This skin-crawling ad for Embarq so thoroughly grated the nerves on Bill that it gave us an uncourted sense of schadenfreude. In general, something about the ad embarrasses us in the same way your immortalization in the yearbook embarrasses you.
It merits adding that Embarq, who consider themselves trailblazers in the direction of common sense, will probably make good on a spot this annoying. It sort of clings, like toilet paper or static.
We're thankful that the song hasn't lodged itself in our heads yet but that's mainly because we're afraid of watching the spot a second time. We might catch '80's hair. And nobody wants that.
Responding to this British domestic violence campaign, Alt-Buzz decided to show us how the French do it.
Released by Young and Rubicam for La Federation Nationale Solidarite Femmes a few months ago, this ad demonstrates that when you beat your spouse, you teach violence to your children. The ending came as a surprise even to us. We've kicked cans, other peoples' glasses and the occasional pigeon but we've never kicked our moms.
Shortly after a Bill Gates interview in which he discusses Vista and finally blows his top about Apple, Apple releases its latest Mac vs. PC ad. Looks like they're getting meaner: this one features a Secret-Service-looking guy standing behind the humanized Mac and PC. Every time they say something he asks, "Cancel or allow?"
The ad pokes fun at Vista's hyper-anal new security features, which, if this ad is any authority, may hamper the user experience rather than improve it.
We don't know about you but we're pretty sick of the Mac vs. PC campaign, particularly now that they're getting damn snarky. Really, how old are we, five?
Some spilled milk is worth crying over. This weird little ad from Hood Simply Smart starts out normal enough and ends in tears.
Hood is typically known for squeaky-clean happy-family ads so we're guessing some sadist in the ad department finally got his way. We're happy about it. The spot is quirky, plus we like seeing people cry.
- Cynopsis Reports, "CBS Sports had a super night Sunday with Super Bowl XLI averaging a fast national household rating/share of 42.6/64 from 627p-1004p. The 9-930p time period earned the highest rating/share of 45.0/65. Super Bowl XLI was the second most-watched Super Bowl ever, averaging 93.15 million viewers. Sunday's NFL championship telecast also ranks third overall as the most watched program in television history after the series finale of M*A*S*H and Super Bowl 30."
- MediaPost reports, "A total of 58% of Super Bowl advertisers, some of whom paid as much as $2.6 million for a 30-second spot, also purchased pay-per-click search ads on their brand names--up from 42% last year, according to Reprise."
- Adland has the story on a Swedish teaser poster campaign that was hijacked by a porn company who took all the glory for it leaving the originator of the advertising, SJ Train, up the creek.
There's nothing like the reality and freedom of series cancellation to get the creative juices flowing. For sure, FOX's The O.C. was heading for shit and deserved to be canceled but in the past few weeks the show has gone through a dynamic rejuvenation worthy of re-instatement. The show has been turned on its head with Ryan's transformation from brooding, tough guy loner to active participant in the human race, Taylor's morph from cartoonish high school caricature to smart girl with feelings, Seth and Summer's maturing relationship, Julie Cooper's shift from vapid bitch to love struck nice girl (even if she doesn't really love the Bull oops...Bullet...or stay with him...shouldn't write while drinking a martini), Kaitlin Cooper's change from stuck up, ego-centric mean girl to supportive daughter and Sandy and Kirsten Cohen's transition from perfect couple to even more perfect couple.
FOX, you ought to reconsider your cancellation. Or, at least threaten all shows with cancellation in order to achieve improved creativity. And yes, we admit we watch the show.
Isn't it beautiful what hands can do? That's the question VW asks at the end of this Phaeton ad by Grabarz & Partner Werbeagentur out of Hamburg. With a playful instrumental and impressive handplay, Volkswagen draws attention to the potential of hands to do more than grope, play games and spread the flu. This is meant to showcase the notion that the Phaeton is as elaborately handmade, though we're hard-pressed to imagine a set of European craftsmen sitting around adding final details to a VW.
We agree with Motionographer that it's probably not the most effective ad. It's a long, patient watch and these are not prized audience characteristics. But we like the thought, talent and attention to detail that went into putting it together. If ads are the art that will speak in years to come for society today, we'd rather it be Volkswagen's elegant handplay than, well, this.
Candies's love celebrities. From Hilary Duff to Jenny McCarthy to Kelly Clarkson to Ashlee Simpson Destiny's Child to the Dixie Chicks, it's all celeb, all the time. Now the fashion brand is hooking up with musical artist Fergie (Stacy Ann Ferguson) for its spring 2007 campaign which kicks off with a spot during the February ll broadcast of the Grammy's. Print ads will appear in Teen Vogue among others.
A source points us to a UK trend of snippy little domestica ads showcasing women acting out the spectrum of nasty human emotions for love of a product. The ads run along the same undercurrent: antagonists have a quality about them that's shared by kids who get in trouble long after 3rd-grade because they still haven't learned to share. (We know what happens to those kids. They grow up to be amazingly magnetic sex gods and goddesses who write ad news for a living.)
A couple of illustrative ads include this one for Toyota Yaris, where a woman passive-aggressively crashes her boyfriend's plane after he kicks the door shut on her car; and this creepy Quorn one where a girl with a fork acts out over health food.
If this is any indication of quietly growing womens' sentiments in the UK, we're disinclined to visit anytime soon, particularly if there are forks nearby. Feel free to send in more of the same or an explanation if you happen to have one.
Okay, there's more than just a one-handed man in the spot we're about to show you, but for us that's what stuck out, and we think that's what they wanted because they saved him for last.
Veteran group VoteVets is raising money to put this MoveOn-supported ad on air during the Super Bowl. It's meant to stop the escalation with the same (occasionally effective) psychological tactic 15-year-old boys use to get girls to put out in the backseat of cars: If you support escalation, you don't support the troops.
Click the above link to help them raise money, or just watch a series of vets try making you feel real real bad. Like we said, it's a fairly effective method.
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