Possibly the only profession with a lower approval rating than Congress is advertising. And no wonder. On a daily basis, we are assaulted by hyped-up messages that are dim-witted, abusive, hurtful, discourteous, annoying, and blatantly offensive. And then there are the really bad ones.

Some people get quite excited by the yearly media event called the Stupor Bowl. Wait, that’s not right. Super Bowl. And there are people who say the event attracts a few viewers because of the commercials. That’s true in the same way a car accident attracts a few viewers because of the traffic jams.

My goal in this article was to pay attention as soon as one of the encrusted-by-make-up announcers said “Hello Suckers.” Wait, no, that’s Texas Guinan’s line; I meant as soon as they said “Welcome to Super Bowl Sunday.”

Then, I was going to keep watching until the post-game clips of cretins burning cars in the streets of the winning and losing cities. But I just couldn’t do it. Sorry, apologies, mea culpa, etc. Look, other than a superb Chrysler commercial that was uplifting for the company and for America, there were just too many horrible ad moments for one human being to handle. Therefore, here are the heights of the depths. . .

Audi

Consider this concept: The headlights of the Audi are so similar to the sun that they kill vampires. Seriously? Wow. Well, considering how dim-witted Americans seem to be (have you been watching the presidential debates lately?), maybe this idea will work. Because, after all, who wouldn’t select a luxury automobile based on the strength of its headlamps? The song on the commercial’s soundtrack is “The Killing Moon” by Echo and the Bunnymen. Within the idiotic premise of the spot, the track is a pretty good choice. Since I see this as a comedic spot, I would have found “Flashlight” by Parliament more fun, but I admit that the cool angst of E&TB fits well with the fake-teeth-and-incense ambience.

Budweiser

About eleventeen spots in the broadcast. Did any of them give you a reason to purchase their products? Not really. The most interesting marketing development involves their “new” brew, something called Bud Light Platinum, which has six percent alcohol (didn’t see this mentioned in any of the spots), meaning they’re going after the Beer Blotto Brigade (obviously a dumb demographic considering that distilled spirits will get you there much faster without forcing you to urinate as often). But back to the POWer beer with the odd name. Using the word “platinum” in the beer category fits a trend discussed by Tiffany Hsu in an excellent Los Angeles Times article on people leaning toward specialty or micro-brews. What Anheiser-Busch InBev doesn’t seem to realize is that “Budweiser” is never, ever, ever going to fit in with words like platinum, high-end, upscale, specialty, etc. They’ll have to fake-out the public with a phony micro-brew name like “Blue Moon.” Oh wait, that’s the spurious concoction of MillerCoors. And I seem to have really gotten away from the topic of Budweiser. Probably because I’ve been sipping too much Absinthe to get through this assignment. Anyway, they also had an incredibly well produced/directed spot that appeared to tell the history of America through beer. I think. Anyway, it had those ugly horses that Bud always uses. Disagreeable-looking animals named Clyde something. Hmm, where’s the Absinthe? Must. Distract. Self.

Cadillac

Respect. Seriously, let’s give it up for ad guys who figured out how to improve the image of a car company long known for selling clunky boats-on-wheels. I have lived my whole life knowing that there’s nothing attractive about Cadillacs but this spot actually makes the ATS Sport Sedan look decent. And let’s face it, “sport” is not a word you’d normally associate with Caddy. The strong music track helps.

Carsdotcom

Eeeuuuwwwwwww! This is the commercial where an alien growth sprouts from a guy’s shoulder blade and on the end of the spronging protuberance is a smaller version of the man’s head. As if that isn’t gross enough, the miniature noggin performs a piss-poor parody of what the commercial makers call “soul music.” This piece of drivel is a top contender for the Gross-Out Trophy, which should be shaped to look just like the quivering superfluous neck-and-cranium. Rarely has the term “head” had such an evil connotation.

