Two round things with something creamy inside (possibly NSFW)

The ad below was supposedly made by Cheil Communications for Dong-suh Foods (the distributor for some Nabisco products in Korea). Adweek says it's a refreshingly non-puritanical ad that wouldn't fly in the USA.

The thing is, I'm not so sure it has flown in the ROK either. Sure, we've seen actual ad campaigns like the full backside nude butts in the pre-Yuna Kim "be white" advertising campaign for Smoothie King (am I the only one who remembers that?), and breasts and nipples in the context of breastfeeding are not so taboo in South Korea, but this just smells like a fake in the way the hot-and-cold Kia advertising campaign did in 2011.

Anyone in Korea right now seen the Oreo-breast-baby ad?

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Koreanization hits US advertising?

This "not for women" advertisement for a new Dr Pepper product would be a blatant example of what we call gendered advertising:

Looking for a drink worthy of a man's man? Don't cue that Dos Equis commercial just yet -- the maker of Dr Pepper is rolling out Dr Pepper Ten, a 10-calorie soda with an ad campaign that asserts that the soft drink is "not for women." ...

This isn't the first time food products have blatantly targeted men -- Pocky biscuits, popular in Japan, have a Men's Pocky edition (in blue packaging) as well.

Other diet soft drinks -- such as Coke Zero and Pepsi Max -- have been marketed toward a male audience as well, but perhaps not as aggressively as Dr Pepper Ten, according to the Associated Press. One ad involves wrestling snakes, shooting lasers and engaging in other such 'macho' activities.

"A Facebook page for the drink contains an application that allows it to exclude women from viewing content, which includes games and videos aimed at being 'manly,'" the story explains. "For instance, there's a shooting gallery where you shoot things like high heels and lipstick, for example."

It's not made clear why appealing to men includes using deadly weapons to destroy symbols associated with women.

I wonder what The Grand Narrative would have to say, since he says a lot about this phenomenon in Korean marketing.

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(UPDATED) Kia WTF ad...

I'm not sure what they're smoking down in Brazil, but it makes them come up with things that would not go over well in the United States.

Courtesy of Huffington Post, we get word of this Kia of Brazil (?) advertising campaign that won a silver at the Cannes Creativity Awards.

Above is the offending picture (click it to enlarge and read the text). The idea is that the small-size Sportage SUV has a dual-zone climate control, so the two sides of the car can have very different temperatures, exemplified by one side being kiddish, and the other side very adult.

The other ad in this series makes the point with more clarity and less controversial. It depicts a cartoonish prince charming coming in to a castle, declaring in the upper left frame that he will break the spell that has the princess in a deep sleep by kissing her. In the upper right frame, in a style more reminiscent of the cover of romance novels, he is approaching her with both their tongues out, ready to Freedom Kiss.

In the middle left frame, the re-cartoonized prince (who looks a little like a slim version of Bob of Bob's Big Boy) is declaring to the re-cartoonized princess (who does look a bit younger than the steamy romance novel version of the princess) that he has come to rescue her. In the middle right frame, with her finger enticingly on her mouth, she declares, "Oh, it's my Prince Charming and his huge stallion."

Okay. In the lower left frame, the re-re-cartoonized prince takes the princess's hand and dreamily says, "Indeed, my beloved lady." (Lady, so she's of legal age, I guess.) But in the lower right frame, the romance novel version of the princess, whose dress is falling off and practically revealing her boobs, asks if the prince has any interesting ideas on how she can show him her gratitude.

Okay, then. One side is kiddish, and the other side is adult. Dual themes of the same scene. But in the prince-rescues-princess sample, there are no hints at something untoward. Not so with the ad way up above, where at the very least, it seems to be promoting the idea of teachers and students becoming sexually involved. At worst, it inserts the very icky suggestion that an adult figure might look at young and innocent schoolgirl as a sex object.

[source]

Okay, this Brazil and France, where, I'm guessing, anything goes, relative to the US (or South Korea). But in America where pedophilia and sex with minors are are very serious issues, this is offensive. Some two-thirds of the HuffPost readers think so, anyway.

Frankly, I can't imagine this fitting in with the old adage that there's no such thing as bad press. It's one thing to sell sex (and loads of people say they're offended by that, but it always manages to get attention), but it's another to seem to pander to pedophiliac proclivities. Really, even if that was not the intent of the ad creators, it's such an obvious conclusion for just about any reader, and I can't see how Kia can get out of this without distancing itself from this ad and apologizing. That is, if this news gains traction.

