David Beckham for H&M Spring 2012

Okay we all know this is the Buzz campaign of the season and Mr. Beckham's name is on everybody's lips but I'm still really curious about this campaign and thus, the products he's tryna sell us in the meantime.

I'd like to know what most people think about that new campaign and about David Beckham's line of men's underwear. While the only comments I have eavesdropped all referred to his sexy pictures and very-visible wrinkles, I'm truly curious about the quality of both the fabric and the design of the clothes themselves. I'm wondering how it feels to be wearing something Mr. Beckham to go to bed in.

As long as I think white underwear looks clean and neat, I also think are unrealistic when it comes to wearing it: don't people every think about the long-term effects of heavy sweat and rubbing on white fabric? Haven't you all experienced the very unpleasant smell and colours being added to the underwear after you've worn it or even outworn it a few times?

For all of the subtlely-inserted allusions I made in the above paragraph, I think white underwear is bad for your self-consciousness as through wearing it we might all begin to think we're sweaty bastards or even dirty boys if you know what I mean...! That's why I might consider buying Beckham's jockstraps and night gowns but only if I can find nice black, grey or navy blue ones!

I actually stopped by an H&M shop a few days ago and saw the section where they placed his new line and saw the prices which are reasonably-retailable and the packages. I'm still thinking about should I buy because I actually need it and it has the potential to be the best underwear ever or is it some kind of celebrity con where the perceived value is rigged and I'll end up feeling abused and restless?!

I don't think he's just a "soul whose intentions are good..."!!!

Unhate Benetton's Campaign!!!

Pictures are worth more than words and this assumption is being validated by Benetton's latest campaign (which will probably be banned by the way)! Their soon-to-be-pulled-off ad campaign was entitled "Unhate" and featured world leaders (political figures) kissing. This involved a certain level of homosexuality, surrealism and impossibility. Indeed, you'll be able to see the photoshopped faces of Barack Obama kissing the president of North Korea and Hugo Chavez (the president of Venezuela) and Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy make out. I think the best pic is definitely the one with the leaders of Israel and the leader of the movement for Palestine's independence share a kiss (Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas respectively). 

The executive deputy chairman of Benetton, Alessandro Benetton who presented the ad in Paris two weeks ago said that "the images are very strong, but we have to send a strong message. We are not wanting to be disrespectful of the leaders ... we consider them "conception figures" making a statement of brotherhood with a kiss". I agree with him; it's fiction, don't freak out, the intention isn't bad either. The group is said to have planned a serie of live actions intended to bring young people together to post the photos of the horny leaders "on the walls of locations symbolic of the desperately-needed peace process: Tel Aviv, New York, Rome, Milan, Paris."

The United Colors of Benetton have a long history of controversy and turmoils but I just love it. I think progressist movements such as these whether they come from political figures, independent people, corporations or celebrities are very appropriate for the era we're in as society as to continue to evolve and people have to stop freaking out when others use mockery to testify of their disappointment with political leaders. 

 

Funny Schweppes Commercial with Uma Thurman

As a student in Marketing and as I took an advertising class, I'm supposed to be interested by advertising commercials and creative artistic directions undertaken by big corporations lol. And so that's how this morning it hit me: I was watching tv in the south of France (I'm in Nice) and got to see this über funny commercial containing a flagrant sexual innuendo. I've always loved Schweppes but I think I like it even more now that they have featured the fashionable diva slash actress Uma Thurman in a sexual yet glamour way lol. Enjoy y'all!

Song of the Week (une 13th to June 19th)

This week's winner is none other than J.Lo.! Hurray for the Latin bombshell! Even though I find that her last single "On The Floor" is slightly over-rated and getting anoying since it's always playing on the radio, I have to say that J.Lo rocks and that she took the industry by storm with her cumback after giving birth to her twins.

