Astonishingly offensive billboard: Worker falling off scaffold to sell Minis

AdRants spotted this billboard featuring a dummy worker falling from a scaffold on Hudsont Street in New York City, near the entrance to Holland Tunnel.

This billboard suggests a tagline: Mini...Lucky you don't work for a living. (Large View.)

I mean no disrespect to Mini drivers, or the automobile itself. This particular billboard doesn't reflect anything except the sick need of some creative director to win awards from his or her dipshit peers. It has no point other than to attract attention, it doesn't even communicate the core brand idea of the new Mini as a small, stylish sports car that offers city dwellers high performance at a relatively affordable price.

Maybe this is deliberate. Perhaps the marketers felt that the Mini brand needed some yuppification to distinguish it from the utilitarian Mr. Bean-style minis of yesteryear.

Or maybe the message is just that scaffold accidents are funny.

Putting this billboard up in New York is the height of bad taste, considering the City's recent spate of scaffold-related deaths.

You can see the full collection of Mini outdoor ads--featuring near-life size model Minis being suspended, encased, or otherwise positioned to emphasize the car's diminutive proportions and superior performance. The other ads in the campaign are as good as anything the debased sub-speciality of outdoor advertising has to offer. I don't know what went wrong with the falling worker ad.

Comments

[SamChevre]

Is the worker supposed to be falling, or jumping?

When I looked at the ad, I assumed the worker was attempting to jump into the Mini.

[Eric Jaffa]

SamChevre -

Good point.

Maybe he isn't supposed to be plummeting to his death, but jumping into his car.

[aeroman]

I certainly see the offensive nature of that. I have to say, though, that I've always been a little unhappy with "That's not funny - people die that way!" arguments, although those feelings are largely born out of personal bias.

Well before I was born, my father's brother was murdered by minor acquaintances who robbed the auto garage where he worked. It was certainly very tragic and painful for my family.

But here's the thing: it is virtually impossible to turn on the TV or go to a movie theater without seeing murder used for entertainment, including comedy. Pulp Fiction, for example, has a hilarious scene where someone's head explodes in a car after a gunshot. And, to be honest, it isn't less funny just because my uncle's head also exploded in a car after a gunshot. Maybe less funny to members of my family who have sat through or read the testimony describing the chunks of brain and skull found in the dashboard, but not less funny generally.

So it's hard not to wonder why my family had to just suck it up and accept that people who hadn't shared their experiences would use murder for entertainment, while other people get to cry foul.

[Guest]

when i looked at the picture my first thought was that the dude was jumping into the miata.

[Utica]

yes, he does seem to be jumping, emphasizing the convertableness (sp?) of the convertable (sp? still). but, if that is indeed the intent, they should have positioned him in a way that wouldn't seem to result in his right leg getting caught on top of the windshield.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

It's not an argument, it's a statement of fact. I find that ad offensive. It's utterly tasteless. Imagine if a car company did an ostensibly funny high-concept arty commercial joking about rape?

"Are you tired of having to do this? (Grainy footage of a guy raping a woman in the back of a station wagon) Well, test drive one of these... (Through the front window of a Mercedes, we see a woman bobbing up and down vigorously on the guy in the driver's seat)

Or if the Gap decided to do a lighthearted ad about how much child soldiers in Sudan would enjoy their new khakis?

Or what if an office supply company did a sequence of people graphically blowing their brains out in order to illustrate the frustration of making do with last year's model of color copier?

Those just concepts aren't funny as ads. Or, at least I have a very hard time imagining how they could be appropriate or tasteful as commercial messages. It's one thing to make disturbing art or comedy. It's quite another to make grossly insensitive jokes in order to sell a product or further a brand's image. Those are fundamentally unserious purposes and exploiting this imagery to sell a product is inappropriate--especially if in so doing you make fun of something that's a very serious and socially under-appreciated problem.

That doesn't mean that people shouldn't be allowed to put them up, if they're willing to pay for 'em--although outdoor ads should be held to a higher aesthetic standard because they're designed to be as conspicuous as possible, appropriate for all audiences, and directed at people who didn't choose to see them.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

This particular billboard is irritating because the creators did everything possible to create stopping power in an extremely jaded audience.

