spot for the fast food chain, directed by Edgar Wright.

Link to video

Royal Treatment for ‘IKEA Embarrassment’

From Australia: furniture brand Koala finds inspiration in the reporting around Prince Harry’s memoirs to launch a cheeky promotion. 

Koala- Harry Meghan IKEA Embarrassment


And this is how a spokesperson for Koala explained it:

As Australia’s leaders in uniquely designed mattresses and furniture, we take any claims of furniture embarrassment very seriously.

Fast Cars, Penile Length, and Experimental Manipulation

To quote from a study published this week:

The link between driving a fast sports car and having a small penis is a widespread cultural trope, discussed by academics from Freudian analysts to evolutionary theorists. For the first time, we show that it is grounded in a psychological truth. We found that experimentally manipulating men, especially older men [males over 30], to feel that they have relatively small penis caused them to increase their desire for luxury sports cars.

And this is a summary of the ‘manipulation’:

In this experiment, we manipulated what men believed about their own penis size, relative to others. We gave them false information, stating that the average penis size was larger than it in fact is, reasoning that, on average, these males will feel that relatively and subjectively their own penis was smaller; compared to those told that the average penis size was smaller than true average. We then asked them to rate how much they would like to own a sports car. These facts and questions were buried amongst other items giving information and asking for product ratings, so that our hypothesis was masked from participants.

Romance, Action, and Investing

A few excerpts from a promotion campaign by a leading mutual fund company in India for a new fund:

It is like a multi-starrer blockbuster movie that has complete entertainment value for everyone.

It follows a mix of aggression, stability, and security - just like a blockbuster movie which gives the audiences the thrill of action, the rhythm of romance and the evergreen plot.

What’s a winning formula for blockbuster movies? Solid action, energetic dance and charming romance, each with a unique prowess, packed together for a wholesome experience.

Similarly, Aditya Birla Sun Life Multi Asset Allocation Fund works on the premise that different asset classes have distinct features and perform differently in different market cycles. They diversify across asset classes (primarily equity, debt, and commodities) to capitalize on the unique benefits of each asset class.

ABSL Multi Asset Allocation Fund

Ryan Reynolds via AI

In a new spot for Mint Mobile, Ryan Reynolds enlists the services of AI bot ChatGPT.

Link to video

Un-Australia

In this year’s summer campaign, Meat and Livestock Australia takes aim at an increasing tendency to label quirks and failings as ‘un-Australian’.

Link to video

Video Games and Taxes

Another January, another spot for TaxSlayer and, once again, I  have no clue what to make of it.

Link to video

Lost and Found Oddities

Travelodge Hotels has released its 2022 Lost and Found inventory report and, as one might expect, there are quite a few head-scratching entries.  These include a sleigh full of Christmas presents, a life size cut-out of Jürgen Klopp, a 5 foot Chinese temple birdhouse, an oxygen tank, and a life size skeleton.  In addition, some sections of the media reported some rather questionable inclusions.

As reported by Dorset Echo, the list included a pair of donkeys:

The pair of donkeys, named Daisy and Duke, were left behind in Poole North Travelodge after being purchased locally by guests of the hotel.

The two donkeys were waiting to be transported to their new home in Kent in a horse box, when their owners left without them.

It wasn't long before the owners realised the mistake and came back for them.


As reported by ITVX, the list included a grandmother:

A grandmother who was left behind at a Travelodge hotel has made it onto the chain's list of the most unusual lost-and-found items of 2022.

A spokesperson for Travelodge said the elderly woman – called Gladys – was with three generations of her family staying overnight at the hotel in Keighley before a wedding in Manchester.

But in the morning rush to get ready her relatives managed to leave her behind.

The spokesperson said: "In all the confusion the grandsons forgot to take their beloved grandmother.

"Luckily the hotel team managed to get Gladys in a taxi and she arrived at the wedding in time for the ceremony."

911 call leads to unexpected arrest

From Florida: a man who the police had been searching for, after identifying him from security video as a burglar at a store, was arrested (along with his girlfriend) by a team responding to a 911 call in a residential area.  It turned out that they were burglarizing the house they were arrested in.  It also turned out that there was no one else in the house, and his girlfriend was the one who made the 911 call.  Why?

To quote the local sheriff:

She dialled 9-1-1, to have a deputy come there, to help them move their belongings, and take them to the airport so that they could fly back to New York.


Also to quote the sheriff:

You have to be from New York to do something like that.

Prison Break

From India: a wacky new spot for a multipurpose rust-removal and lubricating spray.

Link to video

Penile Misadventures of the Year

A short selection from the latest annual listing of “the finest groin destruction achieved in America”, compiled verbatim from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s database of emergency room visits, by that peerless chronicler of human misfortune, Barry Petchesky.

Watching football, got excited when team scored and accidentally punched self in penis

Playing with pocketknife and accidentally stabbed penis

Was unloading his dishwasher without any clothing on and he has a penis ring and the penis ring caught on the door of the dishwasher and it forcefully removed from his penis

Intoxicated and thought was applying sexual stimulant to scrotum and instead applied toilet bowl cleaner

Stuck two magnets on his foreskin unable to remove

Was walking out of his bedroom and not watching where he was going, leading to him pinching his penis between the door and his leg

Playing with a toy dinosaur and made it bite his penis


Also worth checking out is his latest listing of foreign bodies found lodged in various orifices, that needed medical attention to be retrieved. 

Gut Wellness Trends

After watching this new spot for probiotic food supplement brand Symprove, I can say one thing for sure: the people behind it have a really wild imagination.

Link to video

Much Excitement Over a Walrus

It started with the excitement of seeing a walrus emerge in the harbour of the English seaside resort of Scarborough.  That then changed to excitement over what the walrus was doing.  One of the things that stood out for me was the way in which The Daily Star covered the transformation.

At first, there was a report with this headline:

Wandering Walrus


That was followed up with another report with this headline:

W***ing walrus


Also of note was the coverage by The Manc.  Its report of the episode, after the walrus had gone back to sea, lead with this line:

A slightly overweight, self-centred beast who went viral for being a w**ker this week has finally moved on from the UK – and sadly, I’m not referring to Piers Morgan.

The Sex Lives of Aussie Wildlife

A compilation of oddities by comic artist Jess Harwood, published on the website of The Guardian.

Link

Offset Your ‘Oppression Footprint’

Sweden-based NGO Civil Rights Defenders has launched a website that spotlights popular vacation destinations with a poor human rights record. What’s more, it has put up a tool that enables travellers to calculate and offset their “oppression footprint”. 

Oppression Offset 1Oppression Offset 2Oppression Offset 3

Would you buy a car via a food delivery app?

A Ford dealership in Saudi Arabia thinks its potential customers might.  At least, that’s the thrust of a recent campaign for the latest version of the Ford Territory.  To quote from a post by one of the creative people behind the campaign:

I am proud to share our latest campaign for Al Jazirah Vehicles Agencies Co. Ltd. to launch the all-new Ford Territory, and position it as an affordable SUV with competitive price. In a bold and unprecedented move, Aljazirah chose to go against traditional marketing tactics and disrupt the automotive category by collaborating with the #1 food delivery app in the kingdom, HungerStation and sell the car right there.

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