Okay, let’s all put on our ad executive hats for a minute.

As I was walking down the street in Parnell, Auckland the other day, I saw this ad for the Air New Zealand Fashion Week in the distance. As I got closer, my first thought was, of course, “Damn, she’s hot!” I then saw what the ad was for and thought “Oh, it’s just a fashion ad… big whoop.” Then as the background became clearer, I was thinking “That’s clever, they tied in a runway for both fashion and airplanes… cute.” So overall, a decent ad, but after I walked about 10 meters past it, EUREKA!!! That’s when I went back to take a photo and started drafting this post in my head.

So do you see what’s really cool about the ad? (Hint: think about it from a typical guy’s persepctive.)

Okay, if you don’t see it, here it is: a large, powerful, and unstoppable smooth shaft thrusting from behind toward a luscious and beautiful woman. Need I say more?

I personally think this is very cool, but you have to ask yourself whether the ad really suits the objectives of the Air NZ Fashion Week. I certainly don’t know for sure, but would the kind of people who find this ad appealing (e.g. me) also be the kind of people likely to attend a fashion event? Seems questionable at least.

But on the other hand, the ad was obviously good enough to get me to write about it and consequently raise awareness of the event (even though it’s over at this point.) So maybe that was the point, and if so, job well done!

I’ll let you decide the verdict – just leave a comment.

(And for extra points, if someone from Air NZ or the Fashion Week staff leaves a comment within 48 hours – a totally reasonable marketing effort – they will have my eternal admiration.)

As you can see from the above screenshot, 11 of the 20 most recent status updates are related to New Zealand’s “national depression.”

Besides the fact that New Zealanders are unhealthily obsessed with really into their sport, I think this little experience is just another small example of how information these days is being spliced and diced, fragmented across an ever-growing number of channels, and increasingly likely to be delivered by digital word of mouth rather than “Big Media.”

Isn’t that just freakin’ cool? I think so!