A team from W+K Portland and W+K New York worked on a series of parody ads for the month-long online revival of Spy magazine, the satirical publication co-founded by Kurt Andersen and Graydon Carter, which coined the “short-fingered vulgarian” insult for Donald Trump.
“Kurt Andersen is personally one of my heroes — both as a critical thinker in America and a voice of unique absurdity,” W+K global CCO Colleen DeCourcy told Mashable. “Spy was sort of what my early humor and political speech was cut on.”
DeCourcy headed the graphics team on the parody ads along with W+K executive creative director of content and editorial design Richard Turley.
Unsurprisingly, one of the efforts includes a shoutout to Spy’s heyday, via a pharmaceutical ad for “Vulgicene,” which promises to help users “Get a grip on Albright’s Hereditary Osteodystrophy.” The ad shows what we can only assume is Trump’s small hand holding out a blue pill.
Another ad tackle Trump’s insistence that Mexico will pay for a border wall, promoting a product called “PayAmigo” which allows you to “Make Mexico’s Money Your Money.”
There are also ads for “Trump’s Russian Ties,” a tax service called Terrific Tax, utilizing the tagline, “Because you’re too smart to pay income tax.” Easily the most disgusting of the efforts is “Trump Pies,” which claims to be “Feeding the People What They Want.” The pies in question, of course, are full of shit.
“It’s been sort of the challenge of the moment to just get yourself to realize that it’s actually happening — that we’re in an election with Donald Trump,” Turley told Mashable. “But it’s important not to normalize it.”
“It was about understanding the legacy of what Spy used to do him and evolving it from that message,” he added. “Our approach was just to make sure it felt like Spy.”
