I returned from San Francisco last night and found Manhattan’s West 4th Street subway stop plastered with posters for Diesel’s new ad campaign based on the theme “Be Stupid.” Apparently the idea is to equate “being stupid” with being a daring non-conformist, with such tag lines as:
• Smart Critiques, Stupid Creates
• Only the Stupid Can Be Truly Brilliant
• Stupid is Trial and Error. Mostly Error
I guess this is supposed to be like Apple’s “Think Different” campaign, though a few advertising blogs I checked out weren’t all that impressed. As for me, I’m not sure which is stupider: thinking it really matters what kind of pants you wear, or paying $180 for a pair of blue jeans instead of donating that money to the Haitian relief effort.
What interested me was that most of Diesel’s graphic depictions of stupidity are right out of the physical comedy playbook.
