Thursday
Jun112009
Trouble Maker Campaign
Designed by HanTang Communications Group for Quzhou Seezo Trading. Love the tagline "Such tragedy could have been easily avoided".
"Wptt Contraceptive (a brand name) hopes to create a new packaging of novelty and visual impact. The objective is to emphasize the high contraceptive effectiveness of the products by indicating the painful consequences of having sex without a condom. More than 100,000 people have used the condoms and the sales increased by 21%."
30 Comments | Posted on Thursday, June 11, 2009 
Reader Comments (30)
Just saying...
As a Jew, I am getting tired of the relativistic way people use Hitler as a compare/contrast figure for anything and everything they don't like. Even if you think Bush was a total moron, he is not at all morally comparable to Hitler.
When you compare people like Bush to Hitler, it doesn't make Bush seem worse, it makes Hitler seem better. It lessens the impact of what he truly did, because fifty years from now, some kid studying the events of WW-II and G.W. Bush's administration, who lacks our first-hand perspective will say, "Gee, everyone in all these books puts Bush and Hitler in the same sentence. I guess being a buffoon and malicious ethnic cleansing are basically on the same moral level." If you think that sounds impossible, just ask yourself how much you really know about Napoleon, Henry Tudor, & Genghis Khan. You only know what you've been told. We are at the mercy of the prejudices of those who have come before us.
A person can only make such comparisons if they are themselves anti-Semitic and have no respect for the Jewish people and what they went through in the 1930's & 40's - not to mention all the other citizens and soldiers, American and otherwise, who died helping to save the world from Hitler.
The work above is both thoughtless and in poor taste. Designers need to stop using Hitler in work that does not specifically deal with him and his actions. Some forms of evil can never be treated as anything other than that which they are and should not be co-opted to satisfy an absurd, personal, political prejudice.
As a German, should I get offended by having Hitler depicted this way even though prior to him becoming a homicidal maniac he actually did some good for his country? Nope, because it's a fuggin joke. That, and the fact that dude was off his rocker and was probably the most evil human in the last 100 years. But that's beside the point, I'm offended and need to blog about it!!!! Rawr!!!!
Bush was put on there because he is the most recent powerful figure to bungle things up so badly. No kid is going to lump Hitler and Bush into the same category because they see both of their faces ON A CONDOM WRAPPER. Not a single one.
I am deeply and honestly sorry for all of the misery, pain, death and injustices the jewish people went through during the 30's and 40's and even continuing later that just that. But, cry me a river about it. Do you want reparations or something? I think it's time to move on with your life.
Go ahead and start some pathetic campaign to keep the image of Hitler out of artistic pieces and see what happens. I have to go now: I need to Photoshop the head of Hitler onto some cute puppies and kittens to convince little kids how cute and adorable he really was. I mean, look at that mustache!! Don't you just want to give him a big hug????
as some one who works in the Adult Industry, i can say its full of humor and jokes from the low to the high brow. but i think this one falls a little flat in why use negatives for a positive product you want people to use? when i first saw this i thought it was a anti-condom or contraceptive campaign. i also have issue with the black on silver foil for the PDP (iv seen this done) and the detail can be lost.
Most in the Adult world try to be fun and sexy, or fringes around that. in the sexual heath and prevention world they elude to STD's mostly (even preventing births) but never in this way. now this is were the phycology of the images come in... the fact that people hold strong feeling about the people in the images could (very likely) turn off your new customers and some old.
Stop trying to claim Hitler as your own personal evil. His atrocities are linked to countries and cultures all over the world.
That said, Pinochet, Stalin, Pol Pot would all be great faces, too. And wouldn't these faces be a boner killer anyway?
Secondly, you're not getting the point. It's not about the condom wrapper. At least in America, this is becoming commonplace. Increasingly, when someone wants to discredit or shut someone else, they call them a Nazi and compare them to Hitler. It's considered "the worst of all insults" if you will. But it is almost always an invalid comparison and therefore a disservice to all of us. When such a charge is made against someone who does not deserve it, it corrodes the charge and changes it's meaning.
I don't want reparations and it wouldn't matter anyway because no amount of money could rectify what happened during WW-II. I want today's designers to make thoughtful decisions and consider the cultural meaning of the work they produce. I understand what the designer intended. But our work as designers has a huge impact on society. If you are a designer I cannot believe that you don't take that responsibility seriously.
You are obviously very defensive about Hitler and the actions of your ancestors. I can understand that. I can also understand that humor is a coping mechanism used to deal with the unspeakable. Instead of defending him, take a look at Germany right after the war or East Germany up until 1989 and ask yourself how much good he really did for Germany. You don't take his atrocities seriously, despite your inclusion of the requisite, "I'm sorry for the ethnic cleansing, but..." line to prove to all that despite defending him, you're not supportive of Hitlers' actions.