Chevrolet

Silverado pick-up trucks and their owners are the only survivors of the end-of-the-world. It’s unclear how this storyline ties-in with a not-too-highly-regarded truck, but at least the script is humorous and demographically on-target (every truck owner thinks his vehicle is tough enough to withstand the apocalypse). And using Barry Manilow on the soundtrack is a hoot. In their Sonic spot, the car is turned into a prop for some extreme sports publicity stunts. OK Go music works okay. For the whole campaign, ya gotta admit that Tim Allen gives good voiceover. He adds a touch of quiet, assured dignity (which probably dissipates the moment you realize “Hey, that’s Tim Allen talking!”)

Chrysler

Amazing spot that makes you want to shout to the heavens and salute the flag. This is two minutes of understated but ultimately explosive power. Uplifting, inspirational, and patriotic, the narrative grabs you and makes you think how you can join in the new march into the future of our nation. The commercial also touches on the good side of capitalism, something that we have not been seeing much lately. Wonderful work.

Coca-Cola

In Part One: The Blandness, badly-animated polar bears watch the game. In Part Two: The Pointless, they juggle bottles of Coke. In Part Three: The Lameness, they make reference to the score of the game. The spots are worthless except as bathroom breaks. The only winners here are the hacks who got paid to work on these pieces of tripe. I’m not much of a soft-drink user but this would sure make me consider Pepsi.

Doritos

Not sure which one of the consumer-generated ideas was the winner but I enjoyed the one featuring a snotty kid taunting a wheelchair-bound woman and a little kid in a sling. It’s silly, but funny. And since it plays on the intense desire of fat Americans for salty snacks, it actually has marketing logic, something that appears to be missing from most other advertising these days. Nice choice of music (an instrumental version of “La donna e mobile” from Verdi’s “Rigoletto”). There also was one with a dog killing a cat and bribing the witness with a bag of chips. And another with a girl covering herself with chips to entice her boyfriend to, well, we don’t get to see but I can tell you from experience that it’s really messy and not much fun after the first couple of bites.

General Electric

In one spot, slack-jawed yokels are working on assembly-lines. What’s odd is that the idea of people working in a noisy warehouse is presented as something miraculous, as if Henry Ford had risen from the grave to re-invent his idea just for the suits at G-E to go out and use it for the benefit of all mankind. Soundtrack is hilarious: a kind of “Deliverance” instrumental that should send people screaming into the night. In a second spot, slightly-less slack-jawed yokels are building turbine engines. Terrific cinematography and a nice soundtrack, but halfway through, the script does a freak-out and we’re suddenly in a bar where G-E workers are taking credit for beer because their turbine engines were used in the brewing process. Which may be true, I suppose, but this is a very big “So What” moment.

Honda

In the Stupid Sweepstakes, we have several front-runners, including Honda with a CR-V spot starring a bored and out-of-it Matthew Broderick. He’s clearly only collecting a paycheck, but what’s the production company’s excuse? Their work is a limp, by-the-numbers “homage” to John Hughes’ “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Perfunctory images, slack timing, bad jokes, insulting script. For the soundtrack, they went with Yello’s “Oh Yeah.” Yup, the boring choice. Just think, they could have used “Love Missile F1-11″ (Sigue Sigue Sputnik), “Bad” (Big Audio Dynamite), “Taking the Day Off” (General Public), “Radio People” (Zapp), and, of course, “Twist and Shout” (that group Paul McCartney was in before Wings). The fact that the auto isn’t shown much in the commercial may tell us more about the product than they intended.

Hyundai

Among their half-ton of ads was one with some hysterically funny Roadrunner cartoon-style mayhem involving a cheetah and the Veloster. “Trust us, it’s fast,” says Jeff Bridges. Only an extended version of the spot would give enough time to view the vehicle properly, but what there was of it looked good. Maybe the slight glimpse is okay considering that this is part of what seems to be a nine thousand commercial campaign for the vehicle (and considering it’s called a Veloster, a huge campaign is a necessity). Unfortunately, another of their spots has their employees singing and it is embarrassing. Another, for the Genesis Coupe R-Spec, is as puerile as the car’s name.

