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Saturday, July 19, 2008

Shocking & Creative Ads from the Urban Jungle


"QUANTUM SHOT" #450
link


These Marketers Would Use ANYTHING!

You never know when some viral urban campaign would come around the corner and whack you with some bizarre message.

More interesting ones may even capture your thoughts long after the first visual shock subsides. More often than not, it's just a smart product placement / promotion, but in some cases - truly subversive and genuine urban art.

Streets in Portugal seem to be the most often visited by creative mayhem:
(once you approach these stabbed victims, they will hand you a promo flyer...)



Using shocking faux-death scenes is getting to be quite popular:





Go on, make your usual grocery trip. You may encounter some sights you did not bargain for -

On the street: Begging Sculptures. "My Cathedral Needs Your Help" -



Turning the whole street into a blue river:



Inside the elevator:



On a street corner:



At the supermarket:







Check out this tongue-in-cheek packaging:



In the washroom:









In the swimming pool:



At the train station:



In the tunnels:



At the bus stop:



In your local park - protesting hippies stuck forever, due to a certain lock:



In your kitchen (ingenious ice tray) -



At some Asian restaurant ("Can't hate everything"):



At your local pub - Balancing three pints of Guinness as part of a marketing trick:



Famous Banksy can use literally any part of street landscape to make his point:



Can't get enough of this marketing campaign... really makes you stop in your tracks and re-consider what you're place in life is, what your job situation is like, and how you're infinitely better off than these poor unfortunate souls (even if your boss is a psychopath).

Here is one location that we did not feature before: an soft ice cream machine -



Similar approach: totally freaky vending machine... Get Your Own Goat!!



And a priceless idea - An Anger-Release Vending Machine:



Cool use of a spare wheel:



Great play on your traffic woes:



Old and boring billboards can be greatly enhanced, when designers start using other elements of urban environment :

Using raised bridges:



Using weird building profile:



Using the power of wind:




Using old building's corner:



A case of billboard ad gone hilariously wrong, obviously in haste of preparation for Olympics -
(somebody used Goggle translation engine, not checking for the language nuances - "World" and "Peace" are the same words in Russian)



More of the same:



Finally, radically different kind of banner - a subliminal one:



All these ad masterpieces are infinitely removed from the kind we saw in the 70s and 80s:
(although these too have some charm, of a different kind)



Even more charming... 1940s recycling ad -



Material is prepared using these sources: Malevi4, Frederik Samuel, Scary ideas

READ THE REST OF "COOL ADS" SERIES

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Category: Cool Ads

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COMMENTS::

12 Comments:

Blogger Happy LOL Day said...

WOW that was great!!!! :)

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Blogger Zoltar Panaflex said...

Great as always, though that last photograph of Rita Hayworth I'm sure is from WWII, people would give up any metal possible for the war effort. I don't think it's from the 50's!

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Anonymous Jim said...

I am almost certain I've incurred bad karma by laughing at the Hitler-Chinese food ad.

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Anonymous Lee said...

The Banksy art wasn't a marketing campaign, it's street art. I'd read it as a comment on commercialization and capitalism. Tesco is the biggest retailer in the UK.

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Anonymous HaPPi like a HiPPo said...

Really enjoyed all the pics!

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Blogger Mango said...

i find it amazing that, still to this day, even with all of our knowledge and technology, that we can not translate lol. that is to show how diverse 'language' is; another awesome post Avi (:

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Blogger Dave Carrol said...

love that!

Very cool stuff

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Blogger Don said...

Another fine selection of images. Love the Dexter ad.

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Anonymous kahunablogger said...

Wow, what an amazing collection! Just had to write about your website on my blog. Unbelievable pictures, especially in the travel section (Worst roads etc.)!

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Blogger Avi Abrams said...

Thank you KahunaBlogger! Appreciate it :)

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Anonymous Zaharich said...

Спасибо, нашёл много интерресного

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Anonymous Tom said...

I like the dead hippies ad the best. I used it too!