Her new song (the winner), is called "I'm Into You" and could be described as a mellow R&B ballad featuring famed New Orleans-based rapper Lil' Wayne. Not only is this song irresistible and cute, the video is hot and fashionable. J.Lo is seen wearing beautiful gowns, flawless makeup and seems happier and more confident than ever. I was also more than thrilled to see that caliente Cuban chico William Levy is in the clip!

OMFG what a hunky dude he is! I'm so jealous of "La Lopez" to have had the chance to cuddle with this hot poodle. The video also depicts the pyramids of Chichen Itza in Mejico and shows J.Lo dancing in an African tribe-inspired choreography with two black dancers. The only thing that's slightly bothering me is the fact that there is an unsubtle ad for Koma juice and Gucci glasses at the beginning of the clip! Even a blind person could see it since it's so flagrant! Shame on you, J.Lo's financial team! You tried that you could fool us by earning extra penny to feature companies' ad in her clip well you got it wrong, we noticed it and find it anoying!

Advertising Campaign part 3

We wanted to explain and back our assumption that most advertising targeted at gay men depicted graphic photos and sexual imagery so we added some examples of other ads from other companies in our presentation! The ads are the following:

Aussie DNA Magazine

"Bottoms... and Tops" by American Apparel! lol

Fab Magazine

"Now's the Time" by Coors Light, nice ass by the way!

France-based Têtu Magazine

Out Magazine... Chocolate and Vanilla

Canadian gay store Priape's summer catalogue

To be relevant and consistent with our hypotheses, we needed to give further explanations regarding the nature of these ads and as to why we decided to use a similar concept for our own print ad. We went on with our justifications and also claimed and proposed that targeting the gay community would be a huge opportunity for Mitsubishi as not a lot of car companies have had the idea yet. Up till now, only Volvo, Subaru, land Rover and Hyundai have dared to try their shot within the gay community. We gave the examples of their ads and also had the idea that Mitsubishi could create a foundation to promote gay rights and selft esteem for LGBT people and offer them a shelter. The following print ads are all car ads targeted at Queers:

Volvo is "as excited as you"...

Advertising Campaign part 2

As you have learned in the part 1 of this serie of article, I continued to work with my advertising group despite not being enrolled into the course anymore.

At first, we wanted to build our ad targeting people of Asian roots living in Canada. We thought we could build a solid campaign, print ad and creative theme around that and that it would be easy to reach 1,500 new users (sold units) given this target market.

We started off with a very funny idea; to use Godzilla in our ad and try to create appeal toward the exposed Asian people who would obviously know him, recognize him and possibly favour the ad because of the icon appeal.

As we were very unsure of how much potential this concept would have and how well would the Asian-Canadians respond to this type of imagery, we went to see the teacher seeking for guidance. Not only was he painful to talk to, he would never answer to a question straight and would always feel us dumb for not understanding what he meant and wanted in the paper. It was incredibly frustrating and anoying! The teacher gave us a cue though: our target market was incomplete and unlikely and we needed to find a better one and implement our research.

And that's basically what we did but at first, we didn't know where to start from. And that's when one of the girls -Juliya- said we could target gay men? Or like another specific market like that but do in-depth research about their behaviour, geographic coverage, age range, income and psychographic status. Unsurprisingly, I found that idea very inviting and agreed on the spot. We then decided to target young gay men (my idea) even though their income is usually low since they whether live with their parents and don't work, live with'em and work part-time or work full-time but with a minimum-wage job.

We checked Mitsubishi's car models of the year and wanted to advertise one of the models instead of advertising the brand directly. We agreed that the RVR was a sureshot since there's a very high demand for light trucks in Canada and also because its features are young, practical and that the car could be used for both urban driving or rural crisscrossing.

