Ads in restrooms are nothing new, and they are especially common in club restrooms, which is often the only place with enough light to see, no less read. Most are over urinals or by hand-dryers.
Some creative minds at Lowe Bull in Cape Town, South Africa, chose a less obvious approach: putting a poster on the wall opposite the sinks so it would be seen in the mirror by those washing their hands.
As it turns out, it was an ad for Russian Bear Vodka, and therein was the second twist. At first glance, it looked like an old Soviet propaganda poster, with text accompanied by images of military personnel.
But look again, eyeing it using the mirror, and the Russian text actually turns out to be in English. The message: "Real men don’t drink and drive.”
“The idea came about when the creative team noticed that many letters of the Russian alphabet look like Western letters in reverse,” says Simon Lotze, a copywriter at Lowe Bull. “Initially this was a copy-only poster until we improved on it to make it look like a Russian propaganda poster, making it more interesting visually.”
The poster fits into Russian Bear’s “The Fun Side of Russia” theme, in which it pokes fun at life under the old Soviet regime. The first poster went up at Cape To Cuba restaurant in Cape Town on April 3, and Lotze says other area bars and clubs have since approached Russian Bear asking for poster they can put up in their restrooms.
