Any Way You Bend It, It Still Stinks

Wow, plastic surgery has come a long way since the days when the only way to prevent aging was to kill yourself at 25. These days, a little old book can walk into a surgeon's rooms and come out as one of the illustrations in its pages. Or perhaps these days you can go into a consultation and have your girlfriend permanently attached to you by the genitals? Sounds like like a good idea, until you realise the implications with regard to getting into taxis and the seats at the movies.

The only position this crap is getting into is the bottom of my scam folder.

Sheer Poetry

Hello my pretties. It has been many moons since The Oracle consulted his own cutting insight and vast resources of knowledge in the pursuit of justice in this fallen world. Fear not, The Oracle has not been recalled to assume his place amongst the gods. I was just working quite hard for a while.

It is thus fitting that I return to the Crusade with this magnificent article. When I first glanced at the thumbnail, I thought that a large bird had crapped on a layout pad. "Hmmm," I thought, "Interesting use of media." But alas, I was disappointed. And not for the first time.

Those of you who have bothered to read any of our other posts would have already established the scammish nature of this work just by observing the bottom right corner. I would say that this ad is for stain remover, but it's not really an ad, is it?

One thing that it has done is inspire me to write a poem - a haiku, in fact. Please humour me as I pen my thoughts.

In my throat a lump
Do my emotions fail me?
No it is vomit

The fine line between "art" and advertising

Kids, note how so many of our examples are so closely related to art. The reason for that is because "advertising" that doesn't really advertise anything is indeed art, it's just pretty... sometimes. The difference between scam and art arises in that art inspires you in some way, makes you think about things differently and challenges those around us to see life in a whole new light. Scam just makes you laugh, and sometimes queasy. 

Well now, look what have we here...An execution for the "China Organization Against Domestic Violence", entitled "Shadow".

Upon closer inspection, you can see that the little cute smiling boy is actually illustrated with millions of other kids being abused in the most interesting ways. Some are being shoved into a washing machine, others are being stretched like Mr Fantastic in Fantastic Four. Yet others are being flung by Superman with his super human strength across tall buildings. Amazing how mean some super heroes can be...

But what interests me is the idea behind the execution. A picture of a face made up of other, horrible horrible things (in this case Superman beating up children) certainly isn't fresh. Many other pieces of artwork have already used the same concept. But to call the execution in question "Shadow", along with the body copy calling on others to help children "living under the shadow of domestic violence"... WTF?! 

The image is one of a happy, smiley kid. There isn't one ounce of shadow being cast anywhere in this execution.. shouldn't the body copy have read something along the lines of "every happy kid is made up of thousands who have the shit kicked out of them regularly"? It certainly would have made a lot more sense.

Did the AD and CW sit together at any stage when they did this? Maybe they thought no one would notice because the art work is so awesome.. but wait.. they never considered that it's been done, makes fokol sense and is, at the core, pretty ugly. 

Being all knowing, I know that the only place where this sort of trash would be considered even remotely close to advertising is in Scam City.

chain up these cheats!

What a noble cause, to encourage everyone to support the education for young girls in India. Unfortunately, the Scammers have yet again sullied this worthwhile cause for personal gains.

Allegedly, according to the rationale, the cut-out cardboard of the little girl holds a chain link in parking lots. On the link, there's some drivel about  how you hold the education of the little cute cardboard girl (representing all young girls in India, one is meant to presume) in your hands, and your hands alone.

Now, these dirty, selfish, attention-seeking and fame-hungry ho's of creatives would want car drivers to stop, get out of their cars, remove the chain, get back in their cars, park their cars and then replace the chain for this piece of scambient to have its maximum impact. 

All seems so darn convenient in the rationale, but I can't help wondering "What part of this process comes across as convenient? Would irate drivers not just 

(a)drive over the manipulative piece of cardboard (complete with look-at-me-i'm-a-sad-little-girl-who-needs-education face), or

(b) the more likely route, to just NOT replace the chain once they've parked? In which case most of the idea is lost anyway..."

I know, I know, amazing piece of insight. It comes naturally.

Luckily for you green-horn scam hunters, there are some other tell-tale signs. Firstly, how on this Earth would a cardboard cut-out ever hold up to the weight of a metal chain, I would never know. More so, the shitty photoshopped image also doesn't cast a compelling enough shadow for this EVER to be real.. never.. ever.

Get Me Some Eyeplugs

Hmmm... An ad for sleeping pills. Quick, witty - you might even say intelligent. Except a glance at the logo indicates that the product is earplugs... are earplugs?... is earplugs? Actually, who gives a crap. If you're reading this blog, you've got enough insight to know what I'm talking about.

The bottom line is that earplug people don't make legit ads. "How can you say that?!" I hear all the goddamn hippies gasping in unison. Well, my badly-coiffed, vegetarian friends, when last did you see an earplug ad? Even if - for some bizarre reason - some company selling foam rubber pellets did decide to spend on a nice glossy DPS, where would they publish it? I can assure you that earplugs are used far more by hairy men with chainsaws and the guys who run around aircraft carriers carrying bombs all day than they are by mildly attractive female crack addicts (as above the scamvertisment would have us believe). Think about that for a second.