Mitsubishi RVR car model

We decided that the light blue color would be the one featured in the ad as it looks electric and also soft so the gay might be likely to enjoy it. As we were discussing about what kind of ad we'd build for the gays, I instantly came up with a very raw and sexual idea: "Presenting the Mitsubishi RVR, for a bumpy ride..."!!! LOLLL the girls went laughing like crazy and couldn't handle it whatsoever! I was laughing too and thought I had just coined the funniest slogan of the class! We decided to keep it and make an extended use of it. The girls said that if they'd ever see an advertising with such an obvious sexual allusion, they'd be rolling on the subway floor, laughing!

Of course, you might acknowledge the term "bumpy ride" from Mohombi's song. As we wouldn't want to pay Mohombi an extra-fee for copyrights use, we didn't use "it's gonna be a bumpy ride" but "for a bumpy ride", which is more simple and short. Evidently, who talks targeting gay men implies a bit of homoerotic Art and gay lifestyle. I, Mr. Sex-Addict, didn't want to simply target them in a friendly, politically-correct matter. I thought we could use a steamy picture of a male model and place a smaller pic of the car somewhere on his body with the bumpy ride tagline.

The girls thought my ideas were scatty and insane but agreed to them (how weird lol) and said it was a good idea since it's true that sex sells and that it sells even more among the gay community! I'm sorry to say it that way, I know it won't help us build a better image of our community and might even increase the number of stereotypes and preconceptions people have of the gays. But let's be honest here; it's not completely false to claim that young gay men like to go out in the gay village, log on gay chats and even drop at the nearby sauna and all of this because they're looking for sex. This doesn't mean that gay men only think about sex, I think it's just an illustration of the kind of efforts we need to deploy to meet other gay men and to accumulate the chances of finding Mr. Right to whether start a friendship, a relationship or to achieve intercourse.

Beforehand, we had no clue about if we could use a photo taken somewhere and therefore, feature a well-known model or if we had to make the ad ourselves, starting from scratch and featuring a friend or a drawing. After the girls had asked the teacher about it, I thought about some sexy male models that I already knew and searched for hot photospreads that could be nice to use for our print ad.

As I discovered Dolce und Gabbana model Chad White since two years and have been a fan right from the beginning, I automatically thought of him as the lead model in the ad. I tried to find raunchy photos of him on the web that displayed his rack, his crotch and his "washboards". I found a photoshoot that appeared in Arena Magazine in February 2008. In the photoshoot, we can see Chad in a scantily-clad manner (shirtless and wearing underwear). One of the photos caught my attention more than the other ones.

What's interesting to note is that no matter how hot, good-looking, sexy and masculine this guy is, it seems like most girls would rather see him in a more classy way; not too naked and without all the sexual tension down under. By this I mean that the three girls working with me said "OMG! This is too much! It's like porn!!!". But honestly, most gay guys (all of'em) would be salivating in front of it and would have no objection about it! That's mainly why I believe we can target gay men with much more raw and sexual ads than women, no matter gay, straight or bi. That's because men generally have a higher sex drive than women.

We used the hottest photo (the one that I preferred lol), added the tagline and the Mitsubishi front to it and the result was pretty cool and professional and looked just like I had envisioned it:

I don't know what you guys think of it but I'm more-than-satisfied with it and by this I mean both as a tempting picture that makes me horny but as a good advertising as well! Since I had dropped the course, I could work with the team to do the project, research and type it but I couldn't present the project in front of the class (oral presentation) and I wouldn't have wanted to do it anyway since I wouldn't have been graded. What is so funny is that not only is the print ad overly sexual and graphic, the team had to present it to the teacher and the class!!!!! Imagine how funny it would've been to see that lol!! My friend Mike was in that class with us and accordingly, attended my team's presentation and said he laughed the whole because it was too hilarious for words lol!

Advertising Campaign part 1

Willing to work my ass and complete two summer courses before leaving on vacation, I had decided to take an advertising course (part of my Marketing major) and to re-do my financial accounting class because I had a D- (lol!). I really do not enjoy accounting that much and wouldn't do any class of it if I weren't obligated to but unfortunately, two accounting classes are mandatory and part of the core courses' list of my Bachelor's degree!