Kia

Wow! Rock music, beautiful babe, explosions, martial arts, romance novel cover designs brought to life, and more! On the soundtrack are The Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman” and a Motley Crue song. The production is amazing! Oh, and all this for some little plastic-looking dork car. Rule of thumb: the bigger the production, the less valuable the automobile.

Pepsi

In a medieval setting, Melanie Amaro and Elton John made me grin. And at the end of the spot, when Elton is in the dungeon with Flavor Flav, I cracked up. Thanks, guys, I needed that. (Even more amazing, I actually chuckled at the other spot they made, too. That’s the one with, gulp, Regis. Just goes to show ya, great timing in directing and editing can bring off miracles.)

Samsung

Sure, we’d all like nothing better than to have some company kick Apple’s butt now that it’s known what a greedy evil cabal they are, but unfortunately the silly marketing for Samsung isn’t going to help the situation. While it’s fun to hear Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” on the soundtrack, you still have to wonder why the spot shows us nothing but a line of boring people. Although there is a half-hearted attempt at a teaser at the end, the sum total of the ad is “enh.” All I can do is grudgingly admire the con job the agency pulled on the client in getting them to fund this piece of compost. Ironically, it’s well-photographed and directed, but like so much of today’s advertising, the lack of a marketing concept means the filmmakers are putting a spit-shine on a turd. But wait, that was the “preview” spot. The “real” spot for the new Galaxy is the exact opposite in approach: big, ugly, bombastic, silly, and boneheaded. C’mon, Samsung, stop making crap commercials. Don’t you know we’re rooting for you?

Suzuki

When you think “4-wheel drive,” you just naturally think of rap music, right? If so, the use of 50 Cent on the new spot for the Kizashi makes perfect sense. Either way, this is a nicely-made product demo. Basically, we’re out in the barren wasteland (See the ice! See the snow! See the nothingness!) and the Fizzozshee or whatever has no trouble roaring around as if it’s on a test track, which it probably was before the CGI crews got hold of the footage. The entertainment aspect is actually kind of neat: a sled dog team is being given a ride by their owner. A word on that: the owner is an obese Eskimo (or perhaps it was a Sumo wrestler? it’s hard for us ‘Murikuns to know). Whatever, it was cliche casting.

Toyota

Their spot for the “reinvented” Camry was, um, calm. However, I’m not believing anything they say about the car ’cause THEY ARE NOT SHOWING ME THE CAR. Still, the spot was entertaining. Drapes made of pizza, rain that makes you slim, a baby that doesn’t poop; all good. (And props for using “poop” in the script.) But poor Richard Strauss, having the opening to his “Also Sprach Zarathustra” used for the umpteenth time in a commercial. Just shows how terrific a music supervisor Stanley Kubrick was for putting this track into his “2001: A Space Odyssey” way back in 1968. Another spot, with memories that people associate with the Camry, was a tear-jerker. Effective as a story, silly as an ad for a car THEY DON’T SHOW.

Volkswagen

Spot #1: Dogs. Dogs barking. Dogs barking forever. Dogs barking forever in the vain hope that eventually it will seem clever. “I mean, you can’t lose with cute animals in your commercial, right?” Certainly, someone at the ad agency and/or the car maker’s marketing department made that statement. Unfortunately, they were wrong. The take-away message from this spot is: VW makes poor decisions. Which makes you wonder if they made that kind of poor decision in the auto designs, manufacturing practices, safety features, etc. Just asking. Glad you guys made me consider this, come to think of it. Who owns VW now, anyway, Monsanto? Spot #2: A fat dog gets into shape as we hear James Brown getting down on “Get Up Offa That Thing.” Fun! Plus, it’s two commercials in one as the twist ending puts us in the dive bar of “Star Wars.” How can one agency make such a nifty spot as this and that other one which is such a, well, dog?

