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.
jtherkal: In what will become a growing series as November nears, we’re going to tackle political ads. For years, political ads have been a stain on our society, littering the airwaves with slanderous accusations, boredom and just plain terribleness. You’d think that candidates would hire professionals to pump out some ads that don’t feel like your typical political BS. But to date, few have. We’ll start with this gem, which has been a bit of a lightning rod as of late.
It’s for John McCain, Republican candidate for president (for the super uninformed). My guess is he has hired some professionals, and those professionals talked him into this outstanding ad. The conversation probably went a little like this:
Ad Guy: So John, the difference between you and Obama is that you’re old and crusty. He’s young, beloved and hip. Trying to make you seem hip, or Obama seem crusty is a near impossible task. So our angle is this: play up your crustiness and make his popularity seem like a fault.
McCain: Interesting. Can’t we just say “McCain is white and will take over the fucking world with guns?”
Ad Guy: No, there’s been a bit of a backlash due to all this war crap.
McCain: Oh, continue.
Ad Guy: Well, we start with ominous music. Then we show people chanting “O BA MA! O BA MA!”
McCain: Wait, won’t that make him seem popular?
Ad Guy: That’s the point, you old bastard. Now shut it and wait for the punchline.
McCain: Sorry.
Ad Guy: So while people are chanting, we show images of celebrities that are idiots. Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears, etc. Then people will think “Obama is a celebrity, Paris is a celebrity, Obama is the same as Paris.”
McCain: I like your logic.
Ad Guy: Then we say some of the political bullshit you insist on cramming in my ads, followed by that image of you looking into the light while you say you approve this message.
McCain: Doesn’t that clip of me looking into the light make people think of me being old and dying?
Ad Guy: That’s the point! We want people to think about how old you are. You’re the anti-young. You have so much experience that you’re almost dead.
McCain: Brilliant.
Ad Guy: That’s why you hired me.
I guess if I have to rate this, I give it a F. The backlash on this has been nothing short of sensational. Paris has even responded with this:
sjbooher: That’s it, I’m voting for Paris. That is awesome. How does Paris Hilton have a better campaign ad than McCain? And it also sounds like she already has a better handle on her running mate (Rihanna, potentially) than either of the real candidates! Ha. McCain’s ad was lazy and scatterbrained at the same time. FOCUS, MAAAAAAAN. Not to mention he just saved Obama millions of dollars as the backlash is campaign advertising in and of itself. F to the McCain ad, A+ to the Paris ad.
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: Hey, all you competitive swimming fans out there, here’s an energy bar you can really get behind. I mean, if Michael Phelps–who is good at swimming–likes it, it must give you super power. Come on Powerbar. Maybe he was the best athlete you could afford? Or maybe you thought it was a good choice because swimming is hard. Sure it is, but most people don’t give a daaaaaamn about swimmers. Unless they’re in a red bikini, running down the beach in Malibu (Baaaaywatch). Nice try, putting those sharks in the pool, but you never had him fight the sharks. You didn’t even have him race them. Massive failure. F.
sjbooher: I do remember that last Summer Olympics Michael Phelps was EVERYWHERE — featured in maybe 4 or 5 (more?) different ads. I have no idea if that worked, but he was the star of the games themselves. I think he won a few medals, but he did not eclipse Mark Spitz’ record for most medals in one games. So they are definitely tapping a familiar well, here. The problem with Phelps, is that he is about as charismatic as that diving board he’s standing on. The Michael Phelps Story, starring Hayden Christensen, coming soon to a theater near you! Maybe there should be more focus on the sharks? Sharks are definitely not boring, and I do not think I even noticed them until I saw the ad a few times. Another interesting tidbit, while he has been a saint when compared with Naomi Campbell, this marks another use of a celebrity endorser that has been in trouble with the law, proving companies are generally hypocrites about that kind of thing. Since he is a fellow Wolverine, I won’t be quite as harsh as my associate. D+.
