I RATE ADS

jtherkal: Following the growing trend of pulling seemingly “offensive” advertising, Verizon yanked this off the air after getting pressure from PETA and other animal-rights groups, who claim the commercial promoted animal cruelty. They went on to explain “that chained dogs are deprived of social interaction and forced to endure weather extremes, adding that the spot perpetuated stereotypes against pit bulls as a violent breed.” Hmmm, you know what else perpetuates those stereotypes? When pit bulls eat people. The only thing offensive about this ad is that it royally sucks. Maybe that’s why they took it off the air. F.

sjbooher: I’ll never understand the concept of spending ones time saving dogs when there’s poverty and inhumane conditions for HUMANS in our own backyards, but that’s just me — call me crazy. So with that being said, I obviously do not find this ad offensive. I do not think this ad is that bad, either. That guy wants to touch that phone, and he’s willing to risk life and limb to do it. The best part? Even though he appears at the end, that dumb “network” guy doesn’t talk and his time is limited. I will say this spot has the “feel” of the Boost mobile brand, to me… if I didn’t know which provider it was for, that would have been my guess. C.

FREE MIKE VICK!!!!!!!!!!!

sjbooher: Well looky there… that spider done built itself a shoe web. Well I’ll be gosh-darned tootin’. I get it and everything… and it’s visually pleasing, but still kind of boring. It borders dangerously close to AEM. C.

jtherkal: You’ve lost your mind. Spiders = awesome. A.

jtherkal: This ad makes me want to throw up. I hate hate hate that spike-haired guy, who is supposedly some sort of chef. DOUCHE. His name is GUY. Guy!? The only person, ever, in the history of the world who should be named Guy is that muppet, Guy Smiley.

After that they should have retired the name forever. I want to like TGIFridays ads, because I love TGIFridays. Their BBQ burger is awesome. They have the best French onion soup I’ve ever had–and I’ve had a lot of French onion soups. But having that guy, Guy, talk to me turns my stomach. Yuck. F.

sjbooher: This “guy” is sort of annoying to me, but I am not on the Hate Train. This series of ads aired non-stop during the NCAA tournament, and my wife was constantly talking about Friday’s, as a result. If we lived anywhere near a Friday’s, this would have for sure fallen into the Ads That Work category. Beyond spike head, this is your average restaurant ad. They do a good job of showing mouth-watering food, and infusing their brand with the red-and-white stripe background. C.

P.S. I didn’t recognize him, but I guess Guy Fieri is a TV personality. You learn something new everyday…

jtherkal: With the whole Arthur-Anderson-renamed-Accenture sneaky marketing move gone and all but forgotten, Accenture has moved on to further disgrace themselves by creating terrible ads. I see the logic they’re using: Tiger Woods is good at golf, businessmen like golf, so let’s put Tiger and golf and business together. Their line “Go on, be a Tiger” makes me throw up in my mouth, and the new line “We know what it takes to be a Tiger” is almost as bad. They force fit their message clumsily into images of Tiger golfing, resulting in an embarassing, pun-filled, hack-job campaign.

The only redeeming value is that this campaign gave birth to one of my favorite advertising stories. I know two of the creatives who were unfortunate enough to work on it. Unhappy as they were to be strapped with the assignment of writing terrible lines to go with pictures of Tiger golfing, they gave it the old college try. During their work, they noticed that a lot of the headlines bought by the client sounded like they came right from fortune cookies. So they went down to Chinatown and bought a bag of 200 fortune cookies, cracked them open and started to pick out the fortunes that might work as lines. They presented the list of lines to their creative director, who thought they were BRILLIANT. The lines sold and now, in the archives of Accenture ads, you can find some fortune cookie gems. I was in the airport one day and saw one that was clearly a result of their efforts, which read “At first, all great tasks seem impossible.” Like doing a good ad for this campaign, I imagine. F.

sjbooher: True confessions: I love puns. True confessions part II: I have no idea why this is so bad. Seems fine to me. Simply including the stills and clips of Tiger is probably a win… and then they didn’t get too over-the-top with “we’re so witty” copy — just simple puns and quotes that don’t detract from the message: “Be the best in the world at what you do, come to us”. Overly creative? No. Will it win any awards at some holier-than-thou ad awards ceremony? Apparently not. Will business people like a company associated with Tiger? Yes. C.

sjbooher: I first heard about this on Hip-Hop news site, nahright.com. I don’t know anything about Roy Black — apparently he is famous in Germany — and I don’t even know what this is advertising. Perhaps Snoop is singing about it in German? No matter — this is awesome. Snoop coming out of a fridge? Hot girls coming out of a dishwasher and dancing around? Fabulous. A+.

jtherkal: My associate seems to ignore his own rules whenever he sees fit. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t understand German advertising and is giving them the benefit of the doubt. I don’t deny the greatness this 40 seconds of films brings to this world, but you need to tell me what it’s for. Maybe this is just some sort of incomplete YouTube clip. I can’t give this better than a C without knowing what it’s for.

sjbooher: You are sort of right… I was just making the assumption that if I knew German, I would know what the product was.

