"F**k my Hat, I didn't know that!" Amazing things you've only just found out

[Cerys]

What the fuck happened to her neck?!

[Dex Sawash]

Extra stately breeding does that

[touchingcloth]

 

 

 

Can you please repost these as 800x600 pixels?

[Paul Calf]

Too late. I've already stolen them for next year.

[Dewt]

I thought those were all really funny Photoshops made by people here.

[studpuppet]

I thought those were all really funny Photoshops made by people here.

Real as real can be. I once spent a journey home, umming and ahhing about whether to steal one.

Images linked from here: https://wharferj.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/asahi-underground-posters/

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2000/nov/29/advertising

[olliebean]

Can you please repost these as 800x600 pixels?

And while you're about it, stick Kerry Godliman's face on them.

[beanheadmcginty]

The film Airplane! is called Flying High! in Australia and NZ.

[buzby]

They were London Tube ads, but I can't help thinking they reached as far as Cheltenham and made an impression.

I was intrigued by those ads and tried to do a bit more digging. Obviously Western celebs had been doing ads in Japan since the 70s which they hoped would never be seen in the West (which they usually weren't, apart from occasionally being featured on Clive James On Television) but given that ad agencies usually just try to 'surf the zeitgeist' (i.e. rip off something that's currently popular to make money) figured they may have been inspired by the release of Lost In Translation with Bill Murray's character doing a Suntory ad.

As it turns out, they predate the release of that film by 3 years. They were created by the WCRS ad agency for Bass (the UK licencee for Asahi) in a £500k campaign for both outdoor and print adverts in two waves - the first was 'Bonnie, Richard, Henry' which came out in the run-up to Christmas 1998, with the second set 'Debbie, Dickie, Chris' coming out for Christmas 1999. It looks there were slightly different versions of each ad for landscape (for outdoor and double page ads) and portrait (bus stops and single page ads) - here's the portrait version of 'Richard' for instance:
https://twitter.com/darrenrichman/status/1234241868206166016/photo/1
It seems Bass (or possibly Asahi) weren't impressed as WCRS lost the Bass account in 2000.

In Japan, it seems it was Asahi's main competitor Kirin who were more famous for getting Hollywood celebs to front their beer adverts, with the likes of Sly Stallone, Harrison Ford, Ben Stiller and George Clooney all doing TV ads for them over the years.

Here's some hi-res versions of the ads with no watermarks, for those interested (right click to copy or save them).


(this was presumably the right half of the landscape version of 'Bonnie')

[Pseudopath]

Great bit of digging (as ever), buzby! Much appreciated. Loving those Kirin ads.

[studpuppet]

Yes - cheers Buzby. I bought the Henry Kelly one so I could frame it...

[buzby]

Yes - cheers Buzby. I bought the Henry Kelly one so I could frame it...

I've bought the portrait Bonnie Langford one. Should confuse visitors! It looks like he's parting out music magazines from the 80s and 90s. He also has an unused ticket for a BRMC gig I went to at the Manchester Academy too.

Looking into their Japanese print ads of the same era, they use a lot of native celebs, but the photography style and use of the Engrish 'Quality And Challenge' tagline looks like it was a clear inspriration for WCRS' campaign:

Actress Aki Higashihara

Actress Mai Kawahara

Singer/Actor Masaharu Fukuyama

[DistressedArea]

Haddaway's follow-up to 'What is love?' was called 'Where is the Windmill hill business park?'

[touchingcloth]

Great bit of digging (as ever), buzby! Much appreciated. Loving those Kirin ads.

Yep, great work! My main take away - buzbo didn't say it directly - is that Lost in Translation came out in 2003, meaning that the ads date from this millennium, not actually the 80s. Cynically crafted to garner "look what these celebs got convinced to do years ago lol" reactions, I bet.

[buzby]

Yep, great work! My main take away - buzbo didn't say it directly - is that Lost in Translation came out in 2003, meaning that the ads date from this millennium, not actually the 80s. Cynically crafted to garner "look what these celebs got convinced to do years ago lol" reactions, I bet.

The ad campaigns ran in 1998 and 1999, so technically in the last millenium. It was three years before the release of Lost In Translation.

I don't think 'lol look what they did years ago' was the extent of the thinking behind those ads. The people in them clearly look like they do now (or as they did in 1998/99 at least), not how they did in the 80s, They were meant as an ironic parody of Asahi's native-market celebrity endorsement ads (see the contenporary examples I posted previously) and of the Japanese form of 'western celebrity endorsement' ads in general. Here's what the advertising industry press reported at the time of the launch of the first set of ads:

WCRS has created a poster campaign for Bass Brewers' Japanese beer brand, Asahi, parodying Japanese celebrity-endorsement ads. The campaign, breaking this week, uses well-known personalities such as Henry Kelly, Bonnie Langford and Richard Whiteley, featured in unlikely situations holding a bottle of Asahi beer.