By using a lifelike 3D scaffold and dummies, they're trying to manipulate people into stopping and really looking for just a second. Because maybe, for a split second, out of the corner of your eye, from far away, it looks more like a person falling than just another billboard.

The lame punchline is, "Ha, ha. He's just jumping into the Mini!" But they made the guy's pose deliberately ambiguous to make people look.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

The small view doesn't really capture the full 3D psych! effect.

[josh]

On second glance it does look like he's jumping into the car. Since his coworker is still on the platform and the ad is unfinished it seems the intent is to depict that the Mini looks so fun compared to work that it will make you abandon your work in a dramatic way.

Utica's right though, if that was the idea they should have designed his body position to make this clear. That's just bad art. I'd have to see it from directly facing to be sure. Its hard to tell from the angle of the photo.

If we are supposed to understand him as simply falling to his death, I agree it is tasteless. It also isn't funny, but not necessarily because it's tasteless, just because it doesn't make any sense.

[josh]

Lindsay, would you still consider it tasteless if it was clear that he was jumping into the car?

[josh]

ah, nevermind. you answered while i wrote the question. ah, blogtime.

[The Phantom]

Every day, I respect the advertising industry a little bit less.

I'd happily pay more for radio and TV that was advertising free. Or that was at least respectful, as I find google/gmail advertising to be.

But advertising like this you cannot unplug or unsubscribe to. Not good.

[cfrost]

I’d have taken the guy for jumping. And it might not be in such bad taste if there hadn’t been a rash of falls.

I basically don’t care for any god-damned advertising. If I need your stupid product, I’ll look you up. Until then don’t fucking bother me. I know it pays the bills for magazines, radio, whatever, I still consider all of it a waste of my time. It’s like living in North Korea where Kim the Elvis-pompadoured dipshit Dear Leader’s face is on every wall, and his voice blares from loudspeakers on the street. There’s virtually nowhere one can go without being assaulted by advertising. From Nome to Miami, every town and city in America looks exactly alike: every one has exactly the same signage for exactly the same donut and muffler shops. Every radio station has the same crap programming with twenty minutes of the same inane advertising, essentially all of it grossly offensive by way of stupidity that would insult the intelligence of a tapeworm. People now even wear advertising! Holy Shit! Attention Tommy Hilfinger, Old Navy, et al., I’ll wear the skins of road-killed cats before I wear anything with your name on it.

Don’t even get me started on the pus-for-brains that buy cars based on ads that hawk the product as “exciting”.

[JMH]

I can see Lindsay's point and the others' as well who say he's just jumping. Here's another alternative, although I don't know how plausible it is:

Perhaps he is supposed to be falling, but the Mini is there to save him. That's what Mini's do--they rescue people.

That seems like a stretch, I admit. On this interpretation, though, the Mini isn't just fun; it's heroic!

[Madison Guy]

I agree totally with Lindsay's larger point, but for what it's worth, my reactions were, in turn:

1. Oh no, the guy is falling!

2. That's so like a Mini -- it's there for him! It will catch him and he'll be safe.

3. What a manipulative ad! Not only are they using an image of potential suffering to grab attention, but they are also using humor to defuse a safety-related concern about the car itself -- namely, that it's too damn small to be really safe in a collision. So, in a way, the image is doubly exploitive.

[parse]

Lindsay you responded to aeroman's objection to "That's not funny - people die that way!" arguments by claiming "It's not an argument, it's a statement of fact." It's certainly true that people die that way, but can you explain how "that's not funny" can ever be a statement of fact? The question of what is funny seems inherently subjective to me.

[Gary Sugar]

It doesn't offend me. If it surprised me in person, I might laugh for a second. It feels clownish, which is about right for a Mini in my opinion.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

The statement of fact is that I find that ad offensive. Eli brought up the "it's not funny argument"--but I'm not sure what argument he was ascribing to me.

