Life In Advertising

On the occasion of the start of the last quarter of the year, I'm interrupting my Paris Je T'aime series to bring you this little infographic on the life I have chosen:

As usual, click to embiggen.

Thanks to copyranter for the link.


And never fear, I shall be back to bore you with more pictures of Paris afterwards.


A tout a l'heure, messieurs.

Ara Na, Ara Na, Aria, Aria

A short but sweet intermission number before I bore you some more with my Tokyo tales.

Came across this funny spot from copyranter, and thought it somehow dovetailed with Eternal Wanderer's post about why he breeds breathes opera:

Don't worry, Ternie.

I'm sure Dame Joan would've approved.

Bad, BAD Bed

It was Star Wars Day the other day, and to mark the occasion, copyranter featured one of BED's ads in his blog.

BED, you have arrived.

Rated X-tianity.

Well, this seems like as appropriate a season as any.

HuffPo reports of a billboard in New Zealand featuring Joseph and Mary in a rather...compromising position which has had devout Xtians Christians up in arms.

Okay, so this is supposed to be...sacrilegious.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A billboard at a New Zealand church depicting a downcast Joseph lying beside Mary in bed and the heading "God is a hard act to follow" provoked more than the intended reconsideration of the meaning of Christmas.

The sign was defaced by a paint-wielding vandal just hours after it was erected Thursday outside the St. Matthew-in-the-City Anglican church in Auckland, and triggered passionate and sometimes angry debate on talk radio and the Internet.

The billboard was commissioned by the church and was the work of  M&C Saatchi.  According to the HuffPo story:

Church vicar Archdeacon Glynn Cardy said the billboard was intended to challenge stereotypes about the way Jesus was conceived and get people talking about the Christmas story.

"This billboard is trying to lampoon and ridicule the very literal idea that God is a male and somehow this male God impregnated Mary," said Cardy, who described his church as having very liberal ideas about Christianity.

"We would question the Virgin Birth in any literal sense. We would question the maleness of God in any literal sense," he said.

On the opposing side, Auckland Catholic Diocese spokesperson Lyndsay Freer said

"...the billboard implied the Virgin Mary and Joseph had just had sex and was inappropriate, disrespectful and offensive to Christians.

'We would see a billboard like that being used by an anti-Christian group to actually poke fun at the divinity of Christ,' Freer told National Radio."

Strictly as an ad man, I consider the billboard in bad taste. A cheap shot, a lazy execution, even though it got a chuckle out of me. Then again, Kiwis - like their Aussie neighbors - have always struck me as having a refreshingly irreverent sense of humor. Be that as it may, while the offending billboard certainly has generated attention and interest, I'm unsure if it was the kind the church was aiming for. Judging by the response thus far, instead of thought it seems to have provoked anger instead. Way to lose your target audience, Saatchi.

But what do you call throwing brown paint over an image of the BVM, then?

Mmm I wonder if these guys ever surfed LOLJesus. They only have 30 piddling entries in their Hate Mail section as of presstime. Whatever stripe of Christian you are, you just gotta love their tagline: Dedicated to Damnation. That's as truthful a disclaimer as there ever was.

However, if you value your eternal soul, maybe you better not click on that link. Just stick with seancody or xtube or chat away on mIRC. These fine alternative sites are supposed to roast you in hellfire forever and ever the same way, anyhow - but with less LOLs and more tiKOLs.

In the meantime, I look forward to your knee-jerk reactions the same way I am looking forward to my family Christmas reunion tomorrow. Because if ever there is a hell, that annual event comes closest to it.

Holy Cow!

This must be a sign.

Just yesterday I posted an apologia entry inspired by beef patties and the heathens who love them, and guess what I run into today:

Pic from imnotsayin. Some rights reserved.

Apparently, some Brazilian creatives like their ads the way they like their burgers: half-cooked and tasteless.

Or, as copyranter rails:

That’s a hell of an unpaid, unauthorized product endorsement. Wall poster inside Rio de Janeiro international airport for Bob’s, a Brazilian burger chain apparently not associated with our idolized Big Boy. Literal headline translation: “Bob’s. Brazilian as you like.” On the plus side: at least they used an illustration and not a photo of the city’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue. On the negative side: well, damnation for us all. Also note, the illustrator turned Jesus’s hand so’s he could hold the blasphemous burger, a burger that the blog “i’m not sayin, i’m just sayin” says is less than divine-tasting.

Hell of a casting coup indeed. But I fear that aside from 30 silver pieces, there'd also be hell to pay.

On the positive side, I'd like to imagine that, in lieu of thunderbolts, maybe Christ O Redentor is just about to hurl that giant burger at the agency guys who took His endorsement in vain.

All I know is that if we ever tried that here, we'd be crucified sooner than you can say Deus Ex-Burger Machina.

Considering how Judeo-Christian deities react to Golden Calves, should I stop feasting on the offerings of the Golden Arches? Am I playing beef patty-cake with the heavenly hosts for gustatory sins of the flesh ?

Maybe I should find some soul food to go.

Let there be tuna, and let it be light!

Animal Appeal

Well, it's about time I got in on this bandwagon.

Two bloggers I follow just recently posted on the hazards of eating burgers. I-am-beki waved goodbye to Quarter Pounders (with cheese, mind you. I don't know his stand on royale sans fromage * ), while Gibbs warned us about how burgers could shatter your life.

As an unrepentant consumer of dead animal remains, I appreciate the warnings about how beef by-products put our health at steak stake.When I am in the mood to eat (which, luckily for our animal friends, isn't often), I'm either in the mood for fine swine or something fowl. But if only Bessie is on the menu, I am not cowed by any potential bovine retribution from the grave.

Oh, don't have a cow, man!

Contrary to the exhortations of vegans, I offer no apologies for having no beef with eating something which had a face - not counting lovers past and present. Some of those I actually regret.

Besides, how can I resist? Just look at them:

Images from Thailand's Rachachuros Seasoning Campaign.

Now, offensive as these images of raw nudity must be to our vegan friends, I must ask them to respect my dietary preferences, in the same manner I scoff at respect theirs.

If we are truly what we eat, then I confess: I am an animal! An animal!! AN ANIMAL!!! MY BROTHER IS NOT A PIG!!!!

If there's a problem with that - eat me.


Buttons from The Liberal Store.

*Fromage: What a French photographer would tell his subjects to say before he presses the button.