UPDATE:
Prompted by a comment from gbnhj at The Marmot's Hole, I went looking for news that Kia had denied they had anything to do with this ad campaign. At this site I found a denial by Kia:

Kia Motors America (KMA) has become aware of an offensive piece of advertising material that was created by an ad agency in Brazil that KMA has no business relationship with and has never worked with. This ad was not created in the U.S. by Kia Motors America or any of its marketing partners and does not reflect the opinions or values of KMA or Kia Motors Corporation. The ad is undoubtedly inappropriate, and on behalf of Kia Motors we apologize to those who have been offended by it. We can guarantee this advertisement has never and will never be used in any form in the United States, and our global headquarters in Seoul, South Korea is addressing the issue with the independent Brazilian distributor.

That site says the advertising company broke the rules by submitting an ad campaign that was not actually run, and they appear likely to get the prestigious award yanked. In an earlier posting, they had harsh words for Kia, along with some interesting background on other award-winning ads' boorishness (see below for an example involving Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in a Reporters Without Borders advert, with the caption, "Censorship tells the wrong story").

That actually reminds me of a gag series I'd been planning for a future post, one inspired by an old gag on Jimmy Kimmel Live: inappropriately pixelated pictures of Kim Jong-il.

That's right. I'm fourteen years old.

UPDATE 2:

Instead of getting back to work, I perused a number of posts at the very interesting BNET advertising blog, The Tagline, which included this bit of Hitler-themed artwork at right. In fact, I had written a post on this back in September 2009, with a title I am embarrassed to have written but which still cracks me up. 

Nazis. I hate these guys.

Courtesy of Brian's website, we get news of Hitler Walkers. These are trendy-looking casual walking shoes that are storming their way through Korea. Sort of like a blitzkrieg.

Okay, bad joke, but I don't know what else to say. Naming a consumer item after one of the worst mass murderers in world history is so blatantly wrong that at first I thought there might be some mistake. Maybe they say 하틀러 instead of 히틀러, or maybe they were trying to Hangulize Heathrow and it got all mucked up (히드로).

But nope. They're really shoes named after Hitler, looking a bit like jackboots lite. And they're fashionable shoes named after Hitler, so it's only a matter of time before they invade other East Asian markets or, worse, they end up in a Korea soap opera for every sensitive person in North America to gawk at, mouths agape.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

In the weird fetish toward Nazi-era chic that weirdly pokes its head up from time to time in East Asia (it's also in Japan, Taiwan, Mongolia, and a few other places), there are okay references and definitely bad references.

An okay reference would be something like, say, naming a bar after a famous German general from World War II who wasn't actually a Nazi and was entangled in a plot to oust Hitler. A definitely bad reference would be naming a bar after Der Führer. A borderline but probably bad reference would be using Nazi-esque uniforms and what sounds like a speech by Hitler in the background audio of a cosmetics commercial with only a French painting of Liberté to balance out the imagery.

Calling your shoes Hitler is definitely bad. Bad enough that there should be a letter-writing campaign, phone calls, etc., etc., until the product is renamed or discontinued. I think Heathrow Walkers sounds quite nice.

And like LG when they had that whole fiasco with blackface, now that they know about the problem, there is no excuse for not doing something about it.

Cars that (finally) make sense

In honor of Hyundai's record-breaking sales (item #6), the New York Times has posted the above commercial as their "classic ad" of the week, with the following commentary:

You can say one thing for Hyundai in the 1980s: it didn’t lack for nerve.

The South Korean automaker entered the United States market in 1986 with the Excel, a subcompact initially priced at less than $5,000, and quickly undersold its way to a new sales record for an import.

Perhaps that early success explains this week’s classic ad, which offers a side-by-side comparison (presumably tongue-in-cheek) of the Excel and the BMW 3 Series. The Bimmer driver, a classic white-collar villain — he looks as if he might be an associate of Patrick Bateman’s — practically sneers at the Excel. In response, our hero in the Hyundai merely straightens his tie: he’s ready to roll.

Just when it looks as though we might see an old-fashioned yuppie drag race, the 3 Series bows out and heads for the bank. Sure, Mister Bimmer may be depositing another trunkload of gold bullion, but you can just tell he’s miserable inside. The Excel, meanwhile, just putters sensibly along.

Of course, the Hyundai driver may be headed for the dealership to fix whatever has come loose underneath his hood.

It's interesting that a quarter century later Hyundai is still marketing itself as a big money saver, but now alongside excellent crash-test results (the picture reminds me of Inception), high quality, and reliability. Of course, old impressions die hard, and that's still why Hyundai (and Kia) were obliged to provide ten-year warranties on their cars. And even now, when impressions have changed dramatically, those warranties can be a decision-making difference: It was the super-long warranty on a Santa Fe that broke the Toyota-Chrysler stranglehold on my parents since 1978 (with the occasional Honda/Acura).

Another difference since the Reagan era: You actually can compare a Hyundai to a BMW without eliciting snickers.