We’ve seen “Dead Mouse Theatre” so why not “#RoachArt?” Energy BBDO worked with Vault49 artist artist Jonathan Kenyon to create a series of three billboards made entirely out of, yup, dead cockroaches for insecticide brand Raid.
Kenyon’s creations show a roachy grim reaper riding a jet, motorcycle and monster truck (we think). Each contains the message “Kills 7X Faster” with the speedy vehicles meant to convey the brand’s homicidal expediency. As Kenyon explains in the video below, larger roaches were used to outline the pieces, while smaller roaches were used for finer detail. Working with the information that a roach infested house can have up to 20,000 roaches, each piece of art contains around the same number. Neat!
While most will find the concept disgusting, it’s also attention grabbing and not something you’re likely to forget soon. In fact, the approach may gain the brand a little free media by making an appearance in viewers’ nightmares. Raid isn’t the first brand to toy with such a morbid and gross concept, as the aforementioned “Dead Mouse Theatre” saw Barton F. Graf repurposing mouse carcasses as theatrical puppets and, more recently, BBDO Russia created miniature portraits out of mosquito blood. Adweek calls the OOH pieces “strong contenders for the most disgusting ads of 2016.”
That’s tough to argue, although Rules Creative Taiwan’s intern recruitment effort is certainly a contender as well.
