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Finally! An ad for a cleaning product that doesn’t feature a woman going into an orgasmic paroxysm over a new mop. Only on Madison Avenue does doing the chores turn a woman on. Sure, Pine-Sol may have shamelessly ripped off the Porn for Women books with their new ad, but we don’t care.


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Infomercial parodies are a fine art that only a few have mastered. But we think YourTango has just joined the ranks of elite spoofers with their “SpatSolver.” We guarantee you’ll be wishing this thing was real in seconds! Yeah, the commercial goes on a little too long, and the free “Apologizer” is pretty unfunny, but the site itself is impressively authentic looking and the bit about wearing the SpatSolver as a fashion accessory is Bumpits genius.

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Bleeding billboards

October 21st, 2009 by Matthew Rodriguez

These eye-catching PSA billboard in New Zealand bleed when it rains to remind drivers to be more careful on the roads during rainy conditions. It’s an innovative campaign for sure, but I can’t help but wonder whether such a provocative ad might cause drivers to not pay attention to the road in front of them when they drive past it. I know if I drove past this billboard when it was bleeding, I’d probably start freaking out like a little girl and drive into the ditch.



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The Fun Theory

October 9th, 2009 by Matthew Rodriguez

Volkswagen is trying to encourage more responsible behavior, such as recycling by incentivizing people with what they call the “Fun Theory” where the idea is that “something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better.” I especially like their concept for urging people to take the stairs instead of an escalator by transforming the stairs into an actual piano. Watch the video for the full fun result!

On the other hand, Improv Everywhere’s high five escalator would compel me to choose the mechanized path instead! Argh, such difficult choices!



Crazy Vegas billboard

October 5th, 2009 by Em and Lo

sexist_vegas_billboard

Sometimes what happens in Vegas simply can’t stay in Vegas. While driving through Sin City this past weekend, Lo saw the crazy-ass billboard above — so crazy-ass that she had to pull the car over and take a picture. Now, we’re no prudes. Okay, we’re kinda prudes. But we’re happy to talk openly and honestly about oral sex and anal play and gimp suits in the right situations, in the right context. We expect to be bombarded by cheesy billboards advertising strip clubs when in Vegas, but at least that’s simply truth in advertising. The above ad is for a night club — not a BDSM club, or the He-Man-Woman-Haters-Club, or a club for would-be date rapists — just a night club (MGM’s Studio 54).  So what’s with the extremely passive woman who looks like she’s been Roofied, about to gag on the disco testicle being pushed into her mouth by the dominant man-hand commanding “Take it all in”? There are some things from the 70’s — the original Studio 54’s heyday — which should not be embraced for the sake of marketing or nostalgia. We’ll take hideous bell bottoms over gross sexism any day.

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photo by EMandLO.com



Korean Air ad lays it on thick

September 18th, 2009 by Em and Lo

This ad from Korean Air called “The Color of Perfection” has been around for a while, but it’s making the rounds again on some of the news networks (just accidentally saw it during a commercial break of the awesome “Rachel Maddow Show” after an amateur forwarding maneuver on TiVo). Some have referred to it as “sensory marketing” — with its abstract and elegant shots of the good life (art, perfume, high fashion, champagne) — but we have yet to hear anyone talk of subliminal messaging or heavy sexual undertones. Hello? There is a dude holding a champagne bottle against his junk, which he proceeds to pop open with one hand, the white mist swirling out, while he hands a glass to a woman who very well may be dressed in nothing but fuck-me heels (her legs and feet are the only thing we see). The art is a sculpture of a naked woman, the perfume is applied by a woman in nothing but a towel to her bare skin, the high fashion is a glorified bikini with some poofy frills. It ends with a huge penis of a jet pulling into the gate, followed by gorgeous flight attendants — women only, of course — staring seductively at the camera with big doe eyes, as if to say “Coffee, Tea or Me?” Subtle.

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We’ve heard of penile orgasms, clitoral orgasms, g-spot orgasms, p-spot orgasms, and even nipple orgasms…but orgasms for your feet? Maybe that’s what the foot fetishists are all on about… (That, or we’re totally missing the point of this commercial.)

Feet Orgasm [illegaladvertising.com]



candies_abstinence

We guess it was only a matter of time before the true-love-waits crew decided to use sex to sell abstinence. After all, if sex can sell anything — even, ew, toilet paper — why shouldn’t it be used to promote the very absence of sex? That’s so po-mo our heads hurt. But here’s what really makes our heads hurt: It’s the Candie’s Foundation — yes, of Candie’s shoes fame — that wants to sex up the abstinence-only campaign. The t-shirt above is the winner of the Candie’s Foundation’s “New Sexy Slogan” contest. Ah, Candie’s. How fondly we remember you from that ad starring a naked Playboy Bunny on the pot…and the one featuring a teen starlet who looks like she’s posing for doggy-style…not to mention the one with abstinence role model of the year, Britney Spears…and then this ad, which is so f*&%ed up we can only link to it, speechless. (And when we say f*&%ed up, we’re not just talking about Mark McGrath’s highlights.) Yay, girl power in stripper shoes! And did we mention that the new face of the Candie’s Foundation’s abstinence campaign is Bristol Palin? The jokes just write themselves, people.

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Durex sells sex well

July 24th, 2009 by Em and Lo

When every product from cars to instant rice tries to use sex to sell itself, it’s refreshing to see a commercial actually using sex appropriately. A new one from Durex (the first in the list of 5 below) reminded us that they’re the leaders in sex accessory promotion, with funny, clever, provocative, often US-banned spots that are sexier and subtler than any cheap Carl’s Jr ads:

1. We love when sex isn’t just limited to hot 20-something models with eating disorders (via Gawker):


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domestic_violence_psa

“It happens when nobody is looking” is the tag line for this award-winning Amnesty International PSA about domestic violence. Installed in a bus stop in Germany, it features an eye-tracking device so that when people look at it, the image morphs from a scene of domestic violence into a scene of domestic bliss. (The image of the bus stop above is in English for publicity purposes.) Copyranter said “Pretty clever and pretty useless, since this lone installation was built … by agency Jung von Matt primarily to win ad awards.” But after reprimands in the comments section about how this ad is making the rounds on the Internet due to its innovation and thus effectively spreading the word about the insidiousness of domestic violence, Copyranter conceded “…becoming less useless by the hour.”

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In this gorgeous ad for the watch company Citizen, buildings implode and explode, lights dance in complex arrays, and shadows engulf entire parks. The ad was created by the Japanese agency WOW for a watch- and jewelry-industry trade show called Baselworld.