Case study number one is the “Green Police” ads by Audio, which couches its anti-PC message in ironic humor, thereby softening the seriousness of its subtext. It confirms the fears that environmental regulation will result in a police state, and turns anyone who cares about the environment into a potential fascist. While we may laugh at such cartoony fears (it’s only a joke, right?), the Rush Limbaugh crowd takes them very seriously.

(It’s not an illegitimate protest. From an eco-justice point of view, the threat of global regulations forced upon local populations is real, but in the latter case the concern is that corporate interests will hijack environmental rhetoric in the service of obliterating local autonomy in the same way that trade liberalization promoted by the WTO has done.)

Here Audi defends the rich white male’s perceived loss of autonomy and his right to be a jerk. My particular peeve against Audi is based on personal experience in Europe where Audi drivers across the board are the most arrogant and dangerous exemplars of the tragedy of commons (for example, watch this ad). On highways one must be in constant alert of Audis rushing at jet fighter speed, lest your leisurely Sunday afternoon drive through the Tuscan countryside ends in a pile of crushed steel, bones and shattered glass.

The paranoia exhibited by Audi plays into the general meme that government regulation of corporate abuses will translate into socialist totalitarianism. Say “Green Police” ten times fast and you may end up with “Greenpeace.”

Call this a backlash shot across the bough of environmental activism. Green consciousness becomes the work of thought police.

You can see more “Green Police” ads and PSAs here.

Case study number two comes from Bud Lite, which (yawn) sticks to its failsafe storyline. In it Bud Lite’s primary target audience (those possessed by an inner 13-year-old “mook“) must retreat to their boys-only (stripper exception clause allowed) playhouse to take cover from moralistic authorities (women) who condemn their innocent behavior. But now the right to secrecy, addiction and misogyny is threatened by ecological activism. In this ad, rather than a house being built of recycled beer cans (which excites a young female foil), its owners have constructed a living refrigerator, without realizing, however, that symbolically it’s also a morgue.

Case Study number three is the Budweiser bridge. The only thing surprising about this ad is how it blatantly demeans humans as mere slaves to their corporate overlord. In this case, people are willing to let the truck (a symbolic container of the Budweiser corporate brand) drive over their backs. So while the previous ads play into people’s fears of losing individual freedom to ethical constraints, here people voluntarily become the servomechanism of corporate power and control. How’s that for ironic Super Bowl humor!

Bonus footage: Go here to see a hilarious Daily Show deconstruction of Super Bowl ads from 2004.

The pith* theory of advertising.

* Pithing is when you stick a needle in the brain of a live frog. The goal is to scramble its brain in order to immobilize it for dissection while it is still alive. When applied to advertising a paradox or insult is used like a needle to confuse and conquer unwilling media gawkers into immobile rage. In protest I won’t post a link.

Apparently, even nothing can be commodified.

Via IdentityCampaigning.

Not to be a bummer on this great inauguration day (can’t believe it’s happening), but in perfect postironic, postmodern harmony, a presidential slogan and soda marketing campaign mash-up perfectly. Is Pepsi cashing in on Obama? Consider article 1) Pepsi’s Refresh Everything, and article 2) Obama’s campaign site. Hmmm.

(images from Instapundit)

Pepsi: “Every generation refreshes the world.” (I insist you click this link for sardonic humor purposes)

Further links:

AdAge: Pepsi, Coke Try to Outdo Each Other With Rays of Sunshine

Bog Garfield: There’s Nothing Wrong With Spreading the Joy of Cola

This should come as no surprise but marketers are taking a perfectly great public theater tactic and turning it into a advertising technique. In the above ad T-Mobile takes the idea of flash mobs and Improve Everywhere to turn them into a hokey displays of corporate performance art. Why is this a problem? Obviously everyone are enjoying themselves. The difficulty is that practices like this contribute to an increasingly confusing environment in which the work of activists and artists get mixed up with marketing. People will no longer be able to tell the difference between guerrilla theater, performance art, street protest and marketing tactics. Ads like the above clip trivialize human creativity in the service of selling objects.

