Top 10 Creative Advertisements of 2019 included this Jeep campaign from Publicis Middle East, United Arab Emirates, deemed among the most popular work displayed on Ads of the World based on number of views and shares. That’s some pretty odd criteria for eligibility, as views and shares hardly translate to quality of concept and execution. Who can say viewers weren’t aghast at the cultural cluelessness and sharing it to express disgust and outrage over the awfulness?
Hey, why aren’t the divertsity defenders barking about this Boost Mobile commercial starring Pitbull lusting after chickenheads? Plus, it’s a wonder Cindy Gallop didn’t point out the phallic nature of the light switch mnemonic device.
Advertising Age presented The Most Overrated Ads of the Decade, which featured Fearless Girl. Hey, don’t forget Gracie for Cheerios, The Talk and The Look.
It looks like the kid is peeking at Dad’s student loan debt and thinking, “Holy shit, pops! Based on what you owe, I guess I can look forward to community college—after serving in the military.”
According to the self-hype, “The Fishbowl Good List Celebrates Agency Professionals For Their Goodness.” The “good” White advertising agencies include Publicis Sapient, VMLY&R, Wunderman Thompson, FCB and Digitas. As the old line goes, “Good is the enemy of great.” And Fishbowl should change its name to toilet bowl.
MediaPost Agency Daily reported on a study showing the majority of advertising executives think adland and media services are “going through a difficult time.” Did this revelation really warrant conducting a survey? The publication also noted 44% of executives in the study think adland and media services are “heading in the right direction,” 2% believe things are “going horribly wrong” and 1% declared the industry is “dying.” The 2% and 1% figures would spike dramatically if MDC Partners executives were polled—ditto executives trapped at WPP, Publicis Groupe, Omnicom, Havas and Dentsu.
Most Ad Execs Believe Advertising And Media Services ‘Going Through A Difficult Time’
By Joe Mandese
A majority of ad industry executives believe the advertising and media services business is “going through a difficult time,” according to findings of interviews conducted by Advertiser Perceptions in December.
The finding, part of a series of benchmark studies Advertiser Perceptions is conducting for MediaPost heading into and throughout 2020, is intended to create a baseline of how the ad industry looks at its current state and near- and long-term future on key issues including its own esteem, perceptions of other stakeholders (including consumers, potential talent, regulators, suppliers, etc.), regulation, self-regulation, ethics and the overall impact on society.
Detailed findings of this survey, including tabulated findings by advertisers vs. agency executives, as well as their views on what the ad industry can do to make itself more attractive to key stakeholders, will be published exclusively in today’s edition of Research Intelligencer, a premium MediaPost publication available only to subscribers.
Forty-four percent of total respondents to the Advertiser Perceptions study said they believe the advertising and media services industry is “heading in the right direction,” while 2% say it is “going horribly wrong,” and 1% said it’s “dying.”
MultiCultClassics is often occupied with real work. As a result, a handful of events occur without the expected blog commentary. This limited series—Delayed WTF—seeks to make belated amends for the absence of malice.
The disturbingly disappointing divertisement from Procter & Gamble—The Look—warrants a quick glance and glare.
The Look is a male companion to The Talk—as well as a colored cousin to We Believe and #LoveOverBias. That is, such work comprises a dysfunctional family of divertisements from a White corporation attempting to fabricate the illusion of being culturally competent and progressive.
According to Advertising Age, The Look was hatched after a Black creative director told a P&G associate director, “I think you got it wrong,” in regards to The Talk—that is, the creative director felt The Talk lacked a strong Black male presence. On the one hand, the female focus is not unusual, as The Talk was created to support the My Black Is Beautiful campaign. It’s also not unusual that The Talk contained cultural miscues, as it was produced by a White advertising agency—even though the White shop did hire a consultant of color to provide relevant insights.
Yet while P&G Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard admitted the invisible men aspect of The Talk was an oversight, he didn’t offer to return the Cannes Grand Prix trophy—or any of the other awards he’s collected for presenting the façade of cultural competence.
