17175: Raising A Glass To Recovering Drunks.

September is National Recovery Month. Don’t expect to see performative philanthropic campaigns saluting recovering Don Drapers everywhere.

15340: Targeting AA Audience By Booze Preference…?

 

Why did the creative team behind this Brazilian campaign for Alcoholics Anonymous feel the need to create two similar advertisements? Seems like only a serious drunk would discern the difference.

 

15238: Wasted On Booze In Brazil.

Critiquing the message of this Alcoholics Anonymous campaign from Brazil would be a waste of time.

14303: Brazilian Booze BS.

This Brazilian campaign encourages coping with everyday hassles by resorting to booze—which will then allow the hackneyed creative team to come up with Alcoholics Anonymous advertising campaigns to counter the effects.

13795: Hitting The Bot-tle.

The boozers in Brazil created an Alcoholics Anonymous Chatbot to add to the AA scam ad collection.

13751: JWT AA BS.

Is ex-JWT Worldwide Chairman and CEO Gustavo Martinez now freelancing in Brazil? This JWT AA Brazilian campaign continues the offensive tradition of scam ads.

13616: Addicted To Controversy.

Adweek spotlighted a campaign from VML in Kansas City that asks, “What if we treated people with cancer the way we treat people with addiction?” Not sure why the White advertising agency sought to spike the controversy in the commercial by casting the family as interracial. Oh, and the comments at YouTube show people are not exactly buying the overall premise.

13297: Diverse Drunks.

Yet another probable scam campaign from Brazil for Alcoholics Anonymous—this one displaying diversity at least. If the creators had any sobriety, they’d spend some time enhancing the AA website versus producing more scam ads.

13267: Boozy Brazilian Bullshit.

Here’s more bullshit from Brazil for Alcoholics Anonymous.

11607: A Shot Of Booze.

Looks like Canada is joining Brazil in creating unauthorized ads for Alcoholics Anonymous. A creative director should have shot this concept down.

From Ads of the World.

10700: This Bud’s Not For You.

From The New York Post…

Budweiser wants logo removed from ‘Flight’

From ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES — Denzel Washington’s character in “Flight” drinks a lot throughout the film, but his portrayal of a highly functioning alcoholic pilot isn’t going down well with brewing company Anheuser-Busch or the distributor of Stolichnaya vodka.

Anheuser-Busch said Monday that it has asked Paramount Pictures Corp. to obscure or remove the Budweiser logo from the film, which at one point shows Washington’s character drinking the beer while behind the wheel.

Budweiser is hardly the only alcoholic beverage shown in “Flight,” which earned $25 million in its debut weekend and is likely to remain popular with audiences. Washington’s character frequently drinks vodka throughout the film, with several different brands represented. William Grant & Sons, which distributes Stolichnaya in the United States, also said it didn’t license its brand for inclusion in the film and wouldn’t have given permission if asked.

Although product placement, where companies pay producers to have their brands seen on-camera, have become ubiquitous in movies and television, experts say studios are not obligated to get permission before featuring a product in their work.

Rob McCarthy, vice president of Budweiser, wrote in a statement to The Associated Press that the company wasn’t contacted by Paramount or the production company of director Robert Zemeckis for permission to use the beer in “Flight.”

“We would never condone the misuse of our products, and have a long history of promoting responsible drinking and preventing drunk driving,” McCarthy wrote. “We have asked the studio to obscure the Budweiser trademark in current digital copies of the movie and on all subsequent adaptations of the film, including DVD, On Demand, streaming and additional prints not yet distributed to theaters.”

A spokesman for Zemeckis referred questions to Paramount, which did not return an email message seeking comment.

James Curich, a spokesman for Stoli distributor William Grant & Sons, said the company has a strict code for how the vodka is portrayed in films and is committed to marketing it responsibly. “Considering the subject matter of this film, it is not something in which we would have participated,” he wrote in an email.

Despite the companies’ dissatisfaction with their inclusion in the film, experts say there is little they can do about it legally.

Trademark laws “don’t exist to give companies the right to control and censor movies and TV shows that might happen to include real-world items,” said Daniel Nazer, a resident fellow at Stanford Law School’s Fair Use Project. “It is the case that often filmmakers get paid by companies to include their products. I think that’s sort of led to a culture where they expect they’ll have control. That’s not a right the trademark law gives them.”

