Hey, ad industry, stuff this in your holiday stocking!
"Warm Wishes From Ad Land" presents some choice anonymous comments left on ad blogs AgencySpy, Ads of the World and Campaign Brief. (None are from the Adland blog itself, or from AdFreak for that matter.) The potty-mouthed trolls spew syntactically daring slime of a frequently scatological nature in response to blog posts about new campaigns, executive hires and account moves. Deadpan recitations of the rants are accompanied by jolly seasonal graphics and a tinny version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."
"Wow, that is so bad it makes me want to punch myself in the cock," reads one entry. Another: "Nice junket. Zero idea. Shit stunningly bad." And this instant classic: "This is the type of ad that makes me drag myself down the steps, crawl across the yard, whimpering, in the pouring rain, struggling to my knees, and raising my fists in the air, I scream, 'WHY, WORLD WHY?!' " (Click through to the ad in question: Watta Pure Water "Upskirt." That appraisal's actually pretty generous.)
"Warm Wishes" was created by a bunch of staffers at BBH in New York. Tim Nolan, the interactive group cd who heads up BBH Labs, tells AdFreak: "As we approach that time of year where we all wish each other the warmest, we thought we would look at how we, as an industry, extend our 'warm wishes' throughout the year and under the veil of anonymity. After carefully curating some of the worst 'semi-safe-for-work' comments from around Ad Land, we picked our favorites and gave them all a dip in holiday cheer."
He adds: "Traffic has been pretty steady since launching [Tuesday] afternoon. Most of the original visits came in from Twitter and Facebook, since each 'Warm Wish' is individually sharable. I'd say we are more pleased with the 'trending-ness' of it all, rather than being surprised. I mean, everyone likes to share a bit of 'naughtiness' around the holidays."
AdFreak discourages anonymous comments, but thankfully, all the feedback on our site is always of the highest intellectual and literary merit, unfailingly courteous. (You heartless monsters, STOP HATING ME!)
UPDATE: We reached out to Adland's Åsk Wäppling for her response to the campaign. She sent us her own visual reply below.
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