Freak Week

PETA gets exotic: Strippers pose for latest adPETA rendered its "I'd rather go naked" campaign totally nonsensical last week by hiring strippers for an ad. The whole point of these ads was that the people in them don't normally go naked -- thus, they're taking an uncomfortable stand for their moral position. For these ladies, it's another day at the office. Of course, having Holly Madison and Jenna Jameson in earlier ads paved the way for this one.Bass-O-Matic: McD's fish spotAdvertising isn't hard. Make sure your ad includes an aggrieved, singing, wall-mounted fish, and you're halfway home. This spot, for McDonald's Filet-O-Fish sandwich, developed a cult following within days of its release, and is an early front-runner for stupid-humor commercial of the year. Hook, line and sinker.High on the hog: Boost's cannibal pigs180LA's Boost Mobile campaign continues to surprise and disgust. We had the unhygienic coroner and the hirsute woman cyclist. Now, we have pigs eating ham-or, as one of them puts it, "enjoying the flavors of a fallen friend." Somehow, this sells mobile-phone service.Candyland: The Agency.com/Skittles debateOur first big AdFreak debate of the year erupted last week over Agency.com's un-Web site for Skittles. Two posts generated more than 50 comments total, most of them dealing with whether the digital shop should be commended for creating work that was undeniably breakthrough (it basically held Twitter hostage for 24 hours) or burned at the stake for ripping off a concept that Modernista! had used for its own site. In a poll, we asked whether this work's clear viral success redeemed Agency.com for it infamous Subway pitch video of 2006. A very grumpy 64 percent said it did not.Bygones be bygones: Becks modeling clay adThe most unlikely images of the week came from German ad agency Scholz & Friends' work for Becks modeling clay, a kind of European Play-Doh. The ads showed Jews and Arabs reenacting Saturday Night Fever and a Klansman wooing a black woman -- all in the service of the tagline, "Let the kids build a better world." One AdFreak reader was wary of the Klansman's intentions in particular: "The real question we should be asking is, what is he hiding behind his back?"Best of the Rest --Top Posts From Other Marketing BlogsRihanna Covergirl ad: GuanabeeGuanabee took offense at a Covergirl mascara ad with Rihanna from People magazine. "Couldn't the media buyers and salespeople at the magazine have been a little more conscious of context? Her recent domestic abuse drama with boyfriend Chris Brown being played out in every news outlet across the world (including in the very same issue where this ad appeared) gives it an entirely new and decidedly darker context. Especially with the headline 'Lighten your eyes.'"What makes a good cd? Denver EgotistThe mile-high ad blog posted part one of a rant by a guy named Felix called, "What makes a good creative director?" The first tip: He or she is the last line of defense. "It's all well and good to surround yourself with talented people who can do the job 95 percent of the time, but if you can't step in and solve the impossible ones, you can go to HR right now and ask them to remove 'creative' from your title. You are the best of the best. You have no excuses for not being able to do the creative work, even if you spend most of your day in meetings, discussing budgets or pitching work. Without a last line of defense, a creative department has no goalkeeper."

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Tim Nudd