Come in Osama, Hell’s waiting for you
May 3 2011, 10:22 pm | | 42 Comments
Within an hour and a half of President Obama’s announcement, Barnes, Catmur & Friends, Auckland had conceived, written, sold and dispatched this topical press ad for client Hell Pizza which ran in this morning’s edition of the New Zealand Herald.
Account Director Sally Willis spotted the potential for an ad and contacted an enthusiastic client. The space was snapped up by Media Planner Monica Wales at the same time as the ad was put together in the creative department.
Managing Partner: Daniel Barnes
Account Director: Sally Willis
Media Planner: Monica Wales
Copywriter: Paul Catmur
Art Director: Crispo Schubert
42 Comments
Brilliant and it’ll only be extremists and ad men that won’t like it. I’d be more worried about the shameless US celebrations – that’ll wind ’em up for sure.
Using the capture and assassination of one of the most notorious mass murderers in history, an event that brought a sense of justice to millions around the world, for the cheap exploitation and promotion of a pizza brand, in New Zealand no less, has to be one of the most repulsive exercises in poor judgement and bad taste by an ad agency in quite some time. Even for BCF this is a new low, and how anyone could think that this kind of stunt will build a brand, or even sell a product is beyond comprehension. To be sure, the families of those killed on September 11th 2001, and those of the servicemen and women killed and wounded in Afghanistan fighting the terrorist regime led by bin Laden will not be amused by those who are trying to make a profit from the end of a ten year manhunt.
Congratulations, Paul and Dan, Monica, Sally, and Crispo, your careers will forever be associated with this colossal blunder, not to mention the ad sales team and publishers for the NZ Herald for printing this kind of shit.
Ouch, seems like someone’s pizza left a bad taste in their mouth.
I give it a week before we get the Nandos tactical radio spot to celebrate the event.
11:19 — with statements of that magnitude, isn’t it a bit cowardly not to reveal your identity?
Great that the client is ballsy enough to do this sort of provocative work, but yeah, where’s the line I suppose?
Any special toppings on offer?
Suggestions please…
calm down 11.19, it’s old school genius and you know it.
You should seriously ring talkback, get it out of your system mate.
That’s sick. Really, really sick.
“Old school genius” 9:13.
Fuck, you’re easily impressed.
I guess he wouldn’t be ordering the meat lovers with extra ham…
11.19 you seriously need a blow job. Lighten the fuck up.
Brand leverage, brilliantly done.
11.19 – Wow that is some good old school jealousy on offer. I think it’s brilliant. Well done.
Hey 11.19
Which is 9-11 backwards.
You love it. So much it makes you jealous. That’s a deadly sin which will have you joining Bin Laden for a pizza real soon.
Anonymous @ 11:19 you are absolutely right of course. Using anyone famous, notorious, good or bad for something as superficial as advertising is just not on. What have we been thinking all these years. And to use it for pizza, well that is just too much. Thank you for helping us see the gross error of our ways. But hey, they’re only Kiwis anyway.
….I’m still here.
Like it or not Osama is part of pop-culture, 11.19. He’s been the brunt of countless gags and jokes, from the Chaser W.O.E. to David Letterman, and was also etched in history when he made the front cover of TIME magazine as one of the most influential people on the planet.
I think he was/is fair game for a topical prank ad.
Christianity is such an easy target. I’d like to see one of these guys with the balls to take on a Muslim subject.
Oh wait…
Hey 11.19,
What sort of advertising do you think would be appropriate for a client whose name is Hell Pizzas?
If nothing else I know which pizza shop any muslim extremists might declare jihad on.
11:19….insensitivity is a beautiful thing, so re adjust your pad and stop feeling sympathetic for others, then maybe, just maybe you’ll appreciate fine creativity when you see it.
….barack obama was born in kabul
@2:37am…
Shows that you know nothing about topical advertising.
I think the issue will be “dead” by then.
Tasteless and overcooked. It’s certainly bang on brand.
Oh dear, 1:42…where do I start?
1.42pm
Not big on irony then?
Not good.
It took them an hour?
I guess when you put the time in, you really do see the results.
Quite an entertaining read. Really enjoyed it. The comments, I mean.
Hey, 10:06, when you’re finished giving that blow job to 11:19 that you’ve recommended, can you save some lip service for me? I need to lighten up a little as well.
