And it's exactly as boring as the title of the post suggests. The sad part is, this video is the most popular of World Almanac's two (and counting!) attempts to go viral.
We'd rather watch the Sonic Hearing infomercial 42 times. And on that same note, we'd rather peruse the infinitely-less-useful Guinness Book of World Records than pick up the World Almanac.
It's hardly the same value proposition, but both are relative time-wasters and have about the same chance of falling to the wayside. The difference is, pop culture is loaded with people and advertisers that are still going out of their way to get into Guinness.
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Remember Boost Mobile, the Nextel spin-off that spent the last three years molesting street culture under the tagline "Where You At?"
Hip-hop's run out of milkable teats so Boost's taken shelter in the ironic, determinedly awkward humor of suburbia. And Skittles commercials.
"Coroner" and "Bicycle" explain how Boost Mobile rawks, not because the value proposition is good (would you rather have "no hidden fees" or play iPhone Ocarina?), but because some things out there are worse. The problem is, you're left with little more than nausea over the still-lingering memories of unkempt armpit hair and breakfast burritos a la Poe. You will have absolutely no memory of Boost's merits.
Which I guess is how it should be.
180LA's responsible for the ads, which fall under a campaign called UNwrong'D. AdFreak's right. That apostrophe -- the whole concept, really -- is like cyanide.
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From the Adrants mailbag:
My skater friends have been sending me a link all day long that shows a blatant - and I mean blatant - BBDO rip off of a [Spike Jonze] directed skateboard video [...]. The original was from the most popular skate video in years, but obviously, someone's creative director hadn't seen it:
o Original, and far superior.
o The fraud.
The only way that is legit, would be if Spike did it himself... but quality-wise, it just doesn't stand up.
The ad labeled "the fraud" was put together by BBDO Mexico for Snickers, oddly enough. Pro-skaters Steve Berra and Eric Koston are so pissed about the Spike Jonze rip-off that they posted it on their blog and are trying to drum up some righteous rage.
More on this over at Agency Spy, which has a translation for the Mexican Snickers spot as well as comment from Berra.
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- Oops. Modernista!'s crazy website which isn't really a site but an application that points people to other sites that have written something about the agency is now finding it's "site" touting the agency's recent layoffs.
- Oops. Continental Airlines plane crashes. CNN writes story. Continental Airlines ad shows up right beside story. Classic contextual advertising fuckery. When will someone figure this shit out?
- Oops. The fake Denny's Nannerpus ad is better than the real...uh...originally fake Nannerpus ad. Confused?
- Oops. Overstock.com is selling Illusion's rape simulation video game.
- Oops. The economy sucks. Everyone's drinking. Everyone's having sex. But ads still suck.
...White people also like Jewish men and Thai girls. At least that's what Google AdSense told us on StuffWhitePeopleLike.com's "Political Prisoners" page.
All together now: "Contextual advertising FTW!"
Oh no! Say it ain't so! Even Uber-agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky is facing tough times and has had to reduce its staff of 900 by 60. Katie Kempner, VP of communications sent us this statement.
"In response to the current economic climate, advertising budgets are being reduced in virtually every industry. On a comparative basis, CP+B's business is doing well but we are not immune to the constriction of the economy. Our two main responsibilities are to our clients and to our employees. And in order to most prudently manage our business, we have
take the difficult step of reducing our staff by 60 of our 900+ employees. We do not anticipate any further staff reductions. These are extraordinary times and we hope that we will not have to do this again."
Well, there you have it. Best wishes to all. Getting laid off sucks and there's no other way to put it.
Yawn... Oh wait. Sorry. I almost fell asleep there viewing GoDaddy's two contenders (the voting is TIGHT!) for this year's Super Bowl, Baseball and Shower.
Baseball is a lame attempt to recapture the, at the time, racy sexiness of the original commercial featuring Candice Michelle. It fails. Shower is a lame attempt to portray Danica Patrick as a sex symbol. It fails.
You can view the two spots at GoDaddy.com and vote.
Let us know if you made it through without yawning.
Finally! Apparently someone read our story in which we wondered where the hell all the pre-Super Bowl game excitement was. That someone is CareerBuilder who graciously sent us one of the spots they will air during Super Bowl XLIII.
Created by W+K and called Tips, the spot does the 12 days of Christmas/99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall thing citing of all the things we might hate about our jobs and why we might consider switching jobs if we are experiencing any of them.
If you hate going to work...
If your co-workers don't respect you...
if you wish you were somewhere else...
If you cry all constantly...
You get the idea.
While we like the spot, we're positive repeated viewing will cause a serious case of Saved by Zero syndrome.
- Ketchum's FedEx faux-pas. "True confessions" probably don't belong on Twitter. Particularly if you're a Veep trying to seal a deal.
- Various types of Twitter birds complete with cheesy-but-empowering! traits of eagles.
- If you cannot heat the Healthy Choice mixers, you don't deserve to.
- "Where balloons go to die."
- A goal worth texting for.
- Twitter as Hudson crash citizen journalist.
- A yarn worth remembering: Lotus claims you can successfully swab your sunshine with "Just 1" square of super-strong TP. Uh-huh.
In the latest of its "_______ THE RAINBOW, TASTE THE RAINBOW!" ads, Skittles gives us the perplexing "Tailor." In it, a guy gets measured for a suit in front of three mirrors, each of which reflects a man of a totally different ethnicity. (One viewer felt this approach represents the "different perspective" each mirror brings to your life. Uh ... hrm.)
Anywho, one reflection pulls out a pack of Skittles and starts poppin' them. "Wait. I'm not eating Skittles," the customer protests, at which point the tailor starts shouting at the reflection in Thai.
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