Brain-teaser Monday.

What is this print ad selling?

1. The top party colleges in America.
2. The latest high-tech razor.
3. Insurance for college students.

Answer to last week's brain-teaser: The History Channel

Spice yes. Old, hopefully not.

This is the first and hopefully only time I'll do this, but I'm issuing a NSFW warning for this post. And triple that warning if it's "take your daughter to work" day. A company in Germany, where else, has created a scent based on vaginas. There I've said it. It's called Vulva, but it won't be in any department store near you.

On first reaction this smells a little fishy (no pun intended, honest). I mean the head of the company is named Guido Lenssen, which certainly sounds like it could be a made up name. That said the website is a fully functioning e-commerce site, where you can buy Vulva. Attention shoppers, there are only 278 days till Christmas.

Now I know what you're all thinking. Is Vulva actually made from real vaginas? Or is it a knock off made in China. Says Guido, "Almost everything on the sex market is based on fantasy. The toys are plastic, the movies use actors. Vulva is real. We tried several samples from women of all ages. We didn’t take the scent after someone had run a marathon or anything, but it is a combination of urine, sweat, and female arousal."

Sex sells, literally.


(Sharing credit to Adfreak)

Black history month.

In 2007 a scrawny kid from the wrong side of East Saint Louis followed in the giant footsteps of Hiram Revels, Jackie Robinson and Guion S. Bluford Jr to break a color barrier. His name was Rucker and he became the first African American to graduate from Camp Exposure, the oldest training academy for streaking.

Since then Rucker has successfully gone on to streak Busch Stadium on "St Louis Cardinals Old Timer's Day",  as well as a series of pick-up basketball games all across the country. In celebration of Black History Month, here is an excerpt from the most recent interview given by Rucker in December 2009 in Orlando, Florida. In it he candidly talks about the difficultly of being the "Jackie Robinson" of streakers.

POLICE SERGEANT DARRYL CROWLEY: Do you know why you were arrested?

Rucker: Because I'm a black man living in America.

CROWLEY: You were running naked on a private golf course.

Rucker: Just exercising my first amendment rights, you know freedom of expression.

CROWLEY: I can put you away for two counts of public indecency and trespassing.

Rucker: My aunt is a member of the Bay Hill Club.

CROWLEY: Why were you exposing yourself?

Rucker: I'm training.

CROWLEY: Training for what?

Rucker: The PGA tour.

CROWLEY: Do you usually train naked?

Rucker: If I was white we wouldn't be here right now.

CROWLEY: If you were Phil Mickelson and I caught you swinging your dick around instead of your clubs you'd be here, trust me.

continue reading

Not appearing at Flashdancers anytime soon.

The detractors of branded entertainment will no doubt look upon this short film for Damaris Lingerie as proof that the genre is nothing more than masturbation for bored creatives and directors. It certainly requires a lot of deconstructing. I've seen it about twenty times already and still I'm not entirely sure of it's value as marketing content. But I'll continue viewing until I figure it out.

So what exactly is the message here. Sexy lingerie as functional garment? Make the everyday routine sexy? Perhaps the director, Justin Anderson can illuminate. "Whilst researching the film I spent a lot of time standing behind the statue of Aphrodite at the British Museum," says Anderson. "I felt that the backside of the goddess of love was a good place to start. I love the bottom - it is quite literally sculpture on legs." God I love branded entertainment.

(Sharing credit to psfk)

What's your SPI?

According to a team of researchers at the University of Chester in England, we are all born with a "propensity to streak". For most of us, this propensity will be completely dormant, but a select few the impulse to steak burns brightly.

To discover what kind of streak propensity each of us has, these researchers created the "Streak Propensity Index" (SPI), a measure based upon a person's emotional and psychological responses to certain stimuli associated with streaking. The closer a person's SPI is to 100, the stronger their propensity to streak.

Researchers caution that more investigation still needs to be done, but there is now broad agreement in the scientific community that this is the quickest measure to determine if a person has what it takes to become a streaker.

Calculate your SPI.

Still one of the best ever....

It didn't make my top five of the decade, but it would have made my top six. One of the stellar viral campaigns of the early 00's. Kudos to The Viral Factory.

It's my blog so I'll self-promote if I want to.

We had to head deep into the heart of the Shenandoah Valley and America's "bible belt" to uncover this very unusual training camp. Or so the legend says. Directed by Tom Cartier and written by yours truly. See if you can figure out which brand is behind this piece of branded entertainment.