Yikes! Advertising Event Leads to My Red Cheeks.

Most wouldn't know it, but I am pretty involved in a couple professional clubs in Tulsa, one being the American Marketing Association. This year, I had agreed to be the VP of Collegiate Relations, a fancy title for someone who makes sure area students are aware of our events and scholarships - a very low task oriented role (aka: looks good, but is really a fluffy title). However, the VP of Programming had to resign. This person is very important to AMA because he or she must plan all the events, line up speakers, do all the programming. Well guess who was asked to step up and who said yes. Me. So now I'm even more busy and important than I used to be, but I don't need to state the obvious. Last night was our summer event. We rented out the Circle Cinema and watched the winners of the Clio Awards. (The Clios are like the Oscars of advertising.) For the first hour there was food and drinks and chatting and eating and drinking. Things were going very well. About 60 people were there. The food was fabulous, the decorations were awesome, and I was mentally patting myself on the back and telling myself how awesome I am for a job well done. Then we go to watch the commercials. Most of them were innovative, creative, funny, artistic, and/or brilliant. The cool thing about the Clios is that commercials are entered from all around the world, so there is an international flare. Also, advertising from other countries is usually more racy and less censored than here in the USA.

So, here are two short commercials from Bangkok. I find them quite clever.





A few more that were good (well actually, they were all good and if you have the time, you should go to http://www.clioawards.com and look up the winners list and then try to find the videos online):







So, we're watching all these commercials and this one comes on. (Warning: be prepared for some cartoon porn.) This commercial won in the category of public awareness. Before the commercial, we are given the information that it is a service announcement for AIDS and the title is "Vibrators". I start to think, "Uh oh, this might be slightly too racy for this crowd." But I assumed the commercial's message was going to be, "don't get aids, masturbate instead of having unprotected sex," which wouldn't be too bad. This commercial is not what you think it's going to be.



Holy Hell! Did I just show that to a bunch of Tulsa's top marketing professionals? Crap. And, did anyone get an AIDS awareness message from that? There were lots of condoms, but a more to the point ad could have been created. Oh well, at least it wasn't the last one and closer to the beginning so it wasn't too fresh in people's minds. Plus, they're marketers. They know what's up.

After the event, my roommate and I decided to go celebrate how fabulously awesome we are and went out for some drinks. On the way home, we stopped at QT to get some snacks. People, DON'T MESS WITH PERFECTION. I got my beloved bacon chicken melt, and it has been tampered with and became a dollar more expensive. Not only does it not taste as good as its savory ancestor, it is more expensive. First, Village Inn jalapeno poppers. Now, this. I guess I no longer get to enjoy late night dining. What a cruel world we live in.