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.
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: Every once in awhile advertising people get all worked up about a campaign that, to me, seems like a total waste. Right now almost everyone I talk to is raving about this “white gold is white gold” campaign. A rock star who was handed a guitar full of milk. This is clearly the work of some over-ambitious creatives who have a big boner for Spinal Tap. They’ve probably been trying to sell a Spinal Tap campaign for years. I never really liked that movie. Since I started in advertising I’ve pretended to be a Spinal Tap fan, as so many creative directors and other folks in the industry sport large wood for it. At first, I would pretend to like it so that I wouldn’t seem like an idiot. Then I watched it, and I still pretended to like it, again not wanting to appear foolish. But no more. Spinal Tap, not that great. This campaign? It doesn’t make me want milk at all. And I LOVE milk. They have an extravagant website and some viral video components to this, so if it was good, it would be real good. Only I think it’s bad, so all that extra wasted energy makes it real bad. Sorry ad friends, but I’m not on your wagon this time. F.
sjbooher: It does seem a bit dumb and cliche to me… and what is Spinal Tap? Ha. “Rock Stars” are that ish right now though, so this will probably have some success, but I do not get the milk connection, either. Not to mention this is sort of a direct bite on the Heineken “Liquid Gold” ad. I have always thought it was dumb, in general, for milk to even waste money on ads. How can you forget about milk? C-.
sjbooher: I will preface this by telling you that in general, if a woman is considered attractive by any significant amount of men, I too find her attractive. Since I can find something attractive about most women, celebrities are usually a slam dunk, as they usually have to be attractive in the first place, in order to become a celebrity.
Enter, Kate Walsh. I hate Grey’s Anatomy, but prior to this ad, I had never really singled out Kate for any of that hatred; she was just part of the bigger blog of hate. Now everything has changed. I know, I know… she’s on whatever that spinoff is now, but you get my point. WHY was she picked for this spot? This ad is supposed to exude sexiness — “When you turn your car on, does it return the favor?” — and they were clearly trying to have a sexy woman driving the car. FAILED. Kate Walsh is only “celebrity hot”, meaning she’s pretty much average at best, but with enough makeup, styling and expensive fashion, she pulls off the illusion of hot — and sometimes even that does not do the trick. For her part in this ad, the most important sexy attribute are the words coming out of her mouth. Again, FAILED. Her voice is nasally and annoying, and it sounds like she has problems getting through the entire script in one breath. Of all the beautiful celebrities out there, how did she get the job? She’s at best the 3rd most attractive woman on her former show… hell, I think Taye Diggs turns me on more than her! F-.
jtherkal: Oh, my poor friend, this ad was not meant entirely for you. Sure, they figured they’d get a sliver of male interest from a script describing how the purr of an engine might send blood rushing to a lady’s special area, but I think they chose her for other reasons.
She’s on Grey’s Anatomy, a show clearly made for ladies. And from that show, they chose an elder, more respected character–one that other women might see as a sort of sexy mentor. They could have picked one of the younger, hotter women. But they didn’t. While on the surface this might seem like Cadillac is trying to get mens’ interest by having some broad in one of their cars talk dirty, I think it’s really designed to speak to all of the ladies out there with high paying jobs or high paying husbands. It says, “you can be older and sexy and a lady and this is your car and it might get you hot.” I still don’t really like it, but I can’t give it an F. C-.
sjbooher; Well, if that is the case, they should not air it during every sporting event known to man. F–.
jtherkal: Whoo Hoo? Oooh noooo. Washington Mutual used to do some pretty good ads. I remember one with an inflatable bank branch that was outstanding. And this one. But recently they’ve gotten off track. That whole stodgy-banker campaign, with all the rich old white men was pretty terrible. So they switched agencies (I believe), and the new work is supposed to make an “emotional connection” with consumers. But all it does is make me think “boring” and miss the feature they’re actually selling. While I like the line “we don’t nickel and dime you,” I think “Whoo Hoo”–the way it’s executed–is terrible. First, it’s WOO HOO, not Whoo Hoo; that reads like Who Who. Second, the way it’s said in the ad makes it sound like you’re not excited at all. It’s the fakest, most unenthusiastic woo hoo in history. Plus, it’s stolen from Homer Simpson. Why would you steal an iconic phrase and not use the icon in your ads?
Specific to this commercial, the small man, big wife gag was dealt its fatal blow when Norbit was released. And they bury the lead. Who cares about some worthless little “woo hoo” moment? You’re giving people free ATM withdrawals! The means the $2 you pay at 7-11, covered. The $1.50 you pay at someone else’s bank? Covered. And the $5 you pay in a Vegas titty-bar…covered! (I think.) That, ladies and gentlemen, should be the focus of a campaign. F.
sjbooher: The only thing black people love more than free checking is dancing! Amazing. They had to go out of their way to reinforce a stereotype, because including dancing here doesn’t even make sense! Someone that dreamed about disco contests would probably be at least 50 years old now, maybe even 60. This woman is an 80s baby, at least prove Jay-Z right and have her dream about break dancing!
This is bad on so many levels. Do people even use checks any more? If they do, they need to get into the new century. Electronic banking, people! I agree that whatever the ATM benefit is, might be better. And don’t even get me started on “Whoo Hoo”… I might start clawing my eyes out. F.
sjbooher: Wow (and WAW). Could this character have been any more ridiculous? Chuck has uncombed hair, an unshaven face, and an awful looking football jersey on. Then they have him shooting baskets and shouting like an ABSOLUTE FOOL. No one acts like that in real life — only in some stupid white man’s mind do people act like that. Absurd. Imagine seeing this ad on 10 different screens in a Vegas sports book for an entire weekend, over-and-over again — that’s how I was introduced to it. Terrible. F-.
jtherkal: Well, I was getting tired of the AT&T bars campaign (where they coordinate everything in the background to look like the bars on your phone) so this is, at the very least, different. This was the worst of the series (rock’n'roll guy, snooping dad, japanese business meeting)–borderline offensive. Maybe because Chuck was waaaay overacting. If you’re going to have him playing pop-a-shot, at least have him really trying. He wouldn’t have made any of those shots. Overall, the concept isn’t that great and I don’t even believe one company can claim to have significantly better service. It’s all pretty decent now, but still cuts out in areas. D.
