Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Dear Dr. Ads,
There I was, minding my own business and clicking through the Boston Globe, when I came across Michael Silverman’s piece about the naming of the National Women’s Soccer League’s new Boston franchise.
The “BOS Nation Football Club” name is a play, team leaders explained, not only on “Boston” (with a nod to Logan Airport) but also on the “boss” mind-set needed by players to command attention and, ultimately, win championships here . . .
A number of billboards reading “There Are Too Many Balls In This Town” went up around Boston this past weekend, a cheekycampaign designed to show that the National Women’s Soccer League team that is scheduled to begin play in the spring of 2026 is intent on elbowing its way onto a vaunted local pro sports stage.
Kind of . . . well . . . ballsy – no, Doc?
– Jump Ball
Dear JB,
Here’s that billboard.
But wait! There’s more!
Via Michael Silverman: “A video accompanying the campaign features references to an array of ‘balls,’ such as old, new, steel, cold, and goat — the last mention followed by a quick video clip of Tom Brady saying, ‘Wait, what?’”
In general, the BOS Nation campaign has gone over like the metric system. First there was Print contributor Charlotte Beach’s blowtorching of the name itself.
BOS Nation FC is a terrible name for a sports franchise because, to put it bluntly: it’s corny as hell. “Lady Boss” culture and the “Girl Boss” discourse is over. In fact, it never started. It’s an inherently dated and regressive concept that is the opposite of empowering. “BOS Nation” is trying too hard. It wants so badly to be cool, and there’s nothing less cool than wanting to be cool.
Beach’s piece sports the “feels like satire” headline, but her thorough dismantling of this “lasagna of disrespect” should be read in its entirety.
As night follows day, the NWSL quickly moonwalked away from the balls-out advertising, as detailed by NBC News reporter Kyla Guilfoil (among others).
The National Women’s Soccer League’s newest team, Boston-based BOS Nation Football Club, apologized Wednesday after its name reveal and brand campaign launch garnered criticism online . . .
Many users on social media criticized the club’s ad for its emphasis on male athletes. “Why are we making our NWSL announcement about men?” one user on X wrote.
Other users complained that the campaign assumes that only men have balls, arguing that it makes the campaign transphobic.
Really, Doc? Trump’s trashing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is going to put a dent in his poll numbers when 91 felony charges, a sexual assault conviction, and an endless series of lies and grifts haven’t? Does that seem reasonable to you?
– Trump Stumped
Dear TS,
According to this New York Times report by Nicholas Nehamas, the Biden campaign “is running [this] digital ad in three states — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — that have significant populations of voters with Eastern European roots.”
The ad notes that every president since Harry Truman has been a rock-solid supporter of NATO – except for Donald Trump, who wants to walk away from NATO and its Article 5 mutual defense pact. (The spot also notes that Article 5 has been invoked exactly one time: in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on America.)
Trump’s “you gotta pay” message to NATO members, the ad concludes, is shameful, weak, dangerous, and un-American. (It’s also the unofficial slogan of made mobsters, but why get technical about it. Not to mention Trump’s lifelong commitment to stiffing his own creditors.)
As NBC News White House correspondent Monica Alba writes, “[the] campaign is aiming to reach the more than 2.5 million Americans who identify as Polish, Finnish, Norwegian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian — all NATO countries that share a border with Russia.”
That doesn’t seem like much, until you break down Trump’s likely electoral math: About 30 to 35 percent of his voters are ride-or-die MAGA who are largely there for the cruelty and the crazy; then you’ve got maybe 10 percent of voters who mumble “something something something Dementia Joe.”
It’s the next four or five percent who will decide the 2024 presidential election. This Biden ad might tell us whether Article 5 works for ballots as well as bullets.
Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Dear Dr. Ads,
There I was, minding my own business and reading Oliver Darcy’s CNN Reliable Sources newsletter, when I came across these items.
• Kim Kardashian is “re-evaluating” her relationship with Balenciaga amid backlash over the brand’s recent ad campaign that featured children with BDSM items. (NBC News)
• Balenciaga, meanwhile, is suing the producers of the ad campaign. (NPR)
Really, Doc, they get to do that – approve an ad campaign and then sue over it? Sounds kind of addled to me.
– Trying to Keep Up
Dear Trying,
Actually, it happens more often than you might think. (See here for a bunch of examples.) One of the most famous cases was this Super Bowl ad that retail chain Just For Feet ran in 1999.