You may want to check these out: http://newevolutiondesigns.com/75-shocking-advertisements

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  • The "Soviet Realism" could be in Riga, Latvia which has an amazing selection of Art Deco exterior wall decorations.
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  • The book chair has a disclaimer: No vintage sci-fi was damaged in the production of this object, only pseudo books otherwise known as cheap thrillers and harlequin novels. I'll sit on those.
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  • the 'Juicer' is from the comedy show 'the Red Green Show' - thats Red driving..!
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  • I really think these disgusting/grotesque animals and angry man in the office/bar/hotel is getting extremely boring... seriously, you"ve done better than that in the past...
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  • I'm pretty sure sea cucumbers are edible, too, and not bad tasting if I do remember correctly!
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  • The piglet squid looks like a baby Zoidberg.
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  • The eal really freaked me out. Looks like an alien.
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  • haha, it does look like zoidberg :D
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  • This post is great, thanks for that :) Just that stomach in the mouth might be a bit too much for sbdy ;)
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  • Chan, you have outdone yourself. The pictures and commentary are excellent.

    Thanks and take care.
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  • Really cool post, but that last picture you have of the Leafy Sea Dragons is actually a Weedy Sea Dragon! They're a close relative.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weedy_sea_dragon
    Read more

  • I've seen some of these when scuba and snorkeling. Pretty amazing God had such a sense of humor.
    Read more

  • awesome listing! it reminded me of the Vampire Squid...i was trying to find a good video of it in action but came up lacking (short from BBC Plantet Earth) its an amazing creature, using 'lights' when it is threatened

    http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=179
    Read more

  • Cool pictures. You need to find some of the spider crab. Very cool looking. Also the Tiger's Paw. Another interesting animal, it lives in cracks of coral reefs and all you see is just a little bit sticking out, they are about 60 feet long.
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  • Well done.
    Read more

  • awesome pictures
    some them look like they are from jurassic period....

    jasmine celion
    cool-hotstufff.blogspot.com
    Read more

  • Wow! Thank you for sharing. It's nice to see some mysteries that lay under the ocean
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  • I really enjoyed these articles! There is so much we have yet to discover in our oceans....I wonder what we'll find in the future??
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  • Wow! that's neat :-)
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  • waw awesome article ye never knew they exist lol great work =]

    ~TheMyth
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  • Thanks for all dearest readers who have read this article!

    Best regards,
    CHAN LEE PENG
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  • Loved the article and for the most part gorgeous pictures :)
    Read more

  • I once did a research paper on Viperfish and found out that it can eat fish twice the size of itself.
    Read more

  • Nice images. As someone else pointed out, the last sea dragon image is a weedy, not a leafy. Also, they're found from SW to SE Australia, rather than "around the coastline".
    Read more

  • I wait for my bus every day staring at the Casa Batlló, I guess I am privileged.
    Read more

  • I envy you Mr Blonde! Unfortunately I am on the other side of the world, but at the end of the year I hope to head over to Spain, with the sole intention of seeing Gaudi's buildings. I have been obsessed with his work since I was about 12, borrowing whatever books on his work I could find. I particularly like his drawings, they are awe inspiring, and if anyone has any resource on his drawings, I would love to hear about it!
    Read more

  • rowan,
    when standing on the corner in front of the Casa Milà, be sure to take the LEFT entrance to enter it. The right one lead me and my friends just through the first floor, where we saw drawings from Gaudi and others of his time. The other one lead through all the other floors.

    I remember this so clearly, because this earned us much head shaking and some scorn from our local host, who's a proud catalan. He specifically told us to visit this building in the morning, but we took the wrong entrance! He couldn't understand it...
    Read more

  • A great post in a wonderful blog.

    Thanks you very much, and best wishes from a catalan.
    Read more

  • A fine post, well written, well shot.

    This makes me interested in going to Barcelona- some place which wasn't on my high list, until now.

    I think Gaudi's Cathedral was in art the inspiration fro Thailand's top artist to build the Buddhist Temple shown here.
    Read more

  • Gaudi changed my mind about architecture. Barcelona is an amazingly vibrant city with its design and the Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell are amazing feats.

