TheSpunker - by Ben Popken. Published by Gattaca, Inc.

Biz Superstar Says Wear Sneakers Everyday

The "Everyday Sneakers" "movement" by Courir specialty sneakers shops has released this "viral" site with a "funny" video featuring Mr. Takeshi Mushido proposing businesses let their employees wear sneakers everyday. The first part is a dry business show. Then Mushido busts out a sneaker rap. The sneakers look pretty cool but perhaps not good enough to fly to France to buy them.

Merry Xmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! The Spunker's taking a vacation and will be offline until Dec. 29th, unless it finds some need to entertain itself between gulps of eggnog. In the meantime, smoke the wait out with a Chesterfield.

Quit your Whining. Marxism is a Sham.

In the essay “Quit Your Job. Work is a Sham,” former corporate interloper cum cartoonist Ted Hall, in a pique of watered down 90’s Marxism, slashes at advertising as being a “non-value added field…merely shuffle[ing] paper back and forth and skim[ming] fees off the top.” Mr. Hall values those who physically change products, such as wood being,  “worth very little but when used to make the frame of a house, its value-added components- from the architects design, the builder’s skills and other factors—increase dramatically.” An ad exec is just as much a paper shuffler as an architect. Architects aren’t chopping down trees, but sometimes agencies can influence their client to alter the product. Wood may be transformed into a chest of drawers by a carpenter, but it’s worthless if no one knows it holds clothes. [note: Essay appeared in Shiny Adidas Tracksuis and the Death of Camp a collection of essays from David Egger's defunct Might Magazine]

Mortal Kombat Viral Banned

Adland: "The Advertising Standards Authority has banned its first internet viral ad. The watchdog said the images in the advert for Midway Games' Mortal Kombat campaign titled Blood on the Carpet were offensive and irresponsible. The ASA said it had had one complaint and that the advert was irresponsible, since it glorified violence and some scenes could be emulated.The ASA said the ad showing a man's heart being ripped out and another being decapitated caused distress and serious offence." Question: How do you "ban" a viral ad?

Ride in an Adidas Soccerball

This movie portrays an exciting extension of the whole "soccer balls shooting out of billboards" crap. Before the launch of the 2006 World Cup match ball, Kiwis get to strap themselves in a giant Adidas soccer ball and get bungied up and down several hundred feet. "Adidas: Be the Ball" is what the effort is called. Agency: TBWA, New Zealand. Now if they only let you get strapped inside a a jumbo muffin that you ate your way out of.

Ms. Subways is a Scab

In light of the transit strike forcing millions of New Yorkers to work from home - oh! the horror! - here are some parody ads of Ms. Caroline Sanchez-Bernat a.k.a. Ms. Subways. As the elected face of the MTA, Ms. Bernat urges us to be courteous and kind when packed neck to neck in a meat-wagon hurtling down a rickety rail. All ads by Jim Hanas.

George Parker Thinks you Suck

Feel the hatred crumbling from his eyes? George Parker penned  a teething (as opposed to biting) ad-blog roundup for trend wanking blog, if.psfk.com. He says Adfreak is "nothing but shitty ads for the media." He considers blogs that "merely show" ads to "suck." In the "blogs that rock" section: Ad-land and underbelly of Russian marketing blog, Dlutskiy. However, his and if's sites Google rank a mere 3 so nobody cares except for some brand molesters planners with dogeared copies  of Pattern Recognition. We jest, of course, we just think that at his age, the ol crumudgeon should go easy on the exclamation points before he hurts himself!!

Are you Dodge Material?

A decadent and groovy ad for the 1970's Dodge Charger. A mainstream advertising tap-in to the laissez-faire, wifeswapping, key-party, morally deliquescent zeitgeist. You just can't fight the man for very long before you get coolhunted and turned into an advertising campaign. via. Gotta love the on-the-nose taglin, "If you can cope with a whole new image, you could be Dodge Material."

Starve Cats for Harvey Nichols

Harvey Nichols taps squarely into the aspirational nature of its high-priced fashion in this series of humorous ads. See also Beans, Jigsaw Puzzle and Toilet Paper. Agency: DDB, London.

Kodak Assvertising

Assvertising was so great you knew it would be copied. Who knew Kodak would be the one to stoop so low? That's like butterscotch-giving-grandpa hitting on your girlfriend - and stealing her (true story). Apparently, Kodak used the derriere media placement during a photo convention in Boston Kiev, Ukraine. At least two hot women were hired to wear ridiculously short mini skirts with Kodak logoed panties underneath and then drops things on the convention floor and pick them up.  It's so off-brand one is inclined to think its an unauthorized effort by a sub promo company. If so, someone should spank them. Crass sexuality seems to be a particularly Russian obsession, like the company that forced its top female managers to pose in a nude calendar distributed to its clients.

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