sjbooher: This is great, to me. But based on the PC-ness of American advertising, I’m guessing this is strictly a European phenomenon. Is this offensive? I don’t know any more. There are so many gray areas and double-standards these days, I don’t know what to think. And after seeing all of the way racial slurs and hateful comments directed at Josh Howard recently, my faith in mankind is on the downswing. A-.
jtherkal: Eh, this one is okay. The potential for comedy is there. A blind guy, a dog and racquetball. But it falls flat for me. Luckily, I love racquetball! But I believe that dog should be wearing glasses. The last thing a blind guy needs is for his seeing-eye dog to get popped with that little blue rocket-ball and lose an eye. That’s just reckless. Someone call PETA. C+.
jtherkal: Part two of this mysterious campaign is hitting the airwaves. The above video is actually a 4+ minute webisode, which is miles better than the initial shoe store commercial (F). Whether this one works when cut down to :30 or :60 remains to be seen. You start to get a glimpse of the direction they might be taking with this campaign–trying to humanize Gates and Microsoft, make it seem like Vista is designed with average people in mind. I don’t know if I’m buying it.
Rumor has it, the next spot released in this campaign is going to pay off this setup. The expectations are rocket-ship high for Crispen to nail this, so I’m expecting the payoff to be brilliant; otherwise this’ll be seen as a monumental failure. I don’t know why they didn’t start with this one, the family makes it way more likable. C+.
sjbooher: I’m writing this after seeing 30 seconds… you know, the standard length of an ad? And why would I watch more? There is deafening silence, no jokes, and nothing interesting going on. Seinfeld is still not funny so far, and Bill Gates is still boring. And the rest of that family is absurdly boring. The only interesting aspect is that one of the newspaper guys from the best television show ever made, The Wire, is the dad. F.
sjbooher: Update: I made it through the whole thing. Guess what? There is still nothing being advertised, and they have not even piqued my interest. I don’t care what’s next and I hope never have to see anything else in this series ever again. The “joke-in-the-can” robot dance was halfway funny, maybe, but if I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen the “nerdy white guy does the robot” joke, I’d be… Bill Gates. Still and F.
sjbooher: I cringe as these guys talk. There are several ads in this series, all with this trio trying to be funny. Mission failed, in my opinion. I’m sure some people laugh at them, though, so I cannot rule them out entirely. On the positive side, I have never heard of this cereal before, and the description in these ads whets the old’ palette, so they did a good job there. C+.
jtherkal: To put together an entertaining 30-second commercial that spends all 30 seconds talking about the product is a tough task. Here we have spots where people talk about the Raisin Bran Crunch and its benefits for the duration. It’s all raisin bran crunch all the time. The writing is pretty good (”Hmmm, maybe you haven’t heard it, two scroops of crunch…nooo, two scoops of raisins.”), but they failed by trying to make it “extra” funny. The banter between the guy who likes crunch and the guy who likes raisins is a good premise for the campaign. Then they throw in that third little elf-man and try to have him be the punchline. He ruins it for me. But overall, success. “As long as Ms. Flake and Mr. Granola are coming to crunch town, it’s a great time.” A-.
sjbooher: This is a tv network ad, which probably only airs on their own network, so in a way, it is AEM. But at the same time, if the audience enjoys the ad, it can serve as a brand strengthener (think ESPN and their constant SportsCenter promotion as a success story). As a huge Hip-Hop head, I enjoyed this a lot. It is an animated look at the changing style of Hip-Hop over the years. Fun. B.
jtherkal: It’s a fun little commercial. Doesn’t have quite the attitude that I think Fuse would like. To me it says fun and easygoing, not very edgy. Isn’t Fuse like MTV, not VH1? I think it has more to do with the animation style than the concept itself. Although I’m not sure the concept is even that strong. The clear way to go would be to tell people what you are: a music video channel that actually plays music videos! I don’t feel very strongly either way about this one, though I would have liked to see some Hammer pants. C+.
In anticipation of the latest Batman movie, a couple companies (at least) have partnered with the makers of the movie for co-branded ads.
Comcast Triple Play:
sjbooher: I’ve actually seen this one on tv. Clever. “Some Joker blew up the mini-van.” Get it? The idea of a regular family living in Gotham City is funny, but the writers mailed this one in. Seems like they could have made this funnier and even more enjoyable. B-.
jtherkal: I have to agree. A normal family in Gotham City is fertile ground for comedy, but they didn’t quite nail it here. The fear toxin and the idea that $99 Comcast makes Gotham paradise is sort of funny. Well, maybe not the fear toxin. C+.
