Is this the worst ad of the year? I ask, in all seriousness. Because rarely in the annals of modern advertising has such a poorly-made ad, for such a big brand, been the recipient of such a huge global media budget. The campaign has been haunting me across various international airports for weeks. I stand transfixed, fascinated by its strange ineptitude, and bemused by why it was made so badly.
The whole premise is shaky. Three celebrities with nothing in common, or any apparent link to the fragrance, gather in an artificial, confined space. Michael Porter once told us that strategy is choice. Well, not if you’re selling Hugo Boss parfum. Someone clearly thought they could tick every box by having a Hollywood star, Latino musician and Brazilian soccer player all jammed up together like this and cover all their target market bases.
The tagline that usually appears around the ad is “Boss recognize Boss”. This literally makes no grammatical or semantic sense. Last week on LinkedIn someone suggested the ad was an example of bad AI creative. I disagree. Even AI, for all its six-fingered flaws, has never been this amazingly shonky.
Consider the gobsmakingly bad production quality. The ad literally looks like it was made by a sixth grader for their “Introduction to Photoshop” assignment. Look at the way the white boss logo is dropped carelessly behind Bradley Cooper’s hair. Wonder at Vinícius Jr’s lack of fake shadow. Or lower right arm. Ponder at the logic of photoshopping a vague six pack onto Cooper’s T-Shirt. Who approved this?
Look at how the celebrities have been staged. The rapper Maluma, to his credit, looks like he wants to be there. But Vinícius Jr. offers the uneasy half-smile of a man unsure what is happening or how he got here. He is trying — manfully — to pull it off. But his eyes betray a man with deep misgivings.
And then, there is Bradley Cooper.