Uhm... what? what NES racing game featured a girl wearing nothing more than a ribbon/snake? How does referencing that help to sell your marketing skills? How is it anything other than tasteless ugly bro culture?

I enjoy naughty pictures as much as the next dude, but I can recognise that there's a difference between a professional context, and a "locker room" context. I don't think that's overreacting. It's just noting that these guys don't seem to know what they're doing, and are likely to ruin my brand by tweeting something awful under my banner.

I think I agree with you on some level. In a classic professional context, I too would deem a naked girl picture highly inappropriate and unwelcoming to women. However, an agency's website can be a somewhat informal place. Depending on your audience, mildly inappropriate stuff is useful to show that you are different and not for everyone. If you look at the website as a whole it seems to make sense here. I think this is more an emanation of a vintage geekish culture than some "bro culture".

I guess I'm just very tired of people always getting on their high horse when something might be offensive to somebody. Some things are worth being indignant about, but most of the time it's just not worth it and diluting your point.

It's the kind of thing that makes me defend things I'm against just because I dislike exagerated self-righteousness.

something different about them like, they will ruin my brand with immature casual jokes about rape?

Please understand, I'm not pointing this out because I'm outraged or offended. I'm pointing this out because this is a contact form meant to attract customers. this is business. their business is marketing and branding, and the message they're sending with their website is that they are tone deaf, when it comes to what is appropriate for broadcasting a general audience. Appropriate in the sense of: Can I trust these guys to take care of my business's image? For me the answer is a resounding no.

Just because it's old school, doesn't mean it has to reference Nintendo! Don't forget computers and arcades had games too! Anyone remember that old 4 player monster truck arcade game? It had women dressed in a similar fashion when you won and I'm pretty sure a few other racing games did as well, it just went with that genre. They were even quite animated!

When I saw her pop up I instantly laughed and thought it was perfect because it's exactly what I'd expect based on my rough memory of old arcade games. If I actually viewed their site content first, I would have thought it was even more fitting, I mean look at their stuff! Regardless of what you think about the professionalism or sexism of it, they picked a reference and followed through on the full shebang perfectly, and that's what sells it, the complete well thought out package. They nailed the joke. The bonus that made it even funnier is the nostalgia surprise. I wasn't expecting the woman because I hadn't remembered those games in years, but when it popped up I went damn, that's SO how those games were! I can't believe they did that shit back then! My next thought was I gotta hire these guys and learn more. I hadn't even seen the rest of the site yet.

They know their audience and they seem to do a great deep dive appeal to them. These guys feel like they'd be polarizing, which is a better place to be then most the marketing companies out there. Use at your own risk. These guys seem awesome, and you seem to hate them, but here we are talking about them.

Doesn't a 1980s video game joke out date bro culture by like 25 years? I know what you are trying to say, but it just feels like a stretch given the context. The 1980s is kind of their thing. They have a match book with a naked women as a portfolio item for god's sake! Nothing here is screaming bro. Not all branding companies work for clean, tidy tech companies or insurance companies, some work for people who want attitude or character, you've found one of those. It's clear you are dealing with actual artists and creatives here, ones with an actual passion in what they create, that's a big damn plus.

I find it so strange though: who are their target audience, exactly?

I don't know, say Al Gore and Google! Read the site man, most of their projects say who they were for, and those were 2 of them. I'd consider hiring them for almost any project except a stale B2B company. People who want something cool and original, those who want a truly unique style/brand.

Bubble Bath Babes was a unlicensed NES game that had nearly the same image in their game: http://cdn-i.dmdentertainment.com/funpages/cms_content/17206...