Send the bill to Gucci

This is a great story about a man who designed an ad (featuring himself) and sent it to a Swiss newspaper as a two-page full-color spread. A spread to be billed at $50,000 to Gucci. This is what advertising gets for being such a last-minute business. It makes it possible for things like this to take place.

Via AdFreak.

Hello

Below is the new Apple commercial for the iPhone. It is absolutely one of the best commercials they could have made. It ran during last night's Oscars broadcast. Perfect ad for the audience they were showing it to.

The Fame Game

I'm not sure what The Fame Game is, and honestly my shoulder hurts too bad right now to care. However, the guy in the video here is really great.

"It's worth noting at this point that some people like to put fish in the recipe at this stage. Sometimes canned salmon. Sometimes tuna. Don't do it."

Via AdverBox.

Robert Goulet strikes again

"Robert Goulet put gum in my hair"

As a companion to the great Super Bowl commercial for Emerald Nuts, they have more Robert Goulet sightings at Emeraldnuts.com.

You can view the spot "from that big football game." Don't you think paying millions of dollars for the spot would qualify them to use the term Super Boal without fear of linebacker-sized lawyers descending on them?

You can also view a funny video titled "Victims Speak."

Mr. Goulet even has an official title: Goulet, enemy of natural energy.

Funny stuff via Adfreak.

"Cancel or allow?"

This is one of the best and funniest new "Get a Mac" ads to come from Apple.

"You are coming to a sad realization. Cancel or allow?"

Almost "14 Days in a Civic"

A funny spoof of the "7 Days in a Sentra" campaign Nissan put on last year.



Via AdFreak.

You need it when?

Scott Smith has a good story up about the Super Bowl spot he just directed. The entire thing was started the Monday before the big game and finished just in time.

Advertising has always been a last minute business. It's part of what drives me nuts, but also part of what drives me to try new things. It seems like it's always when you are tired and just about done that you come up with that one last "wouldn't it be cool" ideas. When you take the time to implement those, you usually come out with something great.

These last minute creative marathons are some of the most fun, and yet most draining things you'll ever do.

SB highlights

Below are some of the spots I enjoyed from last night.

Doritos
A pretty good spot for Doritos. I was impressed with the way they equated Dorito flavors with life.


And now a Doritos spot that is totally creepy and wrong, but has some good acting.


Emerald Nuts
There's just enough quirkiness to make this one work. Plus you can't beat watching Robert Goulet eat paper.


Coca-Cola
This spot has been out a while, but is sheer magic. It even works on people (like my mother-in-law) who had never heard to Grand Theft Auto.


Careerbuilder.com
They managed to be great this year ... and without using animals at all.




E*Trade
The love the way this spot is shot.

Another good one for E*Trade. "Save Holland."


Fed EX
"Well said, Mr. Turkeyneck."


Nationwide Insurance
I can't stand the music, but you have to admit this is funny. The best part, though, is the store manager. He was the perfect actor for that two-line role.


Bud LIght
This was one of my favorites. "And a chainsaw!"


Budweiser
One of the few good spots featuring animals.

Talking animals

So far, the SB commercials have been pretty uninteresting. The theme so far seems to be talking animals. While none of these spots are truly great, I am a fan of the Taco Bell spot below.

Mostly because it's funny to hear a lion say Ricardo Montalban.

"We're manly, manly men!"

Dial has a great new site to promote Dial for Men.

It's amost on par with these spots from Old Spice. I like all this new manly man marketing.

Some of the highlights of the site include:

The theme song. "Dial for men. We're manly, manly men. I'm a man, yes I am." (Repeat ... forever). All this backed by a tuba.

The Official Unofficial Rulebook for Man. "Hugs are allowed for old friends. But they must be of the handshake/back-punch variety.

And something I've advocated for a long time: Die Hard is, in fact, the greatest Christmas movie ever made.

Via American Copywriter.

Jack Astor's Bar & Grill

I would kill (no pun intended) for a client like this. I love this creative.

Click for a larger version.

Via AdverBox.

"Are you high?"

Really funny Mac vs. PC commercial parody. I've seen a lot of these, but this one is actually pretty good. You can view more of them here.

Kia K2500

Some great ads from Kia for their new K2500. I really like looking for the new ways people are using traditional media spaces. This execution, using the bottom strip of the front page is creative and very interesting. People tend to either love or hate these executions because of their intrusion on the editorial space. I personally like them, but I spend more time in the advertising camp than the editorial one.

Via AdverBox.

Human Touch vaguely creepy

The above spot from Toyota is great in concept, but the execution is somewhat creepy for my tastes. Maybe it goes over better in Japan. What do you think?

Via Advertising/Design Goodness.

Branding water

The video above shows a very interesting technique using water to create things like logos. This execution for Jeep ties in with the brand really well. The video gets a little dry (no put intended) when it gets into the technology behind it, but just seeing the water work it's magic is amazing.

Via adfreak

Finally, nobody else cares either

An interesting story on Ad Age about the fact that no one seems to care about video on their mobile phones. Over the past few years, this was seen as the "next big thing" for both media companies and advertisers. I've always looked at it and wondered what the big deal is. Video is slow to get over a phone and the quality is never great. The screen on my Treo 650 is gargantuan by most cell phone standards, but you still couldn't pay me to watch video on it.

There just doesn't seem to be a good fit for video on a cell phone. Do you offer full episodes of TV, or movies? Who wants to watch that on such a small screen. Ok. Then what do you offer? Maybe short videos that tie into larger media (movies, TV). It had better be truly great content to make me want to wrestle with most phone interfaces to get ahold of it.

The thing is they aren't offering anything truly innovative. They just look at the massive cell phone market and want to find a way to tap into it. Understandable, but desire to make money doesn't appear to be enough in this case.

The money quote of the article is this "The only thing holding up the explosion of the mobile phone content and advertising business continues to be the lack of interested viewers, panelists bemoaned at the second annual NATPE Mobile conference here."

AdPulp summed that quote up best with a quote of their own: "That's like saying "The only thing preventing me from getting laid every night continues to be the lack of interested chicks.""

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has never seen the appeal of mobile video.

What's that smell?

That’s the smell of Old Spice m’ lady.

Picture this: You are in charge of marketing for a stodgy old deodorant company. Heck, they even have “Old” in the name. Never a good start when you are being overrun by hip new brands that market with sexy girls, and the promise to deliver those sexy girls by simply using their products. How do you combat that?

With true manliness and comedic gold. And who represents manliness better than the ultimate man ... Bruce Campbell? You can watch the spots below and see what I mean. They are smart, funny, and actually update the Old Spice brand without giving in to the “we know you wanna have sex, so we’re going to make it look like you can have more of it by wearing our products, while also making all women look like uncontrollable sluts, but you and I both know if you believe this, you won’t be having more sex, because you are stupid and relying on cologne to make you sexy) mentality. Such as say Tag or Axe. Old Spice doesn’t have quite the “edgy” name of the others, but they make it work.

Old Spice will even make hair grow on your chest. I saw it on TV (or YouTube) so it must be true. Right?

I flat out love these spots.





“They’ll buy you a stick of something that smells like wildflowers and shame.”

Via American Copywriter.

Mute ads

For designers of cheesy web ads: SHUT UP!

For webmasters who place loud ads on their sites: STOP IT!

I'm really tired (in case you couldn't tell) of ads on sites that have noise. Whatever noise it is, if you think it's a good idea to put it in the ad, let me tell you, it's not. Whenever I visit a site and the ads around it start talking to me, I make a note to never, ever visit the site again.

Don't. Do. It. Ever. Again.