- That weird Austrian army ad? Pulled because it was deemed sexist. Dubbing it lame and stupid would have been enough to get it off the air.
- Stephen Colbert pimped Apple's iPad during the Grammy Awards broadcast.
- Like to rate brands? Love award shows? Into culture? Then you should check out Rate It All's Best of the Decade Awards.
- Seen an Applebee's ad? Then you've seen an Olive Garden and Friday's ad too.
- Remember the Filipino prisoners who danced to Thriller? Now Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center inmates staged a dance tribute to Jackson's "They Don't Really Care About Us." Witty.
- Mullen is doing its tweet the Super Bowl thing again with Brand Bowl 2010. Follow it on Twitter with hashtag #brandbowl.
Smart may have the brains but stupid has the balls. Smart listens to the head but stupid listens to the heart. Smart had one good idea and that idea was stupid. Stupid is the relentless pursuit of a regret-free life. Smart has the plans, stupid has the stories.
And so there you have it. That's the wisdom emanating from Diesel's latest campaign. Don't be smart and boring. Be stupid and have fun. Wear Diesel and be an idiot. Now there's a brand that isn't afraid to associate itself with morons.
But if you drink in the entirety of the campaign, it does begin to make sense. Take risks. Have fun. Don't be overly cautious. Life is an adventure. Live it and love it.
Wanna see weird? Wanna see near naked men slapping themselves on the back in the shower? Wanna see hot, near naked women hanging with The King? The you'll want to check out this Russian video from Moscow-based The Creative Group.
That King does get around.
Another celebrity. Another celebrity fondling their own hotness. Another celebrity fondling their own hotness and crooning for a brand. Another celebrity fondling their own hotness and crooning for a brand which thinks people actually believe people are gullible enough to think using such a product will make them as hot as said celebrity.
Beyonce. Beyonce Heat.
So if you're a brand that makes navigation products but no one thinks of you when it comes to navigation, what do you do? You erect the world's largest signpost and make it social. To hype it's navigation products and to "make navigation into something social," they built a huge sign next to London's Tower Bridge. People could text their favorite destinations all over the globe and a few minutes later, the sign would mention the location and point to the location.
The whole thing was streamed live to Nokia's site and a data base of everyone's location was built for anyone to peruse. Farfar Stockholm did the work.
Anything. People will do anything to get themselves into the Guinness Book of World Records. And brands will do anything to associate themselves with these people. This time, it's a guy named David Sheath and a brand named Fiat.
Sheath painted a white Fiat 500 pink with 200 pots of nail polish.
Yawn.
Love that they used the Dunkin' Donuts typeface though. That'd be a story. If Dunkin' lawyers got all over Fiat's ass. Now that would be worth getting excited about.
Stop the presses! This is amazing news! "Unprecedented" as the release screams! I mean, really. Can you believe it? St. Pauli Girl has, for the first time in its history, named the same woman to serve as their busty barmaid. Yes, Katerina Van Derham, who was chosen last year, has been chosen again to serve as the brewer's cleavage...uh...spokesmodel.
For those who like to drool over and objectify women who, for no other reason than being born with good genes, have big breasts and a hot body, the brand is asking people to vote for the official 2010 poster. Basically, the two choices boil down to whether you like boobs or booty.
As Sunday approaches I sit here with mixed emotions about Super Bowl advertising. Should I care because it's my job? Should I just enjoy the game like the rest of the world and boycott the lame ass idiocy that attempts to pass as advertising? Why can't I get excited this year?
Perhaps it's that I've written about so many Super Bowl ads over the past eight years, I simply can't get excited about seeing the same old stupidity over and over again. Go Daddy? Oh please. Another "men are idiots" beer ad? Gag. The eTrade babies? Make it stop!
Perhaps it's that I've heard everything there is to hear and viewed everything there is to view before the ads ever hit TV. There used to be an anticipation for something NO ONE could EVAR see until it appeared during the game. No longer. The ads are everywhere. And not just for journalists and bloggers. Many marketers toss there stuff up on YouTube well in advance of the game. So all that goes on inside my head during the game is a running commentary, "Yup, seen that. Predictable. Seriously? Yup, knew that was coming. Yup, that's as stupid as I thought it would be. Danica Patrick. Yawn. Guy throws a phone across a locker room. Check. Beer babes wrestling. Oh wait, that was pretty good! The Clydesdales. OK, not bad. Man sneaks beer into party under giant cheese wheel. Oh for fuck's sake. Talking babies. Talking animals. Monkeys. Can't wait until this fucking game is over so I can go back to watching some decent programming with ads that don't try so hard they shoot themselves in the foot before they end up in the can."
Perhaps it's laziness. Why go to the effort of blogging/tweeting/tagging/commenting/uploading ads when everyone else is doing the same thing. We used to care what Bob Garfield said. Does anyone give a shit any longer? Does anyone give a shit what what I have to say? And, no, I'm not equating myself to Bob Garfield. But does anyone really care what I have to say about the ads? Why is my opinion any more important than anyone else's?
Perhaps it's scheduling difficulties. I'll be stuck at a conference Monday after game day. While the rest of the world is blogging and bitching about the ads, I'll be slinging some mindlessly irrelevant blather on a panel about social media. And who really gives a shit about that? Super Bowl ad commentary or social media platitudes. It's like choosing between getting my left eye poked out or my right.
Maybe it's because the world has become so politically correct, the chance of me seeing anything interesting is about as likely as my chance of ever writing for Advertising Age. Giant breasted women in bikinis mud wrestling? Those days are gone. A gerbil shooting out of a cannon? Nope. A hot girl that says "throw it to me. I'm gonna be wide open?" Too offensive. Suicidal robots? Never. A Snickers kiss? Not a chance. A Salesgenie ad featuring Asians and Indians? You know the answer to that one. In our quest to become sensitive to everything, we have become a risk-averse, spineless, humorless nation afraid of everything.
OK, whatever. Follow me @adrants or @stevehall. I'm sure I'll have something ridiculously irrelevant to say about the ads during the game. And I'll be drinking. So it could be good.