Jay Dougherty, a professor at Loyola Law School, said the use of brands in films has generally been protected by the courts, even when the companies aren’t pleased with the portrayals.

“It wouldn’t have been as effective a film if they used a bunch of non-generic brands,” said Dougherty, who is also the director of the school’s Entertainment & Media Law Institute. “In a normal situation, if the alcohol were just there as a smaller part of the movie, they might have created an artificial brand for it.”

Other vodka brands, including Absolut and Smirnoff, are also included in the film. Representatives of those companies did not return messages seeking comment.

Paramount has some experience with a company upset with its inclusion in a film. In 2003 the studio won a case after the makers of the “Slip ‘N Slide” sued over the use of the product in the film “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star.”

In that case, a court found that requiring Paramount to alter the film and its marketing would “generate more hardship than it alleviates.”

Dougherty and Mark Partridge, a Chicago intellectual property lawyer, also noted that a court rejected an effort to get by Caterpillar Inc. to get its logo removed from tractors driven by the villains in 2003’s “George of the Jungle 2.” The company had argued its trademark was harmed by having its product associated with the film’s villains.

Partridge said with the explosion of product placement in recent years, a company might try to make an argument that by the brand appearing in a film, the audience assumed it had granted permission. “You’d have to have proof that people actually making an association and believing it was authorized,” he said.

“It might be a different world,” he said, adding, “I still think it’s an uphill haul.”

10684: Multicultural Marketing Mumblings.

Advertising Age reported on extra happenings from the ANA Multicultural Marketing and Diversity Conference. Can’t help but think this annual event must feel like some sort of Alcoholics Anonymous convention, with people admitting to their character defects and relapses in behavior. Kellogg apparently fell off the wagon with its multicultural marketing. “In 2009, we’d gone from supporting nine brands to one,” confessed Kellogg North America President Brad Davidson. “And 1% of our marketing budget went to Hispanic.” As a result, the food maker got beat like a piñata by competitors. Plus, Kellogg’s attempts to repurpose advertising from other markets didn’t fare too well. Now Davidson claims to have experienced enlightenment and is committed to doing the right thing. Of course, he probably allocated just a few additional pesos to the renewed effort. Meanwhile, Ram Truck Brand’s President-CEO Fred Diaz announced things are muy bueno with his multicultural marketing. However, the man is working with The Richards Group and its minority wing, Richards Lerma. Not sure how successful a company can be conspiring with those wonderful folks who gave you talking vaginas. Diaz said Ram truck sales jumped 12% in 2011 among Blacks and women. Did the marketing budgets for the groups see equal raises? According to Diaz, while Chrysler enjoys a 10.2% share of the car market, the automaker only owns 8.8% of the Hispanic car market. Diaz declared, “The goal is for share to be equal to or higher than the general market.” Um, try making sure the multicultural marketing budget is equal to or higher than the general market. Otherwise, you’ll just look like a stumbling, stammering drunk.

Ram Truck, Kellogg Presidents Outline Hispanic Strategies at ANA

While Kellogg Rebuilds, Ram Uses Bilingual Ads and Shares U.S. Leader With Mexico

By Laurel Wentz

Two very different leaders of very different brands—the president of Kellogg North America and the president-CEO of Chrysler Group’s Ram Truck Brand—took the stage to describe their struggles and successes with multicultural marketing. Kellogg is making its way back after losing its way in multicultural marketing for a while and Ram is pursuing bilingual advertising and finding synergies with Mexico.

In an unusual dual role, Ram Truck Brand’s President-CEO Fred Diaz is also president-CEO of Chrysler de Mexico. He and Kellogg’s Brad Davidson spoke at the ANA’s annual multicultural marketing conference in Miami.

Mr. Diaz works with Richards Group in the U.S. and uses that agency’s U.S. Hispanic unit Richards Lerma for U.S. Hispanic work.

“Now that I have responsibility in Mexico, Richards Lerma also has a team in Mexico,” Mr. Diaz said. “Now we’re busting down that wall.”

Elsewhere at the company, Mr. Diaz said Chrysler is developing spots for Asian-American consumers in the U.S. based on a highly successful campaign airing in China.