Yet another chapter in which a major corporation postitions itself as the savior of culture against the oppressor. As I wrote previously about Snicker and its clever Webisodes that somehow tried to convince kids that Mars Inc. is the savior of hip hop and youth culture, another caffeinated sugar pusher, Mountain Dew, has created this small semi-interactive universe in which Dew is equated with the elixer of freedom.

As high budget cartoon dystopias go, DEWmocracy is the mother of all corporate cannibals, riffing on the Matrix, The Invisibles, 1984, while managing to include a requisite Native American (with a really bad wig) to tell our skateboarding hero that he is “The One.” Hard to believe, but this bad acting trumps Keanu Reeves. Mountain Dew even includes pseudo participation in which user generated designs can become the next Dew label. Yeah for democracy.

The project also has a bunch of mysterious interrogation videos uploaded to YouTube, by one mysterious seedvideos1234, which is an odd bit of art imitating life given the recent scandal of the alleged destruction of CIA torture videos. But you won’t see the viral videos on YouTube associated with the DEWmocracy site, either because it’s just so bad PesisCo is disowning it, or it’s now too old to be bothered with (I have been sitting on this post for six months– sorry to be so out of it).

Just for fun, here’s an anti-Dew piece that attacks Pepsi for hypocritically advocating corporate responsibility while plastering the city with its ad graffiti.

This ad takes a systems approach to anxiety by showing the psychological impact of buying the wrong shoes. Though tongue and cheek, the ad makes visible its own persuasion technique. This should be considered a small victory for us viewers because we have become so cynical about advertising they need to show us that we’re right. But still buy their shoes anyway!

UPDATE: Surprise, surprise the Daily Show is all over this one.

When satire isn’t enough, you can depend on the Republican to insert a little more comedy into the routine.

GOP’s New Slogan Already Being Used To Market Anti-Depressant – Politics on The Huffington Post:

What the GOP doesn’t seem to realize, because they are idiots, is that “the change you deserve” is the registered advertising slogan of Effexor XR, a drug that many of you might have started taking as a result of all the…you know — terrorism. (Hat tip to Bluestem for catching this gem.)

Effexor, also known as Venlafaxine, is approved for the treatment “of depression, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and panic disorder in adults.” Its common side effects are very much in keeping with the world the House Republicans have striven to build: nausea, apathy, constipation, fatigue, vertigo, sexual dysfunction, sweating, memory loss, and – and I swear I am not making this up – “electric shock-like sensations also called ‘brain zaps.’”

Its less common side effects are equally awesome in their appropriateness.

And when the Food And Drug Administration reviewed the ad copy that included the tagline, “The change you deserve,” it took issue with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which manufactures Effexor, saying that the company made “unsubstantiated superiority claims.” Sounds like the GOP have picked an ironically accurate tagline for their efforts!

File this one under WTF. Adidas finds a safe rebellion to latch onto to give it some street cred by creating a little action movie about rebel gardeners with GPS, night vision and an assortment of other TV crime show devices. Notice the quasi-’70s-era bongo suspense music. Thing is, gardens take nurturing, building and developing their niches, in other words, an ecological context. Additionally, what about starting a *community* garden? In this case I at least hope once they plant these beautiful set pieces that someone will water them!

Sadly, as much as I think guerrilla gardening is a cool action worth promoting, the ad is so trite and contrived I think most that would potentially be inspired by the idea will see through Adidas’ ploy as yet another tactic to equate fashion with revolution. Rather than pass itself off as a device for urban rebellion, just sell the damn product for what it is: a shoe! And stop pretending your dumb-ass sneakers are a tool for social transformation.
Still in case you are enthused, here’s a link to a nonpartison group, Guerilla Gardening, which may inspire you to do your own action (with or without corporate sponsorship).

And not to disappoint, there are a number of DIY books on how to start your own urban (gardening) revolution:

“On Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening Without Boundaries” (Richard Reynolds)

“Guerrilla Gardening: A Manualfesto” (David Tracey)

“Guerrilla Gardening: How to Create Gorgeous Gardens for Free” (Barbara Pallenberg)