I Got Suckered - and It Was Good

As a practitioner of the Black Arts of Advertising and Marketing, I like to consider myself immune to most tricks of the trade. I like to think my cynicism makes me smarter than the art directors and copywriters out to make me laugh and make me buy. Occasionally, I get blindsided.

So I'm flipping through the pages of my new Rolling Stone (great cover story on Parker and Stone of South Park) and I get to the last few pages where they stick all the ads, and I say to myself, "Ha! Someone seriously screwed up at press time. All these pages got printed upside down." Couple seconds later I realize, still viewing the pages upside down, that every one one of them features a MINI Cooper.

Brilliant execution by Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners on this flip issue, called Really Hot Metal Magazine. Each page (8 in all + the cover) is witty and fun, featuring the Starsky & Hutch fashioned "Hammer" character and his sidekick, Coop, a talking car. The whole Hammer & Coop campaign has been ridiculed by industry wags. David Kiley, writing at Yahoo!, said "The problem for me is that the homage to the 1970s-early '80s TV action shows is too ham-fisted. It tries to be funny, like a weak Saturday Night Live sketch that goes on too long. The British voice inside the MINI is especially unfunny and unengaging. He says "bloke" and "bloody" a lot. But the writing in the serials is awful."

Maybe the webisodes are a little stupid, but nothing is as unfunny as SNL these days, Mr. Kiley. (Lorne Michaels - please retire.) Agreed on the British voice. But I can tell you, the print stuff works. More flip issues are reportedly coming to MAXIM, Stuff, and Blender. I'm guessing MINI is targeting men's magazines with a parody of a 1970s action hero to counter the widely held perception that the Cooper is a chick car.