Equally annoying is the hoopla being generated for The Look, positioning the spot as cutting edge social commentary. Sorry, but the concept is a modern rerun of the classic Calvin campaign from Mickey D’s—hey, it appears that Calvin elevated from shift manager to courthouse judge.
Sadly, it doesn’t look as if multicultural marketing has advanced over the years. Ditto minorities in the advertising industry. Meanwhile, guys like Pritchard move ahead with accolades and applause, heralded as forward-looking, revolutionary mavericks—all of which deserves an eye roll.
Advertising Age published promotional poop from the Ad Council on the “best social-impact campaigns for 2019”—featuring a photo collage of the judges that underscores the lack of impact on the social fabric of adland, especially in terms of diversity. That is, it’s all about White people impacting what is deemed best for society.
Advertising Age observed that Cindy Gallop thinks the Businessweek cover image depicted above looks like a Fleshlight. This is not surprising at all. The old woman clearly has more familiarity with such devices than she does with the modern advertising industry. She’d be quick to bitch and moan, however, if an adman had publicly made a similar observation.
We’re Not Commenting On This Vaguely Disturbing Bloomberg Businessweek Cover (But Cindy Gallop Did)
No, this is not a product from Interactive Life Forms
By Ad Age and Creativity Staff
The Dec. 16 Bloomberg Businessweek cover has been out for a bit—it was released on social media late last week, collecting a few WTF-type comments along the way—and we weren’t going to say what we at first thought it was meant to depict.
But then ad-industry icon and Make Love Not Porn founder Cindy Gallop just went right ahead, on Twitter, last night:
A Fleshlight, for the uninitiated, is a masturbation device. It’s the best-selling and arguably the best-marketed such device in history, along with its sibling product, the Fleshjack, for gay men. Both the Fleshlight and Fleshjack deploy so-called Fleshlight Girls and Fleshjack Boys—which are basically endorsement deals with major porn stars, whose relevant body parts are apparently plaster-cast molded and recreated in orifice-in-a-can form to be sold to, uh, enthusiasts for $79.95. The Fleshlight and Fleshjack are canister-like and uncap (to expose the flesh-colored thing inside), just like the device shown on Bloomberg Businessweek’s cover.
In case you were wondering, Interactive Life Forms (ILF), the Austin, Texas-based maker of Fleshlights and Fleshjacks, does not have an endorsement deal with Amazon’s digital assistant, Alexa—who is not a porn star and also has no actual body parts to plaster-cast. Not even an ear, which is what that thing in Bloomberg Businessweek’s canister (an Amazon Echo device) is actually supposed to be.
In September, Vice (of course) called the Fleshlight “ubiquitous” in a story headlined “The Fleshlight Is a Portal to the Future of Sex,” which notes that ILF has sold more than 15 million Fleshlights/Fleshjacks since the company launched more than 20 years ago.
Incidentally, Bloomberg Businessweek’s cover story, “Silicon Valley Is Listening to Your Most Intimate Moments,” will make you realize that if you do own a Fleshlight or Fleshjack, you should maybe unplug Alexa before using it.
This Greenpeace campaign from Germany seeks to emphasize that plastic pollutes the environment for over 400 years. Okay, but the net impression is only that plastic outlives humans. And highlighting the woman’s breast implants is really ridiculous—is Greenpeace calling for sustainable hooters? Perhaps the execution should have died in the early concept stage.
M&C Saatchi in Israel hypes Roladin Café & Bakery again for Hanukkah with a divertisement campaign. The agency, however, does not reflect such pastry progressiveness and sweet variety with its staff.
Adweek reported David Miami hired two White women—so shut up already, Cindy Gallop. Guess even Latino shops are jumping on the White women bandwagon.
FCB in New Zealand is responsible for this STI awareness campaign, but it’s unclear why the White advertising agency chose to depict the most outrageous character by casting a person of color. Apparently, the creative team is still operating in the Dark Ages.