Back then one of the Doc’s good pals produced a piece about the spot for APM’s Marketplace. Here’s how his commentary began.
Retailers are the hypochondriacs of the business world – endlessly taking their temperature at the cash register, constantly checking for downdrafts in the market, and looking over their shoulder at last year’s sales figures so often, it’s a wonder they don’t have chiropractors on staff. As for adventurous advertising, retailers may not be allergic to it, but excess creativity does tend to give them the sniffles.
All the more remarkable, then, that Just For Feet’s Super Bowl ad ever saw the blue light of day. The spot shows a barefoot Kenyan runner being tracked by white paramilitaries in a Humvee. They pull up alongside him, slip a Mickey into a cup of water that he inexplicably accepts, and next thing you know the runner wakes up to find a pair of Nikes on his feet.
(RUNNER) Nooooooooooooo (ANCR) Just for Feet. To protect and serve feet.
Apparently, protecting and serving clients was not a priority for the retailer’s ad agency, Saatchi and Saatchi Business Communications. The press alternately labeled the spot reprehensible and racist, and Just for Feet kept seeing itself in the same sentence as Texaco and Denny’s. So the retailer sued the agency for marketing malpractice, which immediately raises the question, CAN someone violate the standards of an industry that clearly has none?
At least that’s the response Saatchi & Saatchi has filed in court papers according to a story in the Internet magazine Salon. That should put the agency in solid with its other clients . . .
Meanwhile, Just For Feet’s stock is down 75% since last year. Thanks to Saatchi & Saatchi, the stock of the ad industry could be even lower.
Just For Feet eventually dropped its $10 million lawsuit against Saatchi & Saatchi, shortly before the chain filed for bankruptcy.
Back to the present, NBC Today show contributor Lindsay Lowe detailed the origins of the Kardashian/Balenciaga dustup.
Kim Kardashian says she is “re-evaluating” her relationship with Balenciaga in light of the brand’s recent ad campaign that featured images of young children posing with teddy bears that appeared to be wearing BDSM-inspired accessories.
“I have been quiet for the past few days, not because I haven’t been disgusted and outraged by the recent Balenciaga campaigns, but because I wanted an opportunity to speak to their team to understand for myself how this could have happened,” Kardashian, 42, wrote in her Instagram story on Sunday.
“As a mother of four, I have been shaken by the disturbing images,” she continued. “The safety of children must be held with the highest regard and any attempts to normalize child abuse of any kind should have no place in our society — period.”
A couple of the ad images, for those of you keeping score at home.
So what did Balenciaga do about the media critiques of its campaign? The fashion house turned around and sued the creative team that came up with the ads. Balenziaga’s lawsuit rolled in an additional campaign with a controversial image, as NPR’s Emily Olson related.
Balenciaga, the luxury fashion brand that sparked back-to-back controversies over two recent ad campaigns, has signaled its plans to sue the production company North Six for its role in creating one of the ads.
The backlash began when online scrutinizers noticed a page from the 2008 Supreme Court decision United States v. Williams in the backdrop for an ad showcasing a $3,000 purse.
The ruling upheld the constitutionality of a child pornography conviction.
The ad, which has since been removed from the company’s website, was part of the fashion house’s Spring 2023 collaboration with the activewear brand Adidas.
As in Adidas, the company that just dumped Kanye West, who was recently dumped by his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, nicely completing the Circle of Brandicide.
For those of you keeping score at home, here’s the ad for the $3000 purse.
For the life of us, we can’t locate the offending document anywhere in the photograph. Then again, the Doc’s not an optometrist, okay?
Anyway, here’s the current state of play as reported by Nick Kostov and Stacy Meichtry in the Wall Street Journal.
Balenciaga filed a lawsuit in New York state against Nicholas Des Jardins, a set designer who worked on that ad campaign, and North Six, a production company involved in the photo shoot. In the lawsuit, Balenciaga alleges Mr. Des Jardins and North Six were responsible for including the excerpt of the court decision in the ad campaign.
“In no way was any controversial material intentionally placed by me or anyone on my team,” Mr. Des Jardins wrote in an email to The Wall Street Journal. “There were literally tens of thousands of papers on-set rented from a prop house,” he said.
North Six declined to comment.
Kim Kardashian has remained mum about the second ad donnybrook, while Balenciaga has deep-sixed both ad campaigns, saying they “reflect a series of grievous errors for which Balenciaga takes responsibility.”
And for which Balenciaga should take a serious financial hit.
Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.
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