Click for the :45 Base London spot @1 MB, Quicktime

The theme for this weekend is filthy filthy underwear spots. Most of the spots I’m presenting aren’t that awful, and have become rather effective memes. Where the ads succeed in being catchy, however, they fail in the ever critical “Hey I wonder what company that was for?” department. If you win acclaim but you don’t push the good or brand, you aren’t doing your job. Also I call into question the notion that popularity on the Internet is a sign of an effective advertisement.

This first ad I completely ruin the end of with the still frame. A smoking hot woman ties a sexed up kid to the bed and begins to take off her underwear.

The she straps on a WMD and turns around. He detaches his arms and is cared for by some nice men in a bar or something.

The ad is funny, and chances are you’ve probably seen it already. But what are they selling? What is the name of the company? When the shock value wears off, is this the lingering image you want to leave viewers when they think of your lingerie company?

Click for the 1:30 Provocateur spot @3.5 MB, Quicktime

The next spot is the critically acclaimed ad for Agent Provocateur. Why is it critically acclaimed? Well, instead of having a woman just dance around in lingerie, she dances around in lingerie while a scary old woman laughs at men in the viewing audience getting a boner.

The ad succeeded in being a critical success. But why is the scary old woman in the ad laughing at my boner? I’m not sure if the idea is supposed to be “See, men get aroused by our lingerie even if they see a scary old woman along with it” or the idea is “Hey here’s some sexy lingerie..and now for no reason an old scary woman laughs at your manhood!”

Looking back at this ad through the fog of time, the only thing effective about it is having a hot woman riding a mechanical bull. And again, does the viewer remember who this ad is promoting? This ad did a good job promoting the advertising agency who put it together. The advertiser seems like an after-thought.

Click for the 1:00 MTV Asia spot @2.5 MB, Quicktime

This last spot isn’t really an ad for women’s underwear, but does feature ladies’ undergarment. It’s a bumper for MTV Asia. It has made its rounds through the Internet for being so darn funny and gross.

Aside from being funny, it’s a good illustrative tool when compared to the other two lingerie ads. It, like the two ads, became popular enough for its shock value to be passed around the Internet. Also like the other two spots, it’s pretty much a mini-movie. It’s not going to convince anyone to buy anything. And the MTV Asia spot doesn’t need to. If you saw it on TV it would be because you were already tuned into MTV Asia.

Likewise the appeal of the two lingerie commercials is mainly limited to the watching of the spots, at least for anyone stumbling across them on the Internet.

Just because an ad becomes popular doesn’t mean it is doing its job. The dancing naked Asian man proves this. It was 100% necessary to put him there to prove this point. Otherwise I would have jumped at the chance to not put him in.

I swear.

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