Short Takes

1and1dotcom Product demo ad for a site that provides web hosting, site design, etc. A competitor to GoDaddy. Obviously not as eye-catching as babes but more convincing and more business-like.

Act of Valor Movie trailer for a 100-minute commercial for a video game.

Acura Jerry Seinfeld, in the lead role, has great comedy timing. Jay Leno, in a cameo, does not. Entertaining despite Leno. Didn’t show the NSX much, which is a shame ’cause it looks terrific.

The Avengers Movie trailer for a 100-minute commercial for a video game.

Battleship Movie trailer for a 100-minute commercial for a video game.

BMW Seems to tout the car’s ability to deliver text and e-mail while you drive. I prefer it if people concentrated on their driving. “The Ultimate Texting Machine?” Come on, people.

Bridgestone Their spots make me think buying their tires would lead to death or dismemberment on the highway.

BelVita Some sort of parody spot for an obviously fake “breakfast cheese” item. Funny idea, poorly executed. Besides, who would be stupid enough and gastronomically-challenged enough to buy hogslop like this? Oh, wait. Americans.

CareerBuilders This is the campaign with monkeys screwing up in the workplace. Yes, coworkers are jerks and assholes, but why will it be different when you change jobs? That’s why I freelance, where the only jerk around my office is me.

Century 21 What’s that? You say you don’t know how to market a service industry? No problem! Just use a dumb-ass concept and hire some second-tier celebs! Easy!

Dannon Overly cutesy boy/girl tease leads to violence. It’s for something called Oikos Greek yogurt. One of the two saccharine actors is a rapper named Stay Moes. (Okay, it’s John Stamos.)

The Dictator Movie trailer for the next film from Sasha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles. They seem to be the only people who can make social commentary hysterically funny.

Downy Mean Joe Green and Amy Sedaris “spoof” a great ad from yesteryear. This virtually defines inanity. (Ad agency guy: “Hey, since we don’t have a marketing platform, let’s just do a comedy spot without any comedy! It’ll be ironic!”)

E*Trade Talking baby campaign. You either like it or you don’t. I find it amusing, but it makes me stay far away from E*Trade. Not sure how it plays with the hoi polloi.

Fiat Car as sex object. Hate to admit it, but the ad actually works.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation Movie trailer with Bruce Willis and The Rock in a 100-minute commercial for a video game. If this is the sort of thing you like, then you will like this sort of thing.

GoDaddydotcom Good old-fashioned “sex sells” approach. No subtlety whatsoever. Babes (Danica Patrick and the Pussycat Dolls) in tight costumes. Gotta love it, right?

H&M Homo-eroticism using David Beckham’s tattoo-defiled body. If the cinematographer of this spot was hired by GoDaddy, we’d be on to something! Interesting oldie for the music: “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” by The Animals. H&M consistently uses great music.

Hulu Nicely-produced but insignificant spot starring Will somebody-or-other who totally believes he’s funny. Which is kind of funny, I guess.

The Hunger Games Exciting movie trailer for a film that shows what the world will be like if republicans are elected.

Infinity Uninspiring. Check out the Chrysler spot to see how it should be done.

John Carter Movie trailer for a 100-minute commercial for a video game.

Lexus Great art direction but not much auto in the ad. They’re calling the car the “2013″ GS model. More proof that auto marketers think we’re morons.

The Lorax Movie trailer for a kiddie cartoon. And yes, it will probably be a video game.

M&Ms I never know what to say about this campaign. Sure, it’s aimed at six-year-olds, but that’s how old we feel when thinking about M&Ms, so maybe they’re brilliant at marketing.

MetLife Cartoon characters (lots from Loony Toons) are milling around, doin’ stuff, and, um, I don’t know why.