And so the summer semester started off pretty good (I was highly motivated) and thought everything would be going on just fine, that I'd catch up on my lateness and leave for Europe happily right after. Little did I know that my Advertising Professor (Harold Simpkins, whom I like to call Harold Shitstinks), was a scumbag who brags about anything and doesn't follow the course outline. I was incredibly saddened and discouraged when I figured out each class would be painful and imply that I would have to sit for two hours and half listening to his nonsense without having a break!!! You read correctly, Mr. Shitstinks said he'd like to finish class earlier because he had one after and then decided to finish ten minutes earlier but not to allocate any pause. OMG how boring his classes were!!

Not only was he only reminiscing his life and experiences (which sucked so badly), he wouldn't show any important slide of his Powerpoint, prefering to go on and on with disconcerted speeches. Three weeks ago, I had a colonoscopy and had to empty my stomach and colon (yummy) but I had a class with him on the day before and since I knew there would be no break and that it would be boring and that my stomach would be growling like a hungy tiger, I resolved to stay home.

He would not allow anyone to come late nor to use his cell phone or computer in class. I mean we're all older than 20 for Christ's sake! Plus it's University; stop being an attention whore and give a class instead of trying desperately to get everybody's attention. Anyways, we had a Midterm exam which seemed super easy especially since he gave the questions in advance and let us prepare for it. I had read the whole manual, attended every class and studied and I failed big time! I was infuriated and so pissed, I couldn't believe it! 

Not only did he corrected more than 80 exams in less than 48 hours, he didn't give us a correction guideline or a handout explaining how he graded us. Therefore, in the left margins, he attributed random numbers to each of my answer like 0, 2, 3, 10, 5. The bastard had taken off more than half the points for each question, leaving me with a glorious final mark of 34%. Sorry but I never, ever, ever ever ever had tha grade in my whole fucking life!!! I really couldn't believe it! 34% is the kinda grade you get when you

1) didn't read the course outline,

2) didn't read the book,

3) didn't attend class,

4) didn't study and

5) didn't answer all the questions.

Given the fact that these five perequisites have been met, I cannot even deem how this kind of calculation could have taken place.

Anyways, let's get too far from the subject, I'll explain you briefly what happened: I was too mad and fed up of these kinds of teachers that I dropped the class (so I didn't fail) but continued to help my team with which I was supposed to work on the group project. Our subject was so interesting and the team was so nice and dynamic that I felt too stupid to drop them and would have also felt really inconsiderate if I had done so.

The goal of our report was to build an advertising campaign for Mitsubishi Motors with the objective to increase sales by 1,500 units. At first, we didn't really know how to seize the project nor didn't know what to do whatsoever lol. We (I) had the idea to use Godzilla in our ad to sell the vehicle to customers. That would've had implied we would've targeted Asian customers in Canada. It seemed so complicated and boring that we rejected the idea and decided to start our project by choosing a target market and then designing an ad for them instead of doing the opposite. One of our group member, Juliya, a sweet Sri Lankan girl, said she thought it could be cool to target gay men. Obviously and unsurprisingly, I agreed at 100% and was even more than willing to build the whole project around that theme (gayness lol).

We then chose our sample and researched about that target market, how to reach them, where do they live, what is their income, which age group would we take, which media would we use, which strategy would we implement, which marketing goals would we forecast, which percentage of the projected market would be aware of the campaign, be interested by the ad or the car model, have the desire to buy it and finally, how many would buy it. We thought (and still do) that our project was the bomb, that it was original and that it seemed relevant since we truly researched about the gay community and about to reach them, what are their trends and also tried to find statistics regarding other data. Despite all of our efforts, Mr. Shitstinks gave us the "well-deserved" (according to him probably) grade of 50%.

Since I wasn't doing the course anymore but was still working on the project, I didn't mind about the grade since it wouldn't affect my scholar performance but I was still disappointed and sad for the girls because they needed good grades and also deserved them.