    Great post Avi.
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  • Great post. If you like Gaudi, why not check Lluís Muncunill, another great architect (and Gaudi's collaborator) who's not as known but has some impressive work? Just type "Lluís Muncunill" in google images...
    Read more

  • The picture of the angular, sorrowful figure is part of the Passion Facade of the Sagrada Familia. This group of sculptures was designed after Gaudi's death by Josep Subirachs, and differs radically in style from everything else there. It's absolutely stunning in person! Here are some pictures from the artists site.
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  • An excellent post, good one. You rendered exceptionally well Catalan names (and you have not used Spanish equivalents).

    Greetings from a Catalan :-D
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  • Beautiful and unusual architecture. It's unfortunate that such organic shapes cannot be built as economically as rectangular buildings. That's why you see so few of the former and so many of the latter. That probably also accounts for the fact that construction of the cathedral has taken so long. But the result is undeniably impressive.
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  • Something about that cathedral makes me unfomfortable; it has a vaguely Lovecraftian look to it. As an aside, the first time I did LSD I saw a grocery store melt; it swelled up like a burning marshmallow, then collapsed into a liquid state.
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  • long time browser, first time comment - great post, love the site, so full of useful knowledge and interesting facts - i would almost say that Gaudi himself may have participated in some form of lysergic acid diethylamide; fore the images of his cathedral and earlier works screams of a psychotic nature. beautiful work, IMHO.
    Read more

  • Thanks for the comment Mango - glad you like DRB :)
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  • Wow, great architectural pieces!
    Feel free to read mine at

    http://www.quazen.com/Arts/Architecture/The-Most-Striking-Must-See-Churches-in-the-World-1.152139

    and

    http://www.quazen.com/Arts/Architecture/The-Must-see-Most-Striking-Churches-in-the-World-2.152153

    Thanks.
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  • Great post and hard to believe that it's even more magical in person. Thanks for always taking us to amazing places!
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  • Great post. I really enjoyed readng it.

    Greetings from another proud Gaudí's fan... from Barelona:)
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  • Fell onto this page and loved your views, I was in Barcelona 3 Christmas's ago and made a beeline for the Catherdral.It is truely a work of Genius, the basement has a Museum and explains well Gaudi's design theories.He used a tree as the form for spreading weight downwards to 1 slender column.I bought the biggest book on Gaudi and read it before I returned to London,My son has been inspired by Gaudi to study to become An Architect!
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  • Paul Smyth - thank you - really inspiring architecture is like music sculpted in stone.
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  • The sepia picture associated with Parc Güell is not there but in the small coastal town of Garraf, 20 miles from Barcelona, right here.

    It's worth mentioning that "La Pedrera", the informal name of the Casa Milla, means "The Quarry".

    I would add to the comment by Anonymous that the work by Subirachs on the Sagrada Familia should not even be part of it and that it would be better to exclude images of his disgraceful insult to Gaudi's work.
    Read more

  • The 3rd one is 'inspired' by a Dutch trademark called Droste, also a warm chocolat drink. http://www.infinitecat.com/imagesbits/droste-big.jpg

    In the Dutch language there is a term called 'Droste effect'. The nurce is holding a can with the same picture, including herself holding a can with the same picture etc etc. E.g. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Droste-wikipedia.jpg/300px-Droste-wikipedia.jpg
    Read more

  • These posters are just so charming and creative, I really enjoy this type of art.
    Thanks for all the fantastic images and such posted.
    Keep up the great work!
    Read more

  • >There were no trademarks, no variety of flavors to choose from

    Not true. You mess the ads from 20ies, when USSR had no industry running to speak of, and so only had one or two factories producing every type of goods, with what communists had by 60ies or 70ies.
    There were enough trademarks or just sorts.
    Read more

  • so many of these are really beautiful. cept those creepy kid ones. wtf!
    Read more

  • Cool, but just one word ->

    I'm living in Budapest, and this is...

    http://www.soviet-awards.com/medals16.htm#medal30
    Read more

  • Anyone know where I could buy some of these as posters? They'd look great around the apartment...
    Read more

  • The Kvas ad is from the Soviet period: the orthography is post-1917, it is made by 'Rospotrebsoyuz', and there is no brand name.