This anti-smoking campaign blows smoke at a diverse audience—but seems to have missed White women, Neurodiversity, old people and conservatives.
Adweek published a perspective by TIME’S UP/Advertising Executive Director Christena J. Pyle titled, “Too Many Women Still Feel Vulnerable Working in Advertising—There’s far too much discrimination happening, even 35 years later.”
Um, somebody provide Pyle with a history lesson to clarify that racial and ethnic minorities have experienced unrelenting discrimination in adland for at least 70 years—and it’s even worse for Black women in the field.
Around this time in 2018, WPP CEO Mark Read instituted a hiring freeze at the White holding company. This year, Read is opting to ice companies, shedding Kantar and shitting shutting down iStrategyLabs and JWT Inside—the former having been acquired by the global parent of the latter in 2016. Ironically, JWT Inside specialized in recruitment and employee engagement campaigns. It’s sorta like WPP is letting firms play musical chairs—with electric chairs. Sit down and get zapped out of existence, WPPeons!
Merry Fucking Christmas!
It’s always interesting to see notices like the one above that is inviting PR firms to pitch the Jamaican Tourism Board account. Look for a White firm to pick up the business. Too bad Globalhue isn’t around to leverage its Bermuda experience. Then again, never mind.
Iceland takes a slightly different approach to the plastic-kills-wildlife angle, highlighting how plastic waste may ultimately equal or exceed the number of fish in oceans. Wouldn’t it be more provocative to identify the manufacturers of the plastic containers polluting the environment?
Advertising Age reported Sandra Sims-Williams abandoned her role as Publicis Groupe Chief Diversity Officer for a similar position with Nielsen. Her departure effectively reduces the number of Black women—officially recorded at fewer than 100—with executive titles in the U.S. advertising industry. A Publicis Groupe spokesperson stated the White holding company will be “replacing the role.” Replacing the role? Guess that decision is based on not having enough available and qualified sistahs to replace the woman of color.
Publicis Groupe Chief Diversity Officer Leaves For Nielsen
Sandra Sims-Williams will be the company’s senior VP of diversity and inclusion
By Lindsay Rittenhouse
Publicis Groupe Chief Diversity Officer Sandra Sims-Williams is leaving to become senior VP of diversity and inclusion for Nielsen. She starts in her new role in January.
“Diversity and inclusion are essential to everything we do at Nielsen,” Nielsen CEO David Kenny said in a statement. “Fostering a culture that is diverse and inclusive, and that is reflected in our products and offering, is the guiding force and a significant differentiator for our company.”
In the role, Sims-Williams will lead the diversity and inclusion teams across media and connect businesses through Nielsen’s transition into two independent, publicly-traded entities (the company announced plans to split last month). She will report to Kenny.
“I am proud to be joining the Nielsen team and continuing to leverage diversity and inclusion as key elements for growth and leadership,” Sims-Williams added.
At Publicis, Sims-Williams is credited with overseeing “diverse leadership development, retention programming, analytics and effectiveness, supplier diversity, multicultural talent acquisition and corporate initiatives that drive diversity and inclusion cross-functionally,” according to Nielsen. She also is a member of The 4A’s Diversity Steering Committee, and serves on the boards of New York Women in Communication, Advertising Club of New York and ColorComm.
Her exit is yet another in a string of departures at Publicis. Ad Age reported on the resignation of Leo Burnett Chicago’s Emma Montgomery, the office’s president and chief strategy officer, last week.
“We thank Sandra for her years of contribution and commitment to advancing diversity and inclusion—a true cornerstone of Publicis Groupe’s Viva La Difference, which serves as both our heritage and guidepost for the future as we continue to advance this important work,” a Publicis spokesperson told Ad Age, adding that the company will be “replacing the role.”
All the outrage over the Peloton commercial feels like White privilege angst—White woman privilege, that is. While it’s tough to argue the spot cycles cultural cluelessness and gender discrimination, it’s interesting to note the leaders of the responsible White advertising agency appear to admit being White men from another planet.