The ads aim to position Asahi as an authentic part of Japanese life, while poking fun at Japan's recognised style of advertising. Emma Hancock, the board account director on Bass at WCRS, said:
'For our target market, Japan has developed considerable style appeal in recent years. This campaign will leverage that appeal using an authentic approach to Japanese marketing, while breaking through the advertising clutter of the premium bottled lager market.'

There's actually a paper about plagiarism in advertising written by one of the WCRS team involved that uses this campaign as an example here, but it's behind a paywall. In the bit you can see he says that "this was an unusual example as it was plagiarising advertising itself, specifically the Japanese form of brand endorsement by a slighly over-enthusiastic celebrity".

Here's what the copy writer Martin Gillan says about it on his bio page:

A-list Hollywood actors are often lured by big bucks to advertise products in Japan. To advertise Asahi, a cool Japanese beer, we thought it would be funny to use D-list British celebrities from the 80's. To create the bad copy typical of Japanese ads I simply wrote words on pieces of paper and picked them out of an envelope randomly.

For a bit more bonus content, here's some of the alternate versions of the first wave of ads, courtesy of Nicki Hussein's (the art buyer for the campaign) website archive. All of them are nice, clean hi-res copies, if you wanto right-click and save them.
The portait version of 'Henry':

The landscape version of 'Bonnie':

The landscape version of 'Richard':

[studpuppet]

It really was a 'knowing' campaign in those post-modern late nineties where people like Mike Flowers could carve out a bit of success. Casting the level of celebrity that would do Big Brother or go into the jungle a few years later was perfect. I think you can see from the relative ridiculousness of the different ads which celebs were 'game for a laugh' (sorry) and which were less so (looking at you, Whiteley).

Ps. Thanks for the digging and the scans Buzby! I tried getting in contact with the creator in LinkedIn but no response as yet.

[Dex Sawash]

Requested hatfuck

The blonde lady with the braids popping up in avatars and wrongs is ____________
and this is happening because ___________

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Requested hatfuck

The blonde lady with the braids popping up in avatars and wrongs is ____________
and this is happening because ___________

Can't tell if you are asking a question or if the spoilers function isn't working for me, but if the former then check out the Ricky Gervais After Life thread in the Comedy subforum. Start around page 10. (I don't want to spoil it for you because it is genuinely great to read chronologically.)

[touchingcloth]

Can't tell if you are asking a question or if the spoilers function isn't working for me, but if the former then check out the Ricky Gervais After Life thread in the Comedy subforum. Start around page 10. (I don't want to spoil it for you because it is genuinely great to read chronologically.)

It's Kerry Godliman, but I don't know why. Would you start reading from page 10, or from page 1 anticipating 10?

[gib]

start at page 10 and make sure you click the twitter links

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

It's Kerry Godliman, but I don't know why. Would you start reading from page 10, or from page 1 anticipating 10?

If you're already generally familiar with the existence of Ricky Gervais's new comedy melodrama wankfest, then I'd say just starting reading from page 10: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,78054.270.html

(Not linking the exact post because it's funnier when it comes out of nowhere)

[Dex Sawash]

Really was hoping it was the older sister from Frozen in a porno but there is value in knowing for sure.

[JesusAndYourBush]

If you're already generally familiar with the existence of Ricky Gervais's new comedy melodrama wankfest, then I'd say just starting reading from page 10: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,78054.270.html

(Not linking the exact post because it's funnier when it comes out of nowhere)

I've not seen Gervais's new comedy and know nothing about it, but earlier this evening I read the thread from page 10 onwards.  Once I saw the post in question I had to read the rest of the thread through to the end.  There's some great photoshops in that thread, I had a lot of laughs.

[Ambient Sheep]

I'm in the same boat, know nothing about the Gervais thing (didn't even know it existed until now), so I can see the page 10 onwards thing is coming up for me too!

[touchingcloth]

I'm in the same boat, know nothing about the Gervais thing (didn't even know it existed until now), so I can see the page 10 onwards thing is coming up for me too!

I saw series 1, and it was bad enough that I can't be arsed with a hatewatch. I have this page bookmarked so I'm looking forward to going through from page 1 when I get time!

[Endicott]

In not one of those photos of Bonnie Langford does she have a working set of golf clubs. Doesn't even have a putter.

[Gregory Torso]

Not really amazing or interesting in any way, but during Lockdown I have finally been working my way through The Wire, up to season 3 now and just saw the source of Bazooka's avatar (from years ago). That was a great av, Baz!

[touchingcloth]

Not really amazing or interesting in any way, but during Lockdown I have finally been working my way through The Wire, up to season 3 now and just saw the source of Bazooka's avatar (from years ago). That was a great av, Baz!

Shenmue is in The Wire?

[Gregory Torso]

Nah, Baz used to have a gif of Carver going "Duh??" It was great

[Ferris]

Not really amazing or interesting in any way, but during Lockdown I have finally been working my way through The Wire, up to season 3 now and just saw the source of Bazooka's avatar (from years ago). That was a great av, Baz!

Isn't the Wire fucking great? I've been rewatching in quarantine as well, up to mid-season 4. Still loving it.