jtherkal: I like these commercials. The concept that hotels go out of their way to ensure you write a good review on Hotel.com is a decent one. Not true, but kind of funny. I was going to say that even though I like them, they don’t really make me want to go to hotels.com, but as I was writing this I realized that I feel that way because I’m not actively looking for a hotel. If I was looking for a hotel, I probably wouldn’t know where to start, so thanks to these I now know to go to hotels.com if I want to read reviews. I guess that makes them pretty good. It’s working. It’s wooorkiiing. B+.

sjbooher: Not a fan. I have not laughed once at any of these, despite seeing maybe 3-5 different ones. It is a decent concept, I just do not think they are funny. I have heard people talking about them, though, so that is saying something. As long as Kayak.com exists, however, I personally am not interested. C.

sjbooher: I am truly torn on this one. It is so ridiculous, corny and over-the-top, that it just might be good. A bunch of guys hanging out laughing, joking and having a good ol’ time, singing about Viagra! Really? Are you serious? So amazingly weird… and yet… engaging. And yet… so uncomfortable and awkward. Vi-vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Viagra! Technically speaking, it is very hard to turn your head away, good or bad, before they get into the meat and potatoes of the product. I think this is both an A and an F, so I’ll give it a C.

jtherkal: I’m not torn. This is ridiculous. What about this would make you want to get Viagra? Not that guys who can’t get boners need any additional incentive…that alone sells the product. There must be 1000 smart executions that don’t involve making a group of guys look like fools. While the song might be mildly catchy, my reaction is, “I hope I’m never one of those guys.” I hope I’m never an old nerd who meets up with other nerds at some dusty roadside garage to sing about how we take pills to get boners. D+.

sjbooher: I will never understand your definition of nerd. Never. Also, that one guy looks like Sam Jackson… that has to count for something.

sjbooher: I love the idea… but I think I only like the result. I have a couple problems. First, Kobe vs. Shaq is soooooooooo 2004. There are so many storylines in the Western Conference Playoffs this year, that it seems weak and lazy to try and drum up more Shobe controversy. My second problem is with the LeBron/KG edition… well, I just realized it is not as much of a problem, after re-listening. I thought they both said “I remember seeing Bird win it all”, but after listening closely, LeBron says “Jordan”. Still though… this version is obviously scripted, since they would not both have nearly identical quotes, and I bet they forced KG to say “Bird”, just because he plays in Boston now. He is fo sho a Jordan baby. Anyway, they could have put up a black screen with “NBA Playoffs” written on it for 30 seconds, and I would have been excited, but the NBA did not reach the full potential with these. B.

Now, jtherkal, say it with me one time… PLAYOFFS?!?!?!?

jtherkal: Yes! Don’t talk to me about playoffs! Kobe was on PTI yesterday and they asked him about this, which was kind of funny. But sjb is right, let Shaq and Kobe go. The only way I’ll care about that now is if Shaq would actually go Incredible Hulk on Kobe. HULK SMASH KOBE! These ads were alright, but kind of forgettable. There is so much drama in the NBA, as my associate said, specifically out west, and these don’t really capture that. Probably a clever idea on paper, but falls flat in execution. C.

And just for fun, my all time favorite press conference:

We talking about practice?!

sjbooher: SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! Also, SHUT UP! Fury, hate, rage and anger. Those are the emotions I feel with this whole campaign. Imagine annoyance as pure as Blue Magic heroine. These characters are all so “off-the-cuff”, so “cool”, so “it”, so “matter-of-fact”; they drive me crazy. And why do so many investment/financial ads feature one person just yapping? I feel like this whole genre is out of touch and needs some new ideas. F-

jtherkal: Whoa. Calm down. I don’t love this, but I don’t hate it. I actually like some of them. The cartoon-mapping over real people style gets your attention, but maybe not in a good way. To me, these are just really average financial ads. Person talking about money, blah blah blah. Maybe that’s what the target audience likes (target audience = real grown-ups with portfolios and a family). I agree there’s room in this category for someone to step in and do a breakthrough campaign. Talking heads and borrowing an annoying technique from A Scanner Darkly won’t do it. That movie sucked. C.

sjbooher: These existed BEFORE A Scanner Darkly, by the way, and I am getting so irritated right now thinking about how long these have run. Oh my god. Fury. I hated that movie too, if that counts. Maybe it is purely the animation style, now that you have brought that up.

jtherkal: Rumor has it, Hyundai is switching their business from Goodby to The Richards Group. After the release of the Think About It ads, I’m surprised. I thought those were well thought out, well executed, and starting to help Hyundai turn a corner and establish an actual brand voice. Then I saw these Dollars and Sense promotional ads. If you could make a more boring, ignorable ad, I’m not really sure how. F.

sjbooher: Booooorrrrrrr-iiiiiiiiiiinngg. However, in these economic down times, these might tap in to consumer sensibilities. They may strike a chord with people going through the problems mentioned in these ads. And weren’t you just saying brands need to give back? Hyundai is offering a little friendly advice, which may paint them in a positive light. C.