Unlike many, I have no particular quibbles with Scientology. In terms of belief their particular brand of lunacy is no more abhorrent than omnipotent bearded men, elephant-headed deities, or reincarnation. There is something intrinsically modern about Scientology’s aliens and space-faring DC-3s. It is a a belief system with a mythology that could only have been invented by an author of science fiction. No other person would have that complete a vision or be willing to go so far beyond the pale. In that regard it is no surprise that the likes of Anonymous have pursued the organization as it has. They are, after all, infringing on prime geek territory.
In keeping with that same tone, Scientology has started a new advertising campaign comprised of a trio of commercials aimed at enticing the public. The one above is most interesting. If one didn’t know better one might speculate that it was aimed squarely at the aforementioned 4chaners, as it appears to be a none to subtle nod at a similar speech from Fight Club which, among other things, inspired the boards’s rules. Perhaps it is merely a byproduct of the organization’s many ties with elite Hollywood actors. Either way, the ads are undeniably slick and handily fit in with Scientology’s sci-fi roots. These are ads you would expect to find on the television in a Philip K. Dick novel; plastered on the billboards of some dystopian, near-future Los Angeles.
Mostly, though, they bring me back to my childhood, staying home sick from school and watching daytime television. Family Feud cuts to commercial break and a series of insightful questions flash on screen, appended by page numbers. How can a person suddenly lose confidence? Can your mind limit your success? Paper or plastic? Then, CRASH, a volcano explodes on the screen, churning up a hellish cauldron of white-hot magma, an ominous voice intoning the words “Read Dianetics, by L. Ron Hubbard. It’s the owner’s manual, for the human mind.” It had a profound effect on me as a child. At least, until The Feud came back on.
Folks, this is one final reminder that our closing date for all small-business ads in Issue 03 is this Friday, June 12th. We’re currently up to 18 advertisers – looking for a full 24 so that we can fill up 2 pages. The people who’ve responded so far have been amazing; we have a dollmaker, a gal who makes monster masks, a crafter of Victorian-inspired leather spats, a clothing collection inspired by Edgar Allen Poe, a lowbrow art gallery, and many more.
For those of you hearing about this opportunity for the first time, check out last week’s post about our Small Business Advertising Program. We must receive your ad by Friday if you want to participate. If interested, please email us ASAP. Thank you!
Posted by Coilhouse on June 10th, 2009
Filed under Advertising, Coilhouse | Comments Off on Last Call for Indie Sellers to Advertise in Issue 03!
Many of you have asked if Coilhouse Magazine would ever open up its doors to small, independent advertisers. Up until this point, we’ve only been able to offer full-page ads to larger companies like Fluevog and Dr. Martens, and very successful indie outfits such as Plastik Wrap and Wildilocks, making it difficult for smaller advertisers (Etsy sellers, comic publishers, music labels, etc.) to reach our audience.
We heard your requests, and we’re excited to present a new way for small businesses to advertise in Coilhouse: a stylish, NotCot-inspired format, similar to what you see above (see it in high-res PDF here). The idea is simple: each advertiser gets one photo, one title, one URL, and a couple of lines of description text. You don’t need to have any graphic design skills, and your business will be presented attractively within our pages.
Print advertising can get pretty expensive. A one-time, full-page ad in Nylon cost $21,638 in 2008. A similar page in Inked will cost you $14,323. Although a full page in Coilhouse is very affordable by comparison (at $1,500), it’s still outside the reach of many smaller businesses, who are oftentimes the most relevant to our audience. It is for you guys that we created this new format, which runs $99-149 per issue, per spot.
We’re offering this new format as of Issue 03, and the closing date for accepting ads is Friday, June 12th. If you’re interested, please drop us a line. Ads will be accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis, and spots are limited.
Manhattan-based 1stAveMachine produces lush, hyperreal short videos that glisten with bleeding-edge CGI. The clip above, a music video for Alias made in 2006, is considered their breakout masterpiece: a succulent garden of bio-electronic cyberflora. Describing the clip, director Arvind Palep told CGISociety, “we were looking at a merge between synthetic biology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and what could spawn from them.”
Since that clip, 1stAveMachine, helmed by Palep and Serge Patzak (the former turned down a job from Industrial Light & Magic to join the startup), has produced short commercials for the likes of MTV Japan, Samsung and HP. But no matter how corporate their clients roster becomes, 1stAvenue keeps it weird, inviting comparisons to Chris Cunningham and Patricia Piccinini. Consider the below ad for Saturn, which 1stAveMachine describes as “a haunting hyper-sexual and stylized vision for the future”:
Shown above is the director’s cut, which features a naked lady. NSFW!
There are many more clips to be seen on 1stAveMachine’s site. Some favorites clips and image stills, after the cut. [via Paul Komoda]
In the ad above, an elderly man pays a visit to a transgender hair salon owner in his small town. The man says to the woman, “[I wanted to] come and apologize to you for treating you badly all this time. For not knowing how to treat you.” Over at SocImages, where this was spotted, Gwen observes:
Often when I see companies touting their tolerance/eco-friendliness/good-neighborliness, I suspect it may be a marketing ploy with little change in actions or policies behind it–you can, for instance, celebrate Black History Month by putting up signs in your business and doing nothing else, and there’s little cost. It occurred to me after I watched the commercial that in this case the bank professed a type of tolerance that wasn’t risk-free to it. Saying your business is eco-friendly, or celebrates a civil rights hero from the past, or honors Carnival or Christmas or a local athletic team or the marching band, isn’t likely to make many people angry, which is why businesses usually stick to such safe issues. I’m by no means an expert on Argentinian culture and attitudes toward the transgender community; I’ve read that Argentinians are more accepting of people who are transgender, but I’ve also read that this acceptance is often over-exaggerated and that anti-gay and anti-transgender attitudes still exist, particularly outside of urban areas. Anyway, I assume that an Argentinian business might suffer some negative consequences from an ad like this that so openly and unequivocally advocates for acceptance, and I think it’s sort of fascinating that they decided to run it anyway.