When you minimize a guy like Hitler, the message you send is that he wasn't as bad as all that. Whether you want to admit it or not, that's the message being sent. We send messages with our work all the time, intended and unintended. Messages build up over time. When a message is pervasive and long lasting, it does have an impact. It's the essence of branding. A kid won't think Hitler "ain't that bad" if he sees one condom wrapper, but when a similar message becomes more pervasive and is seen repeatedly year after year, it certainly has an impact.
Go ahead and roll your eyes, but ignorance is an expensive commodity. Look at our world today. Look at what has happened in Africa the past decade or so. When people forget, no longer care and minimize the impact of similar past events, it keeps happening.
Tell you what, hop on a plane, go to Rwanda or Darfur and start cracking some "jokes" to those who survived the murders, rapes, starvation, displacement and slavery and see how funny they think it is. I guarantee you won't get a lot of smiles out of those whose wounds are much more fresh than WW-II. Grow up.
Comparing anyone to Hitler is idiotic.
Putting Bush in the same line up is inane and ridiculous.
The packaging is horrible because I could do that in Photoshop in 5 seconds and it has nothing to do with the product. There is nothing new in terms of design or application, printing process, or aesthetic. I wouldn't use them because they look like generics or a gag gift.
The people that would buy these probably don't like Bush anyway and wouldn't use a condom... they would just have an abortion.
I hate the new pepsi logo.
But you can't really argue with a sales increase of 21%.
I have been a designer/art director for 10 years and anyone who is honest realizes that designers (and media, etc) are responsible for shaping culture - because we control messaging.
To say that design won't affect how culture perceives history is ignorant. Too many people run around wearing fashions sporting images of revolutionaries like Che Guevara or Mao Zedong without having the slightest idea who these figures were or what they actually did. They simply become cultural icons symbolizing ideals that the historical person themselves may or may not have held to. And certainly ideals that the wearer may not hold to if they really understood.
As designers, we have a RESPONSIBILITY to be mindful of what associations we make and the messages we're communicating because they DO affect culture and perception. If they DID NOT there would be no use for us. Designers exist because messaging matters and companies are willing to pay big bucks to have their message effectively communicated.
While the idea that a condom could have prevented such tragedies as the birth of Hitler, etc. is somewhat "funny-ironic" To put a former U.S. President on par with genocidal dictators is atrocious. Even if you strongly disagree with Bush's actions, this comparison is ludicrous.
I agree with Aaron that this particular design undermines the gravity of what these other men did by using them for a cheap laugh and political statements. While, I think Erik is right that putting Bush and Hitler on the same wrapper won't necessarily cause teens to EQUATE Bush and Hitler...it does create an ASSOCIATION and sends the message that Bush is evil and culpable &/or that Hussein et.al. are just other "world leaders".
That said, having Bush in the lineup is the only thing that makes it "funny" because of the ironic/ghastly comparison. If it was only a line-up of genocidal maniacs it would fail to be "funny" and just be somewhat sick. So Bush is a necessary element for "humor." But it doesn't make it right to put it out there. It should have died in the conference room after a personal chuckle at how clever they found themselves.
It is my opinion that this design is in extremely poor taste and I'm disappointed to see it on a respectable site like the dieline.
I don't want to re-fight WW-II on The Dieline. My hope is that designers reading our comments will consider the meaning of the work they produce and pass that message on to others.
That said, I agree with the various comments on the page that the design isn't so great and is a complete romance killer. I wouldn't want to associate any of these guys with the most intimate moments in my love life.
"To put a former U.S. President on par with genocidal dictators is atrocious. Even if you strongly disagree with Bush's actions, this comparison is ludicrous."
All killing is not created equal.
If it were, we wouldn't have laws (and internal responses) that distinguish between war, genocide, ethnic "cleansing", negligent manslaughter, abortion, suicide, homicide, justifiable, homicide, serial killing, hate-crime/murder, temporary insanity, 1st, 2nd, 3rd degree murder, euthanasia, execution, capital punishment, self-defense.
The RESULTS are equally tragic (dead people). But humans inherently feel there IS a moral difference between methods/motives/degrees in bringing death to another person.
But this is an entirely new can of worms...with lots of potentially wormy bunny trails not pertinent to this particular forum.
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm NOT saying killing is ever "good" or that killing one ethnicity is more "OK" than another. Simply that "killing is killing" is not borne out in human experience/society.
Originality issue also aside, the way the idea has been executed is poor. The message is not being conveyed properly. So what if I have Hitler's picture on a condom pack? It means nothing like what the ad is trying to convey. In all a 2.5/10.