Tip of the iceberg

Currently, Ram is producing Spanish and English-language commercials starring Latin music star Juanes. Both versions of each spot end with the Spanish-language tagline “A todo. Con Todo.” (“For everything. With Everything.”)

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg for what we’re about to do,” Mr. Diaz said. “We’ll follow up with digital, print, radio and social media. We’ll also look at extensions to other groups such as African-Americans—Ram truck sales were up 12% last year to African-Americans—and women.”

Mr. Diaz pointed out that Hispanic consumers are more likely to use online video—64% compared with 56% of general-market consumers—and have the highest adoption rate for smartphones—66% of Hispanic consumers, much higher than the 49% of non-Hispanics who use smartphones.

“By the end of November, all Chrysler’s mobile sites will also be available in Spanish,” he said.

Right now, Chrysler has a 10.2% share of the car market, but only 8.8% of the Hispanic car market, he said. “The goal is for share to be equal to or higher than the general market.”

Mr. Diaz said that in his 23 years at Chrysler, including a stint as director of advertising for the Dodge brand, when budgets got tight, multicultural marketing is the first thing to go. “I will not allow that to happen,” he said emphatically. “We find other things to cut.”

Kellogg gets crushed

Kellogg’s president is taking a very different journey through Hispanic marketing.

“In 2009, we’d gone from supporting nine brands to one,” Mr. Davidson said. “And 1% of our marketing budget went to Hispanic.”

Competitors, meanwhile, were crushing Kellogg in the Hispanic market, he said. When he complained to Leo Burnett, whose Hispanic shop Lapiz is Kellogg’s longtime Latino agency, he said he was told, “We pushed you Kellogg and you didn’t listen.”

To catch up, Kellogg developed more culturally relevant Hispanic advertising (after importing spots from Mexico didn’t work too well). The company also tapped into its Hispanic resource group Ola, even showing its members Kellogg and competitors’ commercials. In one employee’s critique, “one Latin mom said the mother (in the commercial) is holding the baby wrong,” Mr. Davidson said. He also spent time with Hispanic and African-American consumers in their homes.

Kellogg studied retail, and went to the Mexican American Grocers Association conference. “We were too Midwest conservative,” he said. “Their point-of-sale was more compelling, spicier.”

It was clear Kellogg’s Hispanic ads were getting better when the person who runs the company’s Answerline asked for more resources after being besieged by Hispanic moms.

Mr. Davidson’s advice for marketers still lagging in the Hispanic market: “If you’re just beginning, hurry up. Because your competitors are doing it. If you’re not there, you can’t say a year from now, we didn’t see this coming.”

10571: Social Drunking.

This Alcoholics Anonymous campaign from Brazil appears to invite recovering alcoholics to “relax without relapse” at venues where booze is present and prevalent. Not sure that even the advertisers depicted in the likely scam layouts would want to endorse such a message.

From Ads of the World.

10236: Bazillion Brazilian Boozers.

Exactly how many Brazilian ad agencies service Alcoholics Anonymous?

From Ads of the World.

10201: From Alcoholic Adpeople In Brazil.

Yet another Alcoholics Anonymous concept from Brazil makes one wonder about the prevalence of alcoholism in the country—as well as the prevalence of scam ad creators. Leave it to addicts to complicate a standard calendar.

From Ads of the World.

9989: Tie One On With AA.

More unauthorized Alcoholics Anonymous advertising from Brazil. Would drunken guys really be able to secure such perfect knots before jumping?


From Ads of the World.

9631: A Is For Asinine.

Here’s another foreign ad for Alcoholics Anonymous that violates the program’s policies on promotion. Besides, if you were so drunk that you saw double, how would you manage to read the body copy, phone number and URL?

From Ads of the World.

9537: Accurately Depicting Target Audience…?

Anybody else think these images feel like portraits of alcoholics?



From Ads of the World.

9238: Taking Credit For Anonymity.

Don’t mean to sound prejudiced, but it seems like Brazil is notorious for producing scam ads. Can’t help but think this Alcoholics Anonymous campaign by a Brazilian agency falls into the fake category. After all, doesn’t the organization have specific policies regarding advertising, as well as official traditions frowning upon this kind of promotion? Even drunkard Don Draper would question the concept.



From Ads of the World