Domino’s Pizza:
sjbooher: I like this one more. Hahahahaha. The Joker owes her a car. What a fool he is… doesn’t he want his minions fed? Let the delivery lady be! They could have used a few more pizza shots, though. Nothing sells pizza better than pictures of pizza. A-.
jtherkal: I don’t really care for this commercial. I understand the goons’ motivation–pizza is delicious–but where is Batman? Why wouldn’t they just kill her when she got to the door? The Joker don’t owe nobody no car, bitch! I guess this doesn’t have to be logical, but I still don’t like it. Partially because Domino’s pizza is the worst pizza. D+.
sjbooher: Nothing too groundbreaking here, but I do enjoy this ad. The song is safe, AKA not much potential for annoyance, but not really catchy. The visual effects showing the phones “blooming” are pleasing to the eye. I’m not sure there is much here to convince me to buy the phone, though, other than strictly the positive vibes from the ad, and the buy one get one free deal. Above average, but not great — B.
jtherkal: I agree, nothing remarkable about this, but it does leave me with a positive feeling. I like the song and the flowers look sort of cool. I couldn’t tell you what phone it’s for, or why that phone is good, or anything of the sort. Hard to give this much better than a C+.
jtherkal: It’s love. It’s love. It’s la la la la love. I don’t really like this commercial, but I like the song. To me, it sounds sort of like the South Park guys singing it. Here’s where this ad fails: It’s about giving someone a beer. That’s what a waitress does. The only part of sharing beer I care about is GETTING one. Save your altruistic sharing message for something un-beer-related, like pumpkin pie or something. Ad: D. Song: A. Overall: C+
sjbooher: Guess I just landed myself in CrazyTown! Are you crazy, jtherkal? This ad is awesome. You can horde your beer in the corner of your studio apartment all day and all night and drink it alone. I’ll be with my friends and non-friends alike, sharing the love. My favorite part, other than the song, is the maniacal laughter into which some of the beer recipients break, especially the old guy in the snow cabin. A+
P.S. — Can someone please put the Heineken “liquid gold” mini-keg ad on YouTube?
sjbooher: This campaign hits the mark, given a product named “Coolpix”. Nikon is going after the young, cool and hip people of the world, and this ad (and the others in the campaign) exploits that fact. It mixes a fun, simple idea with attractive actors and good execution. It prominently features the product in a non-”hammer to the head” kind of way. A.
jtherkal: A? Have you lost your mind? Ashton Kuchar started out as a likable fellow on That 70’s Show, then tried to get a little more clever with Punked and now he’s officially reached “person I don’t know but that seems like a cocky asshole who thinks he’s god’s gift to the world” status. His presence alone takes this down to a D. However, I can’t deny that he’s probably popular with the female target audience. And they fill all the non-Ashton camera time with hot girls, which appeals to males. C+.
sjbooher: Maybe if you spelled his name right he wouldn’t hate you so much. Love is love. Everything is everything.
sjbooher: Pandas are awesome. Some time ago, I learned on some sort of Discovery channel that Pandas are extremely lazy. They sit around all day eating only bamboo, which as it happens, has no nutritional value for them! And yet they still stuff themselves with it. They are the equivalent of a human that sustains themselves on Skittles alone. Great. What I really wish I could show you is the new Panda Express billboard that hits on this theme exactly. It says something to the effect of “Don’t be bamboozled like these Pandas, try Panda Express Beijing Beef!”. I love the play on words… get i? Bamboo? Bamboozled? Pandas? Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. If I ever get my hands on a picture of it, that billboard will get an A+.
Unfortunately I have not mastered the art of taking pictures while driving, so you’ll have to settle for the above tv spots. I love the idea of the talking Pandas, and they even resisted the horrid idea of using offensive Asian accents, but the writing just is not there. The idea is funny, but the end result is not. They do a good job of featuring and describing the new menu item, but they managed to blow a comedic slam dunk. C+.
jtherkal: Wait, the name is Panda Express and they use talking pandas? The somehow took the most obvious advertising answer, one with a lot of promise, and made it boring and dumb. And real writer would have had a field day with this concept. Instead, blah. F.
And for the record, koalas are even lazier, and therefore better. They sleep 23 hours a day, then wake up only long enough to eat enough to sustain them for the next 23 hours of sleeping. That, my friends, is a smart animal. I didn’t know that bamboo has no nutritional value for pandas. It’s fantastic they still love it so much. And Kung Fu Panda!
jtherkal: This is a classic. Famous for being what, at the time, qualified as edgy, I think it’s partially responsible for curbing the popularity of littering. And I say popularity because littering used to be pretty popular. People used to drive down the highway, eat their McDonalds, then dump the whole bag out the window. Hey, someone else will clean it up. How else will drunks work off their community service sentence? Now that type of littering is virtually unheard of. At some point the public’s acceptance of littering turned to a strong aversion. Animals everywhere are a little sad they don’t get our Big Mac scraps.
But you have to wonder, why was the Indian really crying? Perhaps it wasn’t the litter. Perhaps it was seeing the land that was once belonged to his people; the land for which the white man slaughtered his kind and forced them to live in the most inhospitable areas of the country (i.e. Oklahoma), then tried to make him feel better by giving him a casino. Anyways, I don’t remember this particular ad from when I was little, but I do remember “Give a hoot, don’t pollute.” Advertising lesson #113: kids listen to owls. B+.
sjbooher: Wow, they really pulled out the big guns on this one. This sure does make you feel awful. I do not remember ever seeing this either, and I am not so sure how much impact it had on littering… but it was not from lack of effort. Sometimes, as the saying goes, though, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar — this might be too strong, where people have to try and block it out. It’s like those awful drunk driving PSAs that would air, that ended with some sweet, innocent kid dying… a lot of good those did. Of course, drinking is more fun than littering. C+.