The News:

A French anti-smoking campaign showing teenagers in a pose suggesting oral sex has caused an outrage in France. According to critics the ads trivialise sexual abuse and distract from the real health threats caused by smoking. 

Behind the News:

Although French advertising agencies are known for their tendency to use sexual references in their campaigns to increase consumer awareness, the posters for the Non-Smokers’ Rights Association Droits des Non-Fumeurs playing with the image of fellatio are regarded as going one step too far by the French.

The ads which are respectively showing one teenage girl and two boys kneeling in front of an older man having a cigarette in their mouth which seems to point at the man’s trousers feature the slogan: “Smoking Means Being a Slave to Tobacco.”

According to the association who commissioned the campaign, the posters do not illustrate sexual abuse in any form. They were created to shock young smokers and alter their behaviour which traditional campaigns are failing to do due to their low impact.

Despite tobacco being acknowledged as a serious health risk, being the number one cause of avoidable deaths (half of French students over 14 have tried it), many people regard the ads as unacceptable. According to a spokeswoman of the feminist pressure group Chiennes de Garde, it is "inadmissible" that an image implying sexual abuse should be used for an anti-smoking campaign and a spokeswoman of the conservative group Familles de France said that she plans to lodge a complaint with the French advertising standards watchdog.

Although these ads are only going to be published in France it is very likely that a similar outrage would be caused in other countries. Despite the fact that shock advertising is widely used around the world it has always been the most controversial form and advertising agencies have to be aware of the cultural standards in their country in order to launch a successful campaign.

Does sex always sell?

Using sex to sell mints!

German cucumbers get Durex protection...

Whoever is behind this campaign clearly does not have the wrong job...!

I recently stumbled upon a blog post showcasing this amazingly creative OOH campaign for the German job site: Jobsintown.de. This is undoubtedly one of the most imaginative campaigns I've come across. I'll definitely be thinking twice next time I go through airport security!

This year was a bumper year for media wags and comedians on April Fool's day, although frankly last year's rumour of an ad-funded airline that was free for passengers is going to take some beating. Google is a bit of an April Fool veteran with a track record of putting out daft stories and crazy videos, and their comedic past has been visualised in this infographic.

Who said tech-geeks had no sense of humour.  

From Zippycart.

It seems that lately, when it comes to media and the marketing industry in general, creativity is all I hear about. Whether it’s about getting consumers to co-create or just exposing them to creativity, the latter has become more important than ever for a campaign to stand out. I should know, I just graduated from a marketing master’s degree that has the word “creativity” in it.

The rise of social media and mobile marketing has opened doors for brands to explore creativity. It is thus no surprise that brands have increasingly been positioning themselves as creative and artistic.

For Absolut Vodka, a brand that is reputed for inspiring people to connect with the arts since the 80s, creativity is a no-brainer. Their recent campaign promoting the new limited edition bottle Absolut Glimmer has taken its mission to the next level by involving social media platforms. Absolut asks fans to co-create by letting the brand know what makes them special. Artists hired by Absolut then went out and “wrote the word with light.”

Red Bull, a long-time champion of street art has recently launched “Red Bull Street Art View,” using Google Street View to showcase street art all over the globe. People are invited to tag their favourite street art and share it with friends to help build a global street art collection.

Technology has fostered a renaissance of older types of art and creativity. Indeed, there has been a growing public appreciation for street art, which was once looked down upon. Campaigns like “Red Bull Street View” have brought this art medium to a unified global audience. Filmmaker Jon Reiss has recently launched “Bomb It app,” a mobile app providing street art fans with a community platform through which they can share photos of art they discover.

As technology fuels the growing public appreciation of all things graffiti, we might start to see many more creative campaigns in this space.

Here’s a great idea for the eco-friendly music aficionado with plenty of time on their hands. Forget making matchstick models of ships in bottles, how about painstakingly creating a giant wooden glockenspiel inside a forest.

This is what Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo recently did as part of an advertising campaign for its limited edition Touch Wood, back to nature-style, handset.

The mobile manufacturer constructed a mile long wooden marimba instrument in the heart of a forest, enabling a wooden ball that traversed the structure to play out a gentle, melodious version of Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’.

Just how many felled trees it took to construct the eco-friendly, minimalist iPod is open to question. However, it’s certainly a refreshingly peaceful piece of ambient advertising in the increasingly cluttered, chaotic and bombastic mobile marketing sector.

When it comes to luxury brands, exclusivity is crucial to their survival as they thrive on their elite image. So how can these brands cope in today’s social media age where the power is shifting from the brand almighty to the consumer?

After all, marketers and so-called social media buffs all champion this new era as the time when consumers need to be listened to and appreciated. Many brands have even taken this a step further by giving up partial control, taking up the curious activity dubbed ‘co-creation,’ where consumers actually take part in the creation of the product.  

How can luxury and more specifically designer brands who rely so heavily on their unattainability survive in this brave new world? Few have succeeded. In fact, Gucci and Burberry are the only ones who come to mind. Burberry’s Art of the Trench website, where fans shared pictures and anecdotes via Facebook about the emblematic Burberry trench coats, was a triumph.

Thus, while every other brand is desperately trying to figure out how to jump on the social media bandwagon, luxury brands are increasingly pressured to follow suit. Gucci has succeeded in getting four million fans to “like” their page on Facebook. Does every single one of those fans own a Gucci product? Most definitely not, but social media is allowing the designer brands to communicate with their audience in whole new ways. These new digital platforms allow high-luxury brands to share pictures, videos, and all sorts of information about upcoming collections and events. While not everyone will be able to afford that five thousand pound dress, people can dream about it, talk about it, and who knows, maybe someday own it.

Oscar de la Renta is taking things to a bold new step, as it launches its first fragrance in ten years on Facebook. Indeed, in order to generate buzz over the new scent, these next few weeks will be dedicated to giving out samples of the perfume, Esprit d’Oscar, on a special section of the social media platform. Michele de Bourbon, Oscar de la Renta’s head of marketing for fragrance claims that through social media and its more affordable fragrance line, consumers have been able to “experience the world of Oscar.”

Although this is not the first fragrance to be launched via Facebook—Marc Jacobs launched a perfume through a Facebook game last year, it will be interesting to see how Oscar de la Renta fares with this digital launch. I certainly think it’s a brave move, but if the brand wants to make waves, it can’t do this halfway. Just giving out samples on Facebook seems a bit shy to me. But I’ll be watching this closely as this could mark a new era for the luxury industry and social media marketing.

See also "Watch Building Tutorial," where Jaeger Le Coultre creates an app that teaches people about the craft of luxury watch making and JCDecaux installs scented airport posters to deliver perfume sampling.