As regular readers (hi mum!) will know, I have trouble putting pictures up on this blog. Problem number one is WordPress won’t let me do it; problem number two is I’ve exhausted my enthusiasm for solving problem number one.
So if you want to see these great Harvey Nix press ads, check ‘em out here.
Why are they so good?
1. They’re brave. Come on, models who have pissed themselves? When did you last (or ever) see an ad that explicitly featured urine? And in a funny way. Incorporating piss that makes you laugh into an ad for a major brand is quite some achievement.
2. They’re beautifully art directed. I know HN ads are always beautifully art directed, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. I confess that I’ve never heard of the team, but the AD has done a really excellent job.
3. Great ads on brands that have a history of great ads is much tougher than it looks. The bar is higher, expectations are higher and the it’s-not-as-good-as-the-last-one-ometer is immediately set to the red zone. And now I’m trying to remember the last time HN did a press ad that really stood out like these do. It probably wasn’t very long ago, but I’m often too drunk to recall such things.
4. All the advice people get about disruption, asking forgiveness instead of permission, shaking things up etc. is so often talked but not walked. Here it is loud and clear in ads that will definitely get noticed, talked about, liked and remembered.
Hooray!
(I love it when ads are good.)
Comments 34
Walk of Shame stylee. As in their last campaign. Nice ads.
Posted 12 Jun 2012 at 11:54 am ¶…I love this Campaign so much it makes me sick. x
Posted 12 Jun 2012 at 12:20 pm ¶Good clients get good ads.
Posted 12 Jun 2012 at 12:33 pm ¶yep totally agree
Posted 12 Jun 2012 at 12:59 pm ¶only thing i could remember in the standard last night.
i literally did a double take. i think it’s called disruption or something clever that people in advertising say.
it basically stopped me.
job done.
why can’t all press ads be like this?
It is amazing that you have clients like these. You should celebrate them.
Posted 12 Jun 2012 at 1:09 pm ¶I think these are great..I agree with you about the problem of following a series of adverts that are great but I think this campaign really remembered and turn A LOT of heads!
Posted 12 Jun 2012 at 1:14 pm ¶Admittedly I am biased seeing as my sister is on of the team – art director but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t rock and totally refreshing
The one in today’s Metro cropped out the wee. So the ad didn’t make any sense. Shame.
Posted 12 Jun 2012 at 1:20 pm ¶Nice brave ads.
Posted 12 Jun 2012 at 3:15 pm ¶But come on, you went a bit over the top about the AD. They’re a bit stilted non?
They should do a follow up where people have shit themselves when they get their credit card bills
Posted 12 Jun 2012 at 7:17 pm ¶Sorry, it’s controversial but I don’t really like this campaign at all. Wrong for the brand. Maybe it will stop people, but just feels a touch on the studenty side for Harvey Nix. Somehow the thought of real people wee and posh clothes is wrong, not even the art direction gets round this. Just saying, but would mannequins that have pissed themselves have worked better?
Posted 12 Jun 2012 at 11:28 pm ¶I have to agree with Adam on this. Yes they are brave and made me laugh but for the wrong reasons. Look like a piss take (pun) fashion brand campaign done by Viz magazine. Do women really want clothes that remind them of piss stains? Unsophisticated unlike padr hn campaigns and a desperate attempt to get talked about often leads to off brand studenty ideas rather than clever ideas.
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 6:52 am ¶Not really feeling these. You can though. Go on, feel them. Feel the fucking ads. Feel these ads you mother
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 7:32 am ¶Where are these ad’s featured? I only ever see good print executions on blogs such as this one.
I Would love to open the paper or a magazine to see this print ad but it wont happen. These ad’s are just fabricated to collect awards.
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 8:37 am ¶I don’t actually believe that any of them ran (cept a couple of postcards in wine bars)
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 9:55 am ¶Every one i’ve seen has the wee cropped out.
Client bottled it at last minute.
Have they run or not?
Can anyone tell us (I’ve never seen them in real life)?
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 10:02 am ¶They have indeed run in a number of papers. Front page of the London Evening Standard, City AM, The Scotsman, Bristol Evening Post, The Times…to name a few. There is also a full page version of it in The Stylist magazine today.
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 10:20 am ¶I wanted to like it, but I don’t. Too studenty indeed.
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 10:21 am ¶Are you not all bored of advertising yet?
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 11:23 am ¶blimey it’s a bit too literal isnt it? no laterality, no strategy, just a joke done three times. Not for me.
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 11:28 am ¶The controversy surrounding the campaign has led to some publications, including Metro and The Times, refusing to run the adverts. In these cases, Harvey Nichols has been forced to crop the images to remove the wet patches.
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 3:14 pm ¶Anon of DDB:
They’re not refusing to run the ads because of ‘the controversy surrounding the campaign’, They’re refusing to run the ads because they don’t necessarily want to show images of people who have pissed themselves in a mass-market newspaper. It might offend people.
And please try not to treat the people who read this blog like children. Most of us work in advertising, so we can smell the bullshit from some distance.
And I imagine these cropped image executions seem pretty boring. Great that the pissy ones have run, but now HN must seem quite dull and unimaginative to millions of other people.
Job done or mistake made?
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 4:30 pm ¶And anon 19:
I think you might want to look up ‘literal’ or even ‘a bit literal’ in the dictionary.
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 4:31 pm ¶tough crowd.
is there anything everyone likes?
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 4:38 pm ¶There’s a bit of a trend of fashion not taking fashion seriously to show how they get that it isn’t all that serious. Rubbish Magazine, that Lanvin viral, Mark Jacobs in see-through at the Met Ball and all that. So bang on for the audience and market, I’d argue.
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 5:12 pm ¶Is it me or could it also be interpreted as cumming in your pants? Especially with the line.
Just me then…
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 6:09 pm ¶23. Gout Legs
Wagon Wheels.
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 6:21 pm ¶It’s good.
Posted 13 Jun 2012 at 9:50 pm ¶23. Gout-Legs
Toy Story
Posted 14 Jun 2012 at 10:06 am ¶but not toy story 2.
Posted 14 Jun 2012 at 1:42 pm ¶http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3mCTyZK59Y
Posted 15 Jun 2012 at 7:49 am ¶GL
Nandos
Posted 15 Jun 2012 at 9:06 am ¶Cam: very funny.
Mr. G: are you saying everyone likes Nandos or reminding GL of our possible lunch?
Posted 15 Jun 2012 at 9:45 am ¶Guess I don’t get it, just sophomoric shit.
Posted 15 Jun 2012 at 11:55 pm ¶Both.
GL?
Posted 18 Jun 2012 at 11:07 am ¶Post a Comment