Hasta La Creative!

Advertising veterans George Logothetis and Graham Clifford are celebrating Easter in a bit of a blasphemous way this year by unveiling The Product Placement Bible—a tongue-in-cheek (or at least turn-the-other-cheek) website that imagines verses of scripture sponsored by some of the world’s top marketers.

Placing products into TV shows and movies is commonplace. This satirical project takes the concept to its logical extreme by inserting marketing messages, logos and products into the most popular and widely read publications ever written, not counting the Ikea catalog.

The results are amusing—and Logothetis, a copywriter, and Clifford, a designer, hope you aren’t offended.

“It’s a not-so-subtle reminder for us to preserve our most sacred institutions,” they said in a statement. “There’s a time and a place for marketing messages, and it shouldn’t be in our most revered work of scripture. We came up with this far-fetched idea, sensed its potential as a content platform, and simply followed it to its logical conclusion. We mean no harm to anyone and want people to know that this is nothing more than a parody intended to be laugh out loud entertainment. And, of course, serve as a cautionary tale.”

Check out more examples below.

You wouldn't think Jesus would be too concerned about his investment portfolio these days, but online trading service Kapitall has tapped Him as a spokesman anyway in a campaign featuring "revolutionary" historic figures.

In a series of spots that went live today, Jesus cracks jokes about crucifixion while Che Guevara cooks frittatas and Genghis Khan showers himself with coins. Backed by a $1 million media spend, the online ads also include Leonardo da Vinci (with nude lounging boy toy) and Cleopatra (with frond-waving boy toy).

But clearly it's the depiction of Jesus that's bound to arouse the most consternation. In a second spot, not yet posted, Jesus says he learned about Kapitall when God found the site and yelled "JESUS CHRIST!"

"Kapitall, and our newly launched advertising campaign, is about being revolutionary," Kapitall CMO Pascal Ehrsam tells AdFreak in an email. "The brand campaign is not meant to be offensive, but to give a nod to some of history's notable icons. Comprising many ethnicities and religions, Kapitall is made up of people from all over the world. We have great respect and admiration for all, even as we strive to entertain."

The campaign was created by agency Swell, with media planning handled by PM Digital. It will run through the summer on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo and Gawker Network, generating an estimated 50 million impressions per month.

Check out the first Jesus spot below and more from the campaign after the jump.

Controversial ministry Abba's Delight has put up a billboard in Louisville, Ky., that targets "people of faith who are uncomfortable with their same-sex attractions."

Abba's Delight founder Daniel Mingo says the billboard, which tells unhappy gay people that "you have options," was intended to be a helpful message, so he was taken aback by the negative feedback he's gotten. Gay reform ministries are quackery to begin with, but they usually aren't this passive-aggressive. Abba's Delight is still denouncing homosexuality and claiming it's incompatible with religious faith, but if gay people are happy being sinful and wrong, this ministry seems to say, they can have at it.

Conversely, John Waters would say anyone who's seriously that conflicted and miserable being gay should do everyone a favor and not be gay, so there's that.

WDRB 41 Louisville News

The evangelicals at JesusTattoo.org are drawing predictably polarized responses for billboards around Lubbock, Texas, that show Christ covered in tattoos (reading "outcast," "jealous" and "addicted," among other things) and a provocative online video (below) that casts the Messiah as a basement tattoo artist. The campaign is a very broad modern metaphor for the Christian idea of Jesus suffering for the sins of others so they might be saved. (It's also the second coming in recent months of Christ as a hipster. Good lord!)

In the video, Jesus changes his customers' negative tattoos into positive ones. For example, a middle-aged man with "depressed" tattooed on his wrist (heavy symbolism for potential suicide) leaves with the word "confident" there instead. At day's end, when he's finally alone, an exhausted Christ removes his shirt, and we see his body covered with the negative phrases he removed from his customers. "Jesus's love is transformative," explains a spokesperson for JesusTattoo.org. "No matter what you've been marked with, faith in Him and love for others will transform us."

Critics, including older Texans interviewed about the billboards by Austin station KEYE-TV, blast the concept as "derogatory" and "blasphemous," though younger Texans have reacted in a more positive way. Since teens and young adults generally love tattoos, the generational divide isn't surprising. The campaign is certainly spreading the word, with the clip's YouTube views—130,000 in about two weeks—ascending since press coverage began in earnest a few days ago.

Personally, I find the premise quite moving, and as valid an updating of New Testament themes as Jesus Christ Superstar was a few generations ago. That said, the tattoo concept works better in the video than on the billboards. The latter, glimpsed briefly from passing cars, can easily be misinterpreted, while the six-minute video affords time for explanation and contemplation. Still, it's not entirely successful, at times threading the needle between artistic license and unintentional goofiness, particularly in the awkward overkill of the closing narration ("Tell Him … that you want Him to be your friend!") and the fact that the actor in some shots resembles Geico's caveman or a freaky Jim Morrison.

I kept praying Zombie Boy would show up and give the Savior a real challenge … and maybe trigger Armageddon right on the spot. Of course, some lost souls are beyond redemption.

Every now and then, you get a provocative church ad, like Florida's "Come get hammered" billboard or pretty much anything New Zealand's St. Matthew-in-the-City puts out. Catholic ads are typically more staid, but the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn recently launched ads that speak directly to that borough's natives in a language they understand—by referring to Jesus as "the original hipster." The ad doesn't explain this statement other than to suggest Jesus wore robes and was probably somewhat dirty a lot of the time—also (in a bit of clear revisionism) that he wore Converse sneakers. The point is rather that he was incredibly cool, though not seen by many as such, and certainly misunderstood in his time. There is also no record that he ever actually turned water into PBR. The ads point to the "All Faces" section of diocese's website, showing the diversity of its worshippers. Via Animal New York.

 
Via: Billboardom.