Sketchers I like the Sketchers shoes I own. This spot (bulldog outraces greyhounds because of his running shoes) didn’t make me too embarrassed to admit that. So, okay then.

Star Wars Episode One The Phantom Menace Now Re-Released in 3D to Get More of Your Money Title tells all.

Swamp People Trailer for TV show on the History channel. Settle back and feel yourself losing I.Q. points every single second you watch. Ahhh, ignorance is bliss. (Or, as these people would put it: “Shoot, ig’nance is, uh, sumthin; I reckon.”)

TaxAct A kid has to pee. And this helps sell a tax preparation service how?

Teleflora Adriana Lima, stockings, pumps, little black dress, come-hither make-up. Tagline: Happy Valentine’s Night. I’m sold. Wonder what women think of the spot? Aw forget that; no I don’t.

The Voice Celebs battle each other before everybody meets in Betty White’s hotel room for some sexy talk. Sure, it’s injudicious, but it’s funny.

Video: Teleflora with Adriana Lima:

 
Article is Copr. © 2012 by John Scott G (“the G-Man”), and originally published on AdvertisingIndustryNewswire.com – all commercial rights reserved.

If you look on YouTube there is all kinds of “Mandura” marketing crap, and funnily enough they’re using “scam” videos to try to get you to look at whether it’s a scam, but then try to convince you to get on board the fruit juice gold digger train. (Really?) What’s funny, too, is if you type in “mandura juice scam” in Google the first five pages of results are all about the supposed scam, where the MLM folks are making up pages of junk sites content to get you to go there to find out if it’s a scam. Junk PR sites, junk article sites, etc. — but don’t be fooled. And if you want to get involved with law breakers, then you get what you deserve.

Basically, if you’ve seen all the spam for Mangosteen juice, for Acai Berry, and related junk, this is the latest thing.

The 501-691-3245 phone number has been reported to the FTC for violating my privacy rights, and my phone number being on the national do not call list. Also sent a note off to the California state attorneys general office about the violation of both the robocalling law and privacy law violations on “Chris Hogan’s” various sites. He “appears” to be in Arkansas. I’ll have to look up the State AG in Arkansas to file complaint.

TO REPORT A ROBOCALLER TO THE FTC for calling your home number on the do-not-call registry, go here:
https://complaints.donotcall.gov/complaint/complaintcheck.aspx?panel=2 .

The site being pushed in the robo-call is “StormofWealth(.com)” which redirects to “StormofWealth(.net)” – as in “storm of wealth.” Suuuuuuure. Want to buy this bridge I have out back? It’s a keeper, and you can make internet millions and all the honeys will love you with that big bridge in your back yard. Aw, c’mon, it’s a multi-level bridge. Double decker, even.

What cracks me up is using this tagline on one of the sites, “presented by Rev. Chris & Angelique Hogan” ((chogan.mandurarep(.com))… as if being a Reverend means anything good in the world of questionable MLM. When you break the law, being a “Rev” doesn’t mean God absolves you of your evil doing, brother, and accept this gilt edged invitation to hell. Or, H E double hockey sticks, pal.

Here is the WHOIS record for “StormofWealth(.net)”:

Registration Service Provided By: 1COMS .COM
Contact: +44.7773590344

Status:ACTIVE.

The server seems to land at a Mumbai, India hosting company, mydosty(.com), with an IP of 75.127.68.101. What’s funny is if you type in the IP for hostluck(.com), listed as the name servers, it comes up with an “this account has been suspended” message. So, you can see there is a bit of jiggery pokery going on behind the scenes with the companies hosting these sites. And, of course, since it’s in India, we can’t really complain about the site owner (Mr/Mrs Hogan) violating US/California laws. They don’t care. Thank you India for making robo-calling such a money maker for your companies and fracking off so many US citizens.

The Storm of Wealth site appears to be living as a shared IP at 75.127.68.98. For those of you wanting to block the IP range in your firewall(s), you can likely block the 75.127.68.1/24 IP range and be happy keeping the scum out of your mailbox, too.

