advertisingwithoutpity

Two Gay Cowboys

Wal Mart Sucks

I haven't seen this movie yet, but I plan to. Of course, the Wal-Mart execs are all in a tizzy about it, saying that the documentary is full of factual errors. And as part of their rebuttal, the retailer has even produced and released its own documentary, detailing the juggernaut's good deeds, whatever those might be.

Personally, I don't care if the documentary stretches the truth a bit or takes a few factual liberties. I just want to see Wal-Mart burn in hell.

So go ahead, buy the DVD online and host your own Wal-Mart bashing party. I give you my full approval.

Update: New evidence that Wal-Mart is evil.

Stop Walking

I've never really understood BBH's wanna-be-iconic work for Johnnnie Walker. To me, "The Striding Man" is completely uninteresting. If this guy has a story, I don't have any interest in hearing it. So he's walking somewhere. I get it. Great. Gigantic yawn.

But the latest inanity from BBH for this brand comes in the form of a short online film, which you can check out here. It features a retelling of the famous poem about Mighty Casey, the shmuck who fell from glory after striking out in the big game.

Well, I just watched it several times (which was difficult enough) and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what this has to do with booze, Johnnie Walker, or "Keep Walking."

Thank goodness, however, for post-rationalizing ad folks. I found this on AdCritic:

"The Mighty Casey seemed like the perfect icon to do an ad about," says BBH group creative director Willam Gelner, "because the whole idea behind the campaign is that Johnnie Walker inspires personal progress, and what can better inspire that than the sports hero that fell from grace?"

"We thought, what if there was a part two that no one knows about, and what if he persevered and kept going and changed his fate?"

Fortunately, I'm fluent in ad-speak, so here's what Willam Gelner actually was saying:

The Mighty Casey seemed like the perfect vehicle for us to get away with total creative masturbation. Let's face it, this concept has nothing to do with Johnnie Walker whatsoever; we just thought this rhyming-couplet antique thing would look cool! To be honest, this whole online film thing is a complete sham. Listen, the client heard about this interweb thing and said we had to do something with it. So we did.