Funny backwards bus ad

Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, April 22, 2008 5:57 PM | permalink

This advertisement for an insurance company was put on the back of buses in Amsterdam. Link (Thanks Justin!)

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Discussion

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#1 posted by ggm , April 22, 2008 7:15 PM

having once had a run-in with a vehicle which turned the wrong way into a one-way street, this kind of humouristic street art would be giving me semi-constant heart attacks..

-G

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#2 posted by mightymouse1584 , April 22, 2008 7:18 PM

anyone have a translation?

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#3 posted by howtoplayalone

, April 22, 2008 7:22 PM

Isn't that a little dangerous? Couldn't someone freak out if they thought a bus was coming at them, especially if they thought the driver wasn't looking? Maybe not...

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#4 posted by Steven

, April 22, 2008 7:40 PM

that's plenty funny in JPEG. kind or (horrifically) irresponsible in practice. at least, you know, if it proves effective.

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#5 posted by flyingdutchman , April 22, 2008 8:16 PM

#2:
This ad is for Centraal Beheer, a Dutch insurance company which has its main office in the town of Apeldoorn. They have been doing this type of ads for as long as I can remember, maybe 20 years. The graphic usually depicts some funny and/or improbable kind of screw-up, and the punchline is always the same - and means "Ooops! I'd better make a phonecall to Apeldoorn!"

The ads have run on TV, on billboards, basically anywhere.

I dislike most advertising. But this one is a classic masterpiece.

#1,3,4:
The human eyesight and brain have a wonderful and rather efficient ability to determine if an object approaches or moves away. And, as I implied above, the punchline (always in Helvetica Bold) is so well known in Holland that it would give the game away long before anyone would start worrying.

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#6 posted by Nicole , April 22, 2008 11:17 PM

The Apeldoorn ads are consistently good (I believe they are produced by DDB Amsterdam). They were my favourite along with Delta Lloyd (insurance).

I lived in Amsterdam for seven years and the last Apeldoorn TV campaign before I left for Australia was this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grB2nA09NPM

See "related videos" on the side for more.

"Even Apeldoorn bellen" isn't easy to translate word for word, but the meaning would be something like "Better call Apeldoorn".

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#7 posted by XuYu , April 23, 2008 3:50 AM

Reminds me of that episode of CHiPS when a double-fronted car caused all kinds of mischief!

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#8 posted by lentil