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ad report card: Advertising deconstructed.

The Clio AwardsBest ad of the year? An Italian spot for washing machines.

By Seth Stevenson
Posted Monday, May 14, 2007, at 12:31 PM ET
President Bush inspired 42 Below vodka print campaign. Click image to expand.

MIAMI—At a special session during this year's Clio Awards for advertising, industry legend Oliviero Toscani was honored as a "hero." I'm not sure making ads for a living can really qualify anyone as a hero (unless he spends his spare time plucking kittens from treetops). But Toscani is an intriguing figure, as ad guys go.

He's best known for his work with Benetton in the 1980s and '90s. You may remember his print and billboard ads, which used a multiracial array of striking fashion models to illustrate the "United Colors of Benetton." Those ads were a nice meeting of concept and execution, but as the campaign progressed Toscani grew weirder and weirder. He started slapping a Benetton logo onto actual news photos (like this one of a burning car). One mid-'90s ad simply showed a black horse having sex with a white horse (arched back, dangling hooves, etc.). What this had to do with sweaters remains unclear. But it still gets ad execs all hot and bothered.

This is because ad execs fancy themselves to be gifted artists trapped by the mundanities of commerce. Some of Toscani's ads really do enter the realm of pure art—totally divorced from the stink of any marketing imperatives—but he got away with using such provocative and stylish shots only because he linked the Benetton brand itself to shocking imagery not tethered to any product. Good luck to the modern ad guy who puts mating horses in his next toothpaste commercial. Anyway, one can go only so far down the Toscani path before the trail peters out. It's no surprise to learn that one of Toscani's most notable post-Benetton accomplishments is Cacas: a coffee-table tome containing his photographs of human and animal excrement. "Nine-color printing," Toscani enthused this weekend, discussing the book. "Shit is something we never copy from anyone else. We do it every day, and it is true creativity. Learn from this!" he exhorted the assembled ad workers.

Learn they did, judging by many of the TV commercials I saw this past year.

But let's focus on the positive. The Clios are a time for back-patting, not bitchiness. So on to the winners.

As one award presenter pointed out, radio ads haven't changed much since their invention. While TV and print ads benefit from technological advances like HD, CGI, and Photoshop, nothing significant ever seems to happen in the world of radio spots. Which may help explain why the same campaign wins year after year. Once again, Bud Light's "Real Men of Genius" ads were the jury favorites. (Listen to the spots; their conceit is a salute to guys who embody various oddball facets of modern-day life—talking too loud on cell phones, using comically oversized golf club heads, and so forth.) I see why this campaign is such a hit. The writing is sharp, the framing concept is versatile, and even the background music is somehow humorous. My favorite of this year's batch: The ode to "Mr. Hot Dog Eating Contest Contestant." Sample lyric: "My left arm feels tingly!"

I always love perusing the print-ad finalists. So many clever graphics, with visual jokes that work in any language. The big winner this year was a print campaign for 42 Below vodka. These ads each tell a funny (and generally naughty) narrative through a series of pictograms. The recurring symbol is a bottle of 42 Below vodka, which always leads to subsequent high jinks. My only problem with the campaign is that in many of the ads, drinking vodka leads to a rather unpleasant outcome. For instance, venereal disease. An accurate take, perhaps, but it seems like it might be wiser to elide the nastier consequences of drunkenness.

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Seth Stevenson is a frequent contributor to Slate.
Image from 42 Below vodka ad campaign courtesy 2007 Clio Awards.
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