Oh Advertising

I was looking over the past few weeks of postings and noticed I had somehow neglected to touch on two of my favorite subjects: Advertising and shitting.

And then, as if from out of the ether, I ran across this ad on Facebook.

Holy Coincidences. Here's an opportunity to write about advertising. And an opportunity to write about shitting. And, bonus time, here's an opportunity to shit on advertising that is about shitting.

It's as if I hit the Monday Morning Trifecta.

I'm not great at capturing videos or GIFs and don't have much schooling in HTML, but here, to the best of my ability is the ad in question. It's for a bidet manufacturer and it literally shows a woman in a kimono 'launching a lifeboat off the SS Assitania.'



I can't help be reminded of that old anecdote told by Bill Bernbach who famously said...

"...it makes sense to run an ad with a man standing on his head only if you're demonstrating pants that keep from falling from his pockets."

Likewise, it makes perfect sense to depict a woman 'dumping all her shares of Hometown Buffet' if you're selling a device that 'cleans up and feeds off a down market.'

Do I have a bone to pick with the ad?
Of course I do.

First of all, a toilet against a white syc? It's not that hard to dress a set to look like a bathroom.

And the newspaper? The Sunday Something? Come on, such a blown naming opportunity. The Porcelain Gazette comes to mind.

The Dookie Digest.

The Lincoln Log Journal. I'll be here all day.

But I do give the TUSHY folks credit for their out-of-the-bowl thinking and their courage to go where no advertiser has gone before. I'm also reminded of all the weak-kneed, lily liver clients who have blocked the passage of good work in the past.

I'm still reeling from a comment heard just two months ago...

"We like what you've done here. It's an excellent problem/solution type spot. Just wondering, do the problems have to be so....er...negative?" 

Frankly, it's hard to square our allegedly negative ad with one of a woman taking a shit on camera!