    The cosmetic powder ad is from the pre-1917 period, since it's made by 't-vo A-Ralle & Co.' The second ad for rubber boots ('galoshi') is also from the pre-revolutionary period: they are made by 't-vo Provodnik', the orthography is pre-1917, and you can see the imperial coat of arms.
    Read more

  • I love old advertising posters. Wonder if it's possible to buy prints of some of these. The first ones have some beautiful artwork on them.
    Read more

  • Wonderful! But unfortunately ads from different times are mixed, and the ad from before 1917 is placed sided by side with an ad of no erlier than 1050-ies.
    Read more

  • Thanks a lot!

    > most posters advertise a generic product

    The reason is rather simple: in USSR the only product manufacturer was eventually the state itself; every factory was owned by the state. So, it was not matter, whose production citizens bought, in any case this was a way to pump up more money into the state budget.
    Read more

  • The so called "ugly kids" on the advertising are actually rather famous puppet faces of that era from Moscow Puppet Theater. They could be equated to Mickey Mouse, and if you would show any advertising with Mickey to a person unfamiliar with this character - they would also wonder who would want to advertise anything with a mutant mouse.
    One of the top posters (of the Tsar era) is not an advertising but a concert announcement.
    The "generic" ice-cream is not all that "generic" - producers name is Glavholod (or smth) and is stated on the poster.
    "Smoke cigarettes" poster calls customers to choose cigarettes over "papirosy" - the non-filtered old-style tobacco product. Cigarettes were relatively new and needed some "propaganda".
    Read more

  • Thank you for this comment -
    Great info!
    Read more

  • Just another little infodump: the very common Western notion that there weren't any goods to demand in Soviet Union was true only for a few select times -- mostly wartimes and 80-ties, when economic imbalances resulted in the real shortages. But for the large part of the Soviet history there weren't any shortages. True, there also weren't much choice, but when the state decided that some product is needed and accounted for it in economic plans, you could literally drown in it -- what with the Soviet obsession with production numbers.

    But then there was another problem: Tsarist Russia was almost exclusively agrarian country, with most population being rural. Industrialization and urbanization brought all those people to cities, but they still for the large part remained conservative country folk, unlike to try new products. Thus were these ads -- they tried to induce conservative consumers to try something new their state decided they need. For if they won't all that product (and investment into producing it) would go to waste.
    Read more

  • About "Bavarian Ravers"

    It is not complicated. The dance is called the "Schuhplattler" and tells a story of fighting which resolves at the end in happiness when the women enter the dance.
    Read more

  • Re: spaghetti

    Welcome to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

    http://www.venganza.org/

    ROFLCOPTER
    Read more

  • You can see it here.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBPA4ApF-J4
    Its really freak.
    Read more

  • You have the neatest stuff.
    Read more

  • Heh... only saw one Mac... the pyramid with the blue neon. The monitor is one of the old CRT Studio displays. It's probably an old G4.
    Read more

  • Blogger BrianDeuelDotCom said...
    Heh... only saw one Mac... the pyramid with the blue neon. The monitor is one of the old CRT Studio displays. It's probably an old G4.



    soooooooooo what??????? its cool :D
    Read more

  • oh very superb where can i get this they are out of this world
    Read more

  • Temple of Nod case is awesome
    Read more

  • Re: Hackers?

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/szl/2652826258/

    he he
    Read more

  • Thats not an "Akira shaped bike". Akira's bike is a recumbent with a windscreen.
    Read more

  • The “ugliest piece of machinery” on a picture is not a machine but a Russian military field kitchen. Although it looks like it has been cooking some tar lately…
    Read more

  • Yikes! the one with the horse scary. It's obvious the horse fell in. Hope they got 'em out
    Read more

  • wow...it is stunning.
    Good shots too.
    Read more

  • O_O I didn't know fog could do that!
    Read more

  • your shots take the breath right out of me. I shared your "Nature Montage" on FB with the following: "a photographic ballet, stirring an uprising of all emotions, transporting you into another dimension, leaving the body weak and helpless. such raw beauty brings me to my knees". Thank you so very much for sharing. I wish I was there to experience it all...
    Read more


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