I think the ad is in poor taste for an outdoor billboard advertising a sports car. It's crass and manipulative, especially in light of the very real scaffold safety problems in this city.

Remember that "Far Side" cartoon with the two amoeba's where one of them is saying grabbing the other one's shirt and yelling "Shirt's on fire! Now it's out." and the caption says, "Humor at it's lowest form."

If anyone finds this ad funny, that's the level it works on. It just shows how out of touch the copywriter was not to realize what a potentially loaded visual pun he or she was playing with.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

I basically don’t care for any god-damned advertising. If I need your stupid product, I’ll look you up. Until then don’t fucking bother me. I know it pays the bills for magazines, radio, whatever, I still consider all of it a waste of my time. It’s like living in North Korea where Kim the Elvis-pompadoured dipshit Dear Leader’s face is on every wall, and his voice blares from loudspeakers on the street. There’s virtually nowhere one can go without being assaulted by advertising. From Nome to Miami, every town and city in America looks exactly alike: every one has exactly the same signage for exactly the same donut and muffler shops. Every radio station has the same crap programming with twenty minutes of the same inane advertising, essentially all of it grossly offensive by way of stupidity that would insult the intelligence of a tapeworm.

(laughing) cfrost, what a great rant. Couldn't have stopped you, wouldn't have wanted to. It is very funny that at one end of the world, a tyrannical leader Kim Jong Il forces you to watch anti-capitalist ads for an unum, while on the other end, a tyrannical democracy forces you to watch capitalist ads for the pluribus. It also drives me crazy, not only that so many towns and cities in America look exactly the same, but so many of the districts within those cities and towns look exactly the same.

As to the taste, as with all the other controversies about what humor is offensive and which acceptable (Ann Bartow vs. Go Fug Yourself, or b*rqagate), my gauge is always, "is it funny?" If it is, then hands off and let people make the joke; if it's not funny, but is trying to be, then it's _incredibly_ offensive, but it will police itself when it's reacted to without laughter, and the person trying to make the joke will melt into the walls to get away from their embarrassment.

Regarding the "That's Not Funny, People Die that Way" (argument/statement of fact/wherever we are): Not long ago, the Onion did a piece about Cystic Fibrosis, a headline saying: "Proud Cystic Fibrosis Charity Doesn't Need Your Money." Well, someone I loved dearly died of Cystic Fibrosis at a very young age. I always laugh at the Onion, but I had to put it down and say, "I'm sorry, I can't laugh at this one." But that's my personal reaction, and it would be silly for me to try to outlaw them mentioning Cystic Fibrosis anymore. However, since there have been these scaffolding accidents recently, to make a loud billboard alluding to them would be like showing up after 9/11 with a billboard about that, or like the NRA visiting Columbine right after the tragedy there. Not the time for it.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

It also drives me crazy, not only that so many towns and cities in America look exactly the same, but so many of the districts within those cities and towns look exactly the same.

That was a neat thing about living in Vancouver. I think they may make it a little bit easier to start small businesses there than we do (I'm told, don't know if that's true). In any case, rather than being _only_ a series of identical, rubber-stamp Starbucks+Petsmart+Sportsmart+Applebee's+etc.-strip-mall-lands, the city seemed to have a much more varied selection of shops.

[Bruce/Crablaw]

It appeared that the billboard itself was poorly fastened to the wall on its upper left corner; is this my impression only or is this the case? To me, the existence of an actual hazard from some wind shear/sail effect making this billboard into a missile, a visual obstruction or a physical obstruction to pedestrians is even more offensive than the content of its message.

[Bruce/Crablaw]

Oh - large view - the scaffold above appears to be actual scaffold workers on an actual scaffold, in the act of installing and affixing the sign.

[greensmile]

That add looks distracting. Has it caused and traffic accidents? [the seasoned NYC driver probably has a high resistance to distraction from the mix of road hazards and bumper-targets clamoring about them but there is always some gawker...]

[Dirk van de Broek]

Is this gey really jumping or is it a photoshop photo?

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

It's not Photoshop. It's life-sized models stuck on the wall.