More People Should Vandalize Ads

Over the weekend, a friend sent this photo to our group chat for a lol about how quickly this mural ad on the side of a gay bar was defaced with graffiti.

While “your mom” jokes feel a bit dated, I have to say I love it because this ad sucks. 

Disclaimer before I go in on it: I’m sure some wonderfully talented people at Google/their agency put good work into the campaign that led to this ad. We don’t always see the behind-the-scenes forces chipping away at good ideas or the compromises needed to get work out the door. If you or someone you know worked on this, please don’t feel bad. End of disclaimer. 

Some background. This building is the legendary nightclub and performance venue Oasis here in San Francisco. Specifically, Oasis is in the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District within the SOMA neighborhood. Oasis is owned and run by drag performers. They host amazing local drag shows (both nightclub and cabaret style) and are a popular touring destination for world-class queer entertainers. If you need recs for what to check out there, DM me. That particular wall has long been an out-of-home mural ad placement, but recently Oasis worked with a group of talented queer artists to wrap the other two sides of the building in this stunning mural. 

Seriously y’all, they even painted the dumpsters. Iconic behavior.

Now that we’ve laid our scene let’s look at this Google creative copy. Let’s face it. This isn’t creative; it’s just copy. I’ve seen some really great examples of text-only creative. I’ve even seen it work for out-of-home, but this isn’t doing it for me. Just a few seconds of extra thought about the context and audience for this placement would have unlocked some really eye-catching, effective work. 

“No place like Chrome.” Wonderful, we have a play on a very memorable line from The Wizard of Oz. A Judy Garland reference on the side of a gay bar? Honestly, werk. We love that. Wizard of Oz is RuPaul’s favorite film. The themes and camp imagery still resonate with many young queer folks. This is a great hook to build trust with your audience. “The internet can be wild, but Chrome is my home base.” Love this copy. Too bad no one made creative to pair with it. 

The Wizard of Oz is all about color. Why did we intentionally make this ad look like monochrome Kansas? Did Aunt Em design this? Where is my Ruby Red Chrome wordmark? Give me Glinda the Good Witch on a little Chrome logo bubble, at least. Even outside of the context for this particular placement, I would still want to push this creative to be something more fun, memorable, and effective at delivering the ideas in the copy. 

When we look at this particular ad on this particular wall on this particular building, on honey, it gets worse. Look at how vibrant, dynamic, and colorful the mural on the other walls is. Who (besides my broken brain) would want to spend more than two seconds thinking about this Chrome ad when you could be looking at this lush art? 

Just like Dorthy, I’d like to slip into my own world of fantasy for a moment. What if we contacted some of the artists who worked on the Oasis mural to work on our ad? Tell them we want something Wizard of Oz inspired to fill in the negative space and put emphasis on our copy. The Instagram handles for the artist are just around the corner from your ad. It would be easy to contact them to commission work. I think when advertising to (or in this case, literally on) minority communities, the little bit of extra effort to get to know and actually support that community goes a LONG way. 

I know this was probably an idea for a display ad campaign that performed well and was scaled into an out-of-home buy that was handed off to an OOH-focused media team to find the placements but wouldn’t it be nice if we could have connected the great idea here all the way through to where the audience actually encountered it? I guess I’m glad someone took the time to put a “your mom” joke over this ad in some lovely graffiti handwriting. It made the whole thing much more memorable in the end.