Then think about this: "More creatives are killed each year as a direct result of publishing scam than are crushed by Mac monitors."

There's a lesson to be learnt here. And it's got nothing to do with computers.

Passing judgement on scam

I have a problem with feet. I'm not ashamed to admit that. 

As  the following piece of foot-rot of an ad involves a graphic visual of  human cheese processors, I had to refer the consultation to one of our other colleagues, The Honorable Judge.

Below is the visual and what The Honorable Judge passed as his judgement. 

"The evidence brought forward by the Plaintiff - The Prophet (here-on-to-hence-forth referred to as P) in the case of 'P vs Brazilian Ad Scammers' (the latter, here-on-to-hence-forth referred to as THE SCAMMERS) brought in question as to whether the execution displays a gross intent of ad scamming.

As the real Big Idea behind advertising is to sell a product, and not to deter potential consumers from:

(i) engaging with The Brand,

(ii) purchasing products offered by the said Brand, and

(iii) learned Judges such as I always need a third sub-point in order to demonstrate our condemnation of grotesque violation of The Code of Good Advertising Practice, as stipulated under Act 98 of 1764, Section 31C, Subsection (iv) - (aa -af).

The main point of contention arose in this case whereby the accused  (THE SCAMMERS) displays objectionable object(s) - in this case a visual of human feet - and whether the object(s) grossly violates the Premium nature of the brand, an affirmative answer of which would demonstrate 'questionable Strategic Objectives'. 

'Questionable Strategic Objectives' weighs heavily against the accused, on a balance of probabilities that the "ad" in question indeed violates  The Code of Good Advertising Practice, as stipulated under Act 98 of 1764, Section 31C, Subsection (iv) - (aa -af). 

Evidence presented regarding  the offending object(s) in the promotion of a Premium wine brand indeed shows that: 

'The foot has more than 250,000 sweat glands. It's the mixture of sweat and bacteria in our shoes and socks that makes feet smelly.'

The discongruency shown by the evidence brought to light indeed proves that the object(s) in question do not marry the Premium nature of the brand, as no consumer who fit under the description of 'sound and reasonable mind' would want to be reminded of how the primary ingredient in their $X bottle of wine was processed with the use of such unhygienic body parts, and in such unhygienic fashion.

As such, the evidence precludes me from finding in favour of THE SCAMMERS, as was precedented in the case of P vs The Saudi Scammers in Case  76, 2004 (CHS)."

______________________________________________________________________

SO: there you have it, Scam-Hating Friends. Can't really argue against that can you? I guess you can always take it up on appeal but all i can say is "good luck".

Domestic Violence Is Bad. Unless Directed At This Creative Team

For those of you who were experiencing cold sweats and uncontrolled vomiting because your addiction to Scam Hunters has not been satisfied over the past two weeks, I say this: "Shit happens". People don't pay me to write this. They pay me to do my other job. And you people can't fire me either.

The Prophet and I spent some time on the slopes of Mt Fuji undergoing a refresher course in the art of the Ninja. Basically, we snuck around in the shadows inflicting mortal wounds on unsuspecting passersby. So don't ever fuck with us. Ever.

Now to the business at hand.

Keeping to the Asian theme of this post, I have chosen a Chinese piece to slaughter. I bet the creative team who dreamt up this scamtastic piece of nonsense are rubbing their hands together with glee, thinking that they have tricked the world into believing their wicked lies. As a trained ninja, I instinctively know that this is the time to strike.

One question: Do people in China save envelopes for use later? Perhaps their bleached rectangular forms hold a special significance for people with a Confucian worldview? I only ask this because the success of this scampiece is dependent on reversing a million years of human evolution that commands us to tear the top edge of an envelope. Those damn hippie types might occasionally tear the short side when someone else is watching them, but they only do that because they think it makes them appear different and thus interesting. Idiots.

The makers of this tripe expect it to, "Hopefully shock people". I'll tell you what will shock people: finding the entire creative team face-down in the canteen with six ninja stars in their backs.

Cutting down Scammers

I think i threw up in my mouth a little when i saw this piece of crap.

In the rationale, the scammers alluded to some gibberish about getting "dealers and distributors excited about the new, special high-performance, battery-operated Bosch Rotak 43 LI lawn mower - with the help of an exceptional calender blah blah blah".

So.... does that mean that the dealers need to tear off every page for a whole year before they understand that the main product benefit for the lawn mower is that it cuts grass perfectly? Wait, did they even NEED a high-costing production for them to understand that? 

Give the dealers some credit, my German Scammers, just because the dealers don't sit around an office using words like "scamping", "conceptualising" and "brand personality" doesn't mean that they don't know what a lawn mower does. 

In the rationale, these dirty Scammers also claimed that the calender became a highly coveted collectors item. Must be because there are so many people wanting to point and laugh at this piece of trash.