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.
jtherkal: First, does anyone under the age of 40 know who Meatloaf is? And more importantly, if they do, is there anything endearing about Meatloaf, aside from his ridiculous name? There’s absolutely nothing I like about this ad. The song is terrible, the people in it look like no one I’d ever want to be and it does only a mediocre job telling you what the product is. When that kid moves his head in that strange way, it makes me want to punch his stupid face. This is one of those ads that has me scrambling to change the channel when it comes on. F.
sjbooher: Well, we know who Meatloaf is, and we are under 40. After all, we were even in a fantasy sports group with him! Ha — that just made jtherkal feel like his definition of a “nerd”. I love it. I do not love the ad, but I do think it is pretty good. I like musicals in general, so I automatically skew towards liking this, and I think this particular song is clever. I’m not sure what you are listening too, but all it does is describe the product. Maybe you need to watch it again and, um, sleep on it? B+.
jtherkal: So today I received these notices that videos had been removed from our YouTube channel due to copyright violations. I had to read them a few times to understand what they were saying, because certainly no company would ever ask you NOT to watch or show their commercial.
In the case of the Viagra Ad, it seems to be the music company that had a problem with us sharing their song without paying for or obtaining the rights. But in the other case it was Toyota, the actual car company, that asked to have THEIR AD taken down. Now, is it just me, or does asking people NOT to show your ad seem like the most ridiculous thing in the history of marketing? It’s FREE ADVERTISING! The whole reason you make an ad is to have people watch it and hopefully notice or remember it. The ultimate win (well, aside from making a sale) is when someone passes on information about your ad, or even better, passes on the actual Ad for others to see. I’m absolutely amazed and confused by this.
sjbooher: This is like a serial killer telling kids not to litter. Or like a child molester championing the spaying and neutering of animals. Or like Hitler being the face of an anti-smoking campaign. I don’t want to hear this garbage from Wal-Mart, one of the worst corporations in existence. Get the hell out of here with all that noise. F-.
jtherkal: Wow. I had no idea you hated WalMart so much. How do you feel about K-Mart? Kwiki-Mart? The truth is, I don’t hate WalMart and I don’t like WalMart. If I were going shopping for my militia, I think I bet I’d head there. I could probably pick up a few recruits along the way. There is some sort of documentary about WalMart that I should probably watch.
Here’s one thing that bothers me: Listen to this claim “If every WalMart shopper, all 200 million of us, used just one bulb, it would be like taking over 11 million cars off the road.” Ok. For how long would those cars be off the road? For as long as the light bulbs lasted? For .5 seconds? Why not claim it would be like taking 5 billion cars off the road, as long as you’re making outrageous claims. D+.
sjbooher: I despise these board room ads. They are boring and have been done a million times, so anything said is just a bunch of BLAH BLAH BLAH white noise. There are least two of these in circulation right now, the other being a Southwest Ad with the actor BKA Clay Davis, from The Wire. This raises another question… why are these second-rate actors sought for these? Do they get paid more than the standard commercial actor? If so, that makes these even worse, as I can throw “waste of money” into the mix. F-.
jtherkal: Overused formula, yes. Effective formula? Absolutely not. This is almost entirely irrelevant to me as a consumer. They completely bury the selling point (that DirectTV has more HD channels), meaning I walk away from this with zero understanding of what they were trying to tell me. It’s hard out there for a satellite provider. As a DirecTv subscriber I can tell you the only reason to get DirecTv is if you can’t get cable. There it is. The foundation for the future of DirecTv’s marketing: When you can’t get cable, get DirecTv. I will say that I laugh at that guy’s suggestion of making their channels louder, and then shouting the nightly news line. That keeps this from an F. D.
jtherkal: I don’t know why they even made this ad. It’s perhaps the most ignorable, boring, worthless ad in history. Trying to criticize it is like trying to critique a rock for not being a statue. It’s just there. It’s not good, but there’s nothing glaringly annoying about it. Couldn’t they at least have gotten a hot girl to do the talking? No, let’s get a moderately attractive, middle-aged, red haired woman instead. Everyone knows they’re experts on high speed internet. And another thing, having your website name be “hughesnet.com” is confusing. Even though I watched the commercial three times in the last five minutes, I can’t remember if it’s hughes.net, hughes.com, hughesnet.net, hughesnetdotcom.org. It’s a miracle I even remember that this ad exists. It doesn’t really even deserve to be rated. F.
sjbooher: I like it. I think this is a perfectly informative ad for a product many people probably do not know a whole lot about. I know I learned something. While the pitch lady is a bit annoying and too chipper, she probably plays well with household decision-makers. Give me a simple, informative ad describing a product, instead of an over-written ad that tries too hard to be funny, any day of the week. A.
jtherkal: You basically like the WNBA of advertising. Passing, jump shots, layups and more passing. Fundamentals. Me, I’ll take some flash.
