Burn baby, burn

The last ad I showed you guys with Olay and Peter Pan got me thinking.
I didn't really write much about it. So what was so good about it? It didn't just show us what the product does, it implied. But that's not the impressive part.

I mean, any company can throw a bag of cash on a hot ass celeb's lap and say, "You love our product, don't you?" to make their tongue roll out and have them pant and nod harder than a lhasa apso with its head out a car's window. Though that may still be effective, because, like a game of telephone, when it gets to your eyes and ears the message becomes: "Use this. Obviously you're not as skinny, pretty or sexy as this hottie...but you could be," it's not exactly creatve, no is it?

But some ads take the time to think about the product, the brand and come come up with something hot.

This one by Tabasco is brilliant. You can't help but think up the caption yourself:
"Tabasco. It's hot as hell!"

We get a little bit of sex appeal with the firey red lips. The tattooed tongue's pretty cool and not only gets you wondering what kind of girl this is, but it burns an association of the product into our heads.

Even the placement of the Tabasco bottle next to the mouth tells us something practical about the product.

Here, ladies and gentlemen, we have ad perfection. And when this ad dies, it's going to ad heaven.

Forever Young...

I thought I'd keep in the vein of female-targeted ads after last post, and here we have one from Olay.

No caption, the image says it all.

Props to Olay for this one. You guys got it right.

Creative and simple, the use of this iconic pop fiction figure to market your product is pure genius.

Just don't go Alphaville on us for your next TV spot, k?

The Blood Test

No matter how comfortable they claim their product makes a woman feel, I am always left feeling awkwardly uncomfortable after a feminine hygiene commercial.

It's not the permanently plastered facial expression of euphoria on a woman prancing around doing yoga like she actually believes she's a mystic Indian nor the alleged everywoman who goes synchronized swimming with her other girlfriends because that's just what she does during her downtime that's bothersome. That's all fine.

The problem is, it's just that I have an over-active imagination. And when they show me those serene images and then flash their product, I quickly get to thinking, wait...what would it be like if they WEREN'T "always fresh" in that situation? What's the opposite of that picture? And it's ads like the one below that get me thinking.

When I first saw this ad, I grunted out a laugh and thought, "Hah, clever." That was short-lived. Quicker than a nerd can say "Harry Potter," my imagination went into overtime and worked out the implications and consequences of a vampire with tampon teeth. Know what it came up with? "Ew. Wait. What blood is he sucking?"

Sorry, ladies, maybe I'm just still immature. I'll be the first to admit it.

So, maybe the mature thing to do is to recognize that Vampire-->Blood-->Menstruation is just an obvious progression...

What do you guys think? Let it all soak in, form an opinion and leave a comment to let us know what you think.

Ladies and Germs

This one makes you think, huh.

"Whose hand are you holding?"

Back when I was at university, I'd go down to the Student Union Building and use the public computers out there. Check my mail, Facebook a little, recheck where my classes were because I hadn't gone in a month...

Now, I know we had a pretty decent Student Society budget, so I was a little confused when, with the stroke of each key, it was like the keyboard was falling apart bit by bit. Chips flying this way and that way like a bunch of tweens right before a Miley Cyrus concert. But they're not what you'd think at first. They're worse.

Those weren't just wear-and-tear flakes chipping off the keys, they were flecks of crusty, dirty dirty mould, dried food, probably some solidified bodily fluids--and who knows what else--chipping off as I typed. Dirty dirty hippies. (Probably not, but I'm blaming them anywyay.)

Moral of the story, wash your hands! And Dettol reminds us pretty well in this image why we need to remember to.

So anyway, if my story wasn't gross enough for you, look at the holes going through those hanging arms. Brr. Aren't they freaky? Plus one of 'em has a band-aid. Shiver.

I feel dirty. I'm going to go try and wash this whole post off me.

Have a hygienic day,

The KandyMan

So Glue Me

In today's post, I wanted to show you something in complete contrast to the unimaginative and poorly thought out Burger King ad I showed you last time. Here's "Instant hold."

Unlike that ridiculous BK ad, this one by super-glue brand Pattex is totally tubular in its creativity and imagination.

It pokes at the viewer's imagination to create the situation frame-by-frame, and the picture that we ourselves create effectively communicates the supposed potency of the product. The association sticks.

For me, I can just picture Speedy Gonzales off-frame winding up, shouting 'Ariba, 'riba!' and then zooming into the frame about to grab that little piece of cheese and zoom off, when suddenly he looks back with a wide-eyed, puzzled expression and sees his precious precious feet stuck solid. Speedy meets his match. Then WHAM! A newspaper comes down on his cocky little Mexican ass. Hard. See ya, Speed.

Ok, maybe that went a little further than what they were trying to show (and probably TMI on my mouse issues), but you get the picture.

Simple, creative, stimulates the imagination and communicative; I'm glued to this ad. Good job, Pattex.

What did it make you, dear KandyLovers, think? Leave a your thoughts below.

Gratefulness

A big thanks to fellow-blogger and fashionista extraordinaire, Leia, for my new AdKandy banner and invaluable blogging tips!

Check out here blog!: http://hifashionsl.blogspot.com/

Thanks Leia!

-KandyMan

Virgins & Blowjobs

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Welcome!

Hello, World.

I have here for you today a soothing cure for your blog-battered eyes--my very first foray into public blogdom. Take a screen grab; it'll be worth something some day (and make sure you date-stamp).

I've held off sharing my semi-illuminating opinions for quite some time. This is somewhat due to the fact that I didn't want to fall into the same category as every other Tom, Dick and tween Britney who think that the minutiae of their existence is so profound that they are compelled to share with the billions of internet-connected individuals around the world the timings of their bowel movements (thanks Twitter!) and the name of the song to which they cried after their boyfriend said Hannah Montana sucks and the accompanying catharsis in the form of a pornographic YouTube video in the guise of an 'I just love dancing' striptease.

But it was also because I am always thinking of you, dear readers. I thought that you deserve better than another half-baked, I'll-post-once-in-a-blue-moon blog concept (blogcept). So I gave myself time to come up with an idea for which I would have sustainable enthusiasm. Nice, right?

Well, apparently all good things come to those who wait, because eureka! Lo and behold I have come up with such an idea.

I humbly introduce to you, AdKandy!

AdKandy is for those of us who appreciate advertisements as a creative form--or at the very least, as a force of cultural influence. They can be sweet; they can be sour. They can make us feel good; they can make us feel sick. They can be savoured one at a time, or we can devour them in a successive blast.

So, here I've made--just for you--a venue to eat up ads like candy.

AdKandy is a platform to look at, appreciate and discuss interesting advertisements (they'll all be print ads for now), making observations, cultural connections, parallels, critiques (or whatever else they may incite in that profound consciousness of yours whose outpourings you just can't resist sharing with billions of others) along the way.

Sure, we can demonize ads like the majority of the population would have us do. Or we can accept the Truth. Some ads are fun to look at. Accept it. Love it. Devour it. Eat AdKandy.

Yours sincerely,

The KandyMan

PS - To request an autographed copy of the screen grab you took above, write to me at kandyman (at) adkandy (dot) com.