For the most part, transgender people in advertising appear in hokey, stereotypical ways. Most frequently, you’ll find them shilling hair removal products and providing us with fine slapstick comedy. It’s not often that you see transgender people in finance/banking. The one other time that the two intersected was in this two-year-old Israeli AIG ad featuring Dana International. What makes the Argentinian ad above really special is that the PSA for acceptance is targeted towards a demographic that usually ends up ignored in the hip trend of transgender advertising: the elderly conservative.
Meanwhile, back in the US of A, Depends recently launched a charming new campaign to promote its new products for men and women. Sigh. You win some, you lose some.
My last attempt at watching MTV lasted about 3 minutes into a show, I think it was called “Pimp My Band’s Paddy Wagon”, before I felt deeply insulted by the producers and clicked away to another channel. But it hasn’t always been this way! MTV used to actually be cool, as demonstrated below. Aidan Quinn narrates and stars in a stylish 1991 reading advert, featuring everyone’s favorite self-loathing insect, Gregor Samsa.
See, that actually makes me want to read! Now, imagine this commercial airing today. Though I doubt most 14 year-olds would get the reference, I’m willing to bet they’d have the same reaction I did. So why is it that the youth television of today is so incredibly, painfully dumbed down? What kid is benefiting from watching hours of bulldog birthday party-planning? [Really.] What happened to igniting actual passion and curiosity in our chitlins with music and art, instead of turning their impressionable brains into gelatinous lumps? While we wait for MTV’s golden age to return my solution is simple: I don’t have cable.
It’s been a strange week for TV commercials. First, this asinine “Mow the Lawn” ad for a women’s shaver made me sad, prompting me to spend some quality time with my friends Feministing, SocImages and Genderfork. Then, there was this bizarre Thai toothpaste spot. The debate rages on as to whether this ad is racist or merely a comment on racism, but everyone agrees on one thing: it’s even sadder than The Red Balloon. By Friday I was just about to swear off any ad viewing for at least a week because it was bringing me down, but then the gem of a clip above appeared before my eyes. My favorite store in the world made an ad that Copyranter actually approves of? Oh my god. Oh my god. It’s a lunar eclipse. Everybody watch.
You work in this soul-crushing business for as many years as I have, you relish the chance to do some pro-bono Cause advertising, the chance to Do Some Good. For me, that chance came a few years when I got to write a Drug-Free America TV spot which dramatically illustrated that Drugs Don’t Work in the office — which is of course a position I wholeheartedly disagree with.
I’ve never gotten the chance to work on AIDS awareness/prevention like the lucky creators of this :60 spot from ad agency Lowe Mena in Dubai. It’s for MTV’s staying-alive.org. Such a slick motherfuckin’ spot, huh? The editing. The spot-on casting. The trippy, ethereal music. The cool voiceover…”Can you hear me, taste me? Barroom brawler or prom queen…” And of course, the simply brilliant creative linchpin: chewing gum. Such a perfect metaphor for casual sex. Except of course, you can’t get AIDS through saliva exchange, or drinking lover’s spit. But then, why let “logic” or “responsibility” get in the way of the sacred artistic ad process? What are you, copyranter? An asshole account executive?
Congratulations, Pattex. You receive the first copyranter lifetime achievement award for the most glue ever in glue ads. Loads of sticky gooey pearly … they’re semen sculptures! From Madam Jizzsaud’s epoxy museum! Ejaculate Elvis! Marilyn … uh, nevermind. And hey, Muhammad Ali’s still alive! Disgusting jokes aside, this campaign is dripping with wrongness.
The hard-to-read headline on all three is “Everlasting.” That’s one very dubious celebrity endorsement scheme, Pattex. And the facial likenesses are macabrely way-off. Elvis looks like zombie John Fogerty. Monroe looks more like Manson … and we could do without the tacky glue nipples, DDB Düsseldorf (the responsible ad agency). What’s wrong with you Düsseldoofuses? Your buddies at DDB Berlin produced a much saner Pattex ad. Btw, the most effective glue ad in marketing history? Easy.
WHAT?!? (Watch video.) Now, Skittles, through ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day\NY, has done some truly bizarre candy advertising in the past couple of years. There was Long Beard, Piñata Man, Sour Milk, Sheep Boys, and, one of my all-time favorite commercials, the sadly hilarious Touch. But this spot is—as we say in the fake-wonderful land of ad creativity—trying waaay to hard. In case you missed it (I did), the Caucasian customer’s three reflections are an African-American, a Latino, and an Asian (Filipino, according to the YouTube description). And, the tailor is Thai. The Filipino reflection begins eating Skittles, prompting a complaint from white man, prompting a berating from the tailor, prompting the Filipino to complain “I’m hungry. I’m hungry, I haven’t eaten yet” (according to Adrants’s Angela Nativdad’s translation), prompting more berating, prompting the kicking of the mirror…tagline: “Reflect the rainbow. Taste the rainbow.” So, is this some sort of social advertising by M&M Mars? A rainbow coalition? Sorry, but a candy ad should just make me want to eat the candy, not contemplate hostilities between Southeast Asian countries.