Tasteless ad, tasteless people behind it, and tasteless pizza we’re guessing, what could be a happier marriage.
Groucho @ 10:59
Your sarcasm would be pointed, even clever, but for the reality of a simple comparison. Would it be acceptable do you think to invoke Adolf Hitler to sell the same product? Kosher meats perhaps? How about Pol Pot, or Abu Bakar Bashir, the mastermind of the Bali bombings to bring things a little closer to home for the ANZACs? Would it be creative advertising to associate his death, the man who slaughtered Aussie and Kiwi tourists to the sale of Indonesian take away?
Of course bin Laden has been satirised in the realm of popular culture, Tommy @ 11:20, but used to sell a fast food product? Pizza in New Zealand on the day of his assassination when those who’ve lost family and friends as a result of his murderous acts are holding vigils to commemorate the loss of loved ones and the long overdue punishment of the mastermind behind their deaths?
We’re a cynical bunch, but are there no community standards?
Well no 11:19, the difference you seem to miss is the timeliness of the concept. Your ‘simple comparison’ is fallacious, your example of Hitler and Kosher meats is aimed at a particular group. This concept is aimed only at satirising Bin Laden.
Tricky business this ‘ logic’
Just to correct the grammar:
Come in, Osama. We’ve been expecting you.
Yes, Groucho, logic is a ‘tricky business’ and so is public sensitivity to ‘timeliness’ and topicality, especially when the pain of the timely topical moment runs deep for a large segment of the populace.
The backlash accompanying Kenneth Cole’s most recent politically tinged viral ad via Twitter “Millions are in an uproar in #Cairo. Rumour is our new Spring Collection is available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo-KC“ was an immediate reaction against the retailer by thinking and sensitive people who realised that the Egyptian revolution and the lives of the people who died to create it was not a subject for easy throwaway lines in an ad campaign.
Tricky business this ‘timing’. Let’s hope that the people of NZ and Oz are equally repulsed by the insensitivity and bad taste exhibited by BCF and their client.
BTW, the real Groucho wouldn’t have thought for a minute that this was funny. He and his brothers satirised despots in order to ridicule them and tear them down int he eyes of the public, not to sell themselves, and certainly not to sell a product. You do the great man a disservice by invoking his name.
11: 19 if only the rest of the comments even began to agree with you it might look like you have a life.’The pain of the timely topical moment runs deep……….’? For you maybe, for the rest of us perhaps not quite that deep.
The lack of outrage in Oz and NZ would suggest you’re pretty much on your own here, but perhaps you are used to that.
The real Groucho would have had a field day with you. Satirising a despot and selling a product, now that’s clever.
The real Groucho would have had a field day with someone calling himself Groucho.
I’m always amused by arguments that begin with “the rest of us” as if running with the pack is a mark of something other than timidity. Try having an opinion of your own, one that may just run against the grain of the prevailing local ignorance and insensitivity and see if you’re brave enough to express it, or maybe just take comfort in being part of the flock.
There is a history down under of treating the flock quite gently really, so you’re in step, little soldier. Baaaaa
11:19 I was hoping to quote from Groucho Marx, or even Karl in response to your nonsense but neither of them said anything about boring, tiresome twats. Or even someone that needs a blow job.
It’s May 5 now dudes. No angry consumer blow-back – but clearly people are talking.
@Pitch Doctor, if that really is your name, or even an reasonably accurate description, anyone who succumbs to using a denigrating term for a woman’s anatomy as a personal attack when they struggle with making an articulate criticism is probably not much of a doctor of anything that has to do with language. Maybe an angry gynaecologist.
Just keep looking for those quotes, as that’s as close as you’re likely to get to a thoughtful, intelligent remark.
Addressing this audience about human compassion and some standard of behaviour for the local ad community seems much like the old saying, “Never argue with a pig. It just frustrates you, and annoys the pig.”
5.02.
It’s 5th of May, no one outside of the CB blog is actually talking anymore and the ad is still shit. Barring a miracle of biblical proportions at the Caxton monthly comp the whole thing will hopefully disappear faster than an islamist’s corpse at sea. Disappointed though, that BCF didn’t sell in the “you’ll be blown away by our toppings” Auckland tornado tragedy topical. No balls that client, no balls at all…
11 : 19 so anybody that does not agree with you is a pig? Is that just the local ad community you clearly despise or everybody? We bow before your moral superiority,