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An ad for Fructal (Frook-TAHL) fruit juice in a Mercator store. Photo: Dietmar.
Like everyone else, I love Fructal. They make some seriously bitchin’ juice. But I wonder about this ad. I understand that they want to be edgy and convince teenies to fight the power by drinking pineapple/mango/lemon juice… but do these things work? I mean, seriously… “Fruc you”? What’s next? “Fruc off, thirst”? “Let us fruc your mouth”?
One thing to note, though: it doesn’t have as much punch if you read it the way a Slovene would — “frootz” instead of “fruck.” There’s also that phenomenon in which foreign-language curses don’t seem to carry as much weight as those in your native tongue do, even if you understand them. This seems to explain why I would laugh if someone told me jebi se but would think “What the fruc?!” if someone told me the same thing in English.
(Thanks Dietmar!)
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I don’t know… call me a power-fighting edgy teenie, but I like it!
Besides, the point with this one (isn’t it always) is to talk about the ‘contraversial’ ad as much as possible, ie. to make a buzz about Fructal, which it will definetely do - look, you are already making it.
I hate to be the one to rain on your parade (:mrgreen:) but both What the Fruc and Fruc off (pretty sure, although I can’t find the link) have been done. The latter bears no relation to the juice, but - hey! It’s there
The “was done” list also includes Fruc te gleda, which bears slightly more weight in Slovene.
More on the Fruc campaing here (Slovene only)
For “latter” please read “former”
Just saw the link to “what the Fruc” Ah….. when will I learn… read the post to the very end, pengovsky!
That’s pretty tame compared to the “Flick Off” campain here in canada. The font used for the logo makes the “L” and “I” look like a “U”
www.flickoff.org/
You see this plastered all around Toronto
Any thoughts on FCUK (French Connection UK), Michael? As far as I remember their advertising on New York cabs was banned back in the good old days when Giulianni was mayor.
I guess, Pengovsky just frucced up his comment
Michael,
Why don’t you just shut the fruc up and enjoy the fine juice?
I mean this in the kind way. The temptation to fruc things up was too great.
“Fruc te gleda, Michael”
I guess people in the chicken-land really dig this ad and I find it as one of those simple, positive and cute contribution to, often dull and gray, slovenian advertizing…So fruc kicks ass if you ask me!
Riko: The ad execs at Fructal should see that. Thanks for the link!
Tanja: I’m waiting for Slovenia to produce its own version of Giuliani — someone to crack down on quasi-profanity as well as people’s heads. I think I’m going to wait a long time, though. Probably forever.
The execs at Fructal are too busy worrying about their jobs, hence the quality of their campaign and the uniqueness of the “slogan”.
Zurich Insurance in the UK is currently using the slogan “Because life happenz”, with the Z in the same typeface as the Zurich logo. I’m convinced that someone at the ad agency must have thought up “Because shit happenz” and then realised that they couldn’t possibly use it.
I am not so sure if this “fruc you” add is even legal. There are some strict laws regarding public use of foreign languages in Slovenia.
O.
Okapi: I didn’t even think of that; that’s a great point. I remember the newspaper Finance recently getting in trouble for having an English headline. I’d be curious to know if advertising campaigns are also restricted in that way..
Tehnically yes, but since they run for about 14 days to three weeks, no-one inforces it. Plus: advertising campaigns are under the jurisdiction of the commerce inspection (possibly the most overworked civil servants in Slovenia), whereas media content is under the jurisdiction of one Ivan Pal a media inspector at the ministry of culture, who sees it fit to hunt down and kill all who are broatcasting hardcore porn and english titles (I kid you not. It’s his speciality)
“inforces it”= “enforces it”, of course
These Fruc ads are really really old though, and they were being used far before the law on the public use of the Slovene language was passed. And the law continues to allow ‘old’ foreign words to be used, so maybe that’s one of the reasons why these ads are still OK.