Freak Week: Napoleonic Complex

If you hire a director known for his wacky sensibility, you should expect wacky commercials. That's a lesson now learned by the Utah State Fair. Organizers of the fair were excited about having Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess create the event's TV spots this month-until they saw them. The ads showed actor Markus T. Boddie lovingly -- some say lasciviously -- serenading a pig and a funnel cake. The client was appalled, and promptly rejected the ads for having "sexual undertones" and being "over the top." Hess had a different view. He claims the ads were turned down because Boddie is black. "There are some off-the-record grumblings that have [been] made known to me, and I'm pretty certain that's the reason," he says. Boddie seemed to agree, noting that the TV spots were pulled but the radio work remained on the air. "That said to me, 'Well, we don't want to see you, but we can hear you,'" he says, adding: "There are black people here in Utah that aren't related to Gladys Knight. If we embrace that, then I think that's the image of Utah we want to take forward." It's worth noting that the fair used Napoleon Dynamite actors Jon Heder and Efren Ramirez in a popular 2005 campaign, and probably just wanted to replicate that success. But those ads were less weird-and were directed by Bryan Lefler, not Jared Hess.It's also been a good month for distracting billboards. In London, Wonderba unveiled a 3-D board from agency IRIS that makes Brazilian model Sabraine Banando's chest even more eye-popping than usual when viewed through the proper glasses. And in Sioux Falls, S.D., agency BVK put up a board for medical client AVERA showing a car-accident scene-with smoke from one of the vehicles rising beyond the ad and into the sky, thanks to a hidden smoke machine. In the end, both ads drew grousing from local officials. Road-safety experts worried that the Wonderbra would cause traffic accidents -- but it was allowed to remain up. The Avera board wasn't as fortunate. After fielding a number of 911 calls, the Sioux Falls fire department shut it down after two days.Last week's award for best performance as an overfed corpse in a commercial went to the dead guy in an anti-McDonald's, pro-vegetarian spot by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The man is seen lying in the morgue, gripping a hamburger, as the line "I was lovin' it" appears on the screen -- a clear slap at the Golden Arches and the health risks of fast food in general. McDonald's, of course, wasn't lovin' it -- and characterized the ad as "outrageous, misleading and unfair to all consumers."Finally, we saw the last nail driven into punk music's coffin last week, as the Sex Pistols, for the very first time, licensed a song, "Pretty Vacant," for a TV ad (for a U.K. bookie). And John Lydon is eager for more deals. "Red Stripe lager! I drink lakes of this stuff," he says. "Why haven't I been signed up for something like that? Or Marlboro fags? It amazes me that people don't get the opportunity of me. I sell." And obviously, he also sells out.Best of BrandFreak: Video stores try tanning bedsWe've all seen the Starbucks in the supermarket and the glorified-in-song Pizza Hut/Taco Bell combo. But AdFreak's sister blog picked up on the oddest combination retailer of all: the neighborhood video store/tanning salon. Turns out it isn't as odd a match as it sounds. With Redbox, Netflix and on-demand breathing down their necks, mom-and-pop video shops are installing $15,000 tanning beds to drive foot traffic. And they say they've found a lifeline. (It's not just the tanning but the ancillary stuff that's helping the bottom line.) These small businesses have also started touting their early access to studio movies, something their rivals can't claim, as marketers like Redbox have a 28-day wait for new releases. Might we suggest a bundle deal for tanning, the Jersey Shore DVD, the gym down the block and the dry cleaner next door?

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Freak Week: Napoleonic Complex

Tim Nudd

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Tim Nudd