As always, worth noting that the mandura rep site is in violation of various privacy laws including California’s privacy law. The ManduraRep site seems to be an MLM powered by the upstream www.mlmteamsites(.com). With “MLM” in the domain name, you know it’s “gotta be good.” And that site seems to be owned by MLMpublicity(.com) is a division of TenBrink International (a one man company, apparently, aka “Ryan Tenbrink” in Carrolton, TX; one BBB complaint).

So, Rev. Chris Hogan, thank jesus as today you are this week’s award winner for official robo-calling scum of the week. Congratulations.

In going to the website being promoted by the illicit robo-caller, we find (big surprise) what looks to be a come-on to make money using a “secret marketing breakthrough!” The site proclaims they have “discovered a secret so powerful it literally ‘POURS’ Cash Directly Into Your Pocket Automatically!!” (capitalized words and double exclamation points from the site).

Besides the fact the site is collecting name, email and phone information (personal information), and does not display a legally required or California law compliant privacy statement, it claims there is “no MLM or Network Marketing.”

From the looks of it, I might suspect it’s one of the wide ranging “cash gifting” scams going around, and which have been widely covered on the TV news here in California.

Since there is only a one-page site (a sure sign of a money making scam, for anybody who has seen these before), the HTML title tag shows “Ez1up Cash System” and the sign-up form is being loaded from aweber(.com), a site offering “email marketing campaign” services, auto-responders, and other bric-a-brac often used by evil-doers on the Web.

I sent a query off to “AWber Communications” which claims to be in Huntingdon Valley, PA, informing of the mis-use of their services. We’ll see if we get a reply.

In looking up what info we could on the domain, the registrant appears to be somebody called “Bo Small” in New York, based on the domain record:

Whois Record Search

Registrant Search:”Bo Small” owns about 58 other domains Email Search: is associated with about 106 domains

Registrar History:1 registrar with 1 drop. NS History:8 changes on 6 unique name servers over 4 years. IP History:4 changes on 3 unique name servers over 4 years. Whois History:6 records have been archived since 2009-12-29 .

Registrant:
Bo Small
300 W St
Buffalo, New York 14201
United States

Domain Name: TURBOATM .COM
Created on: 28-Dec-09
Expires on: 28-Dec-10
Last Updated on: 28-Dec-09

The domain servers, seem to be (apparently owned by GoDaddy)
NS27.DOMAINCONTROL .COM
NS28.DOMAINCONTROL .COM

The reverse domain lookup seems to lead to the IP 64.202.189.170, which is owned by GoDaddy (*to clarify: it means GoDaddy hosts the site for the believed scammers/robo-caller, it does NOT mean GoDaddy has anything to do with the site! GoDaddy is a good company.). Complaints can be sent to the hosting provider, which is GoDaddy at: abuse@godaddy.com.

An entry has been made at “whocalled.us” for the offending originating phone number where the calls originated (http://whocalled.us/lookup/2063509029).

Remember – it’s against the law to call phone numbers on the national “do not call” registry. Robo-calling is against the law in certain locales, like California. Companies that robo-call any of our staff, family, employees, or companies will be glorified with this dubious award of distinction.

So, congratulations “TurboATM-COM” – you’re this week’s winner of the scumbag robocaller of the week award.

Next week we apparently have some signage show in Vegas calling with free pass info. Hooo boy. Lookout! More robo-calling scum to feature. Stay tuned, party people.

Notably, there are several things wrong with this “partnership” message. First, we already got a couple of these sent to our other sites (addressed to different named individuals). Second, there is nobody at our company, nor has there ever been, anybody named “Gordon” — which can clearly be found by looking at the staff page on our site. Third, we are a highly respected newswire service, and so why would we want to post another companies client’s on our site? That’s like calling up Pepsi and asking them if they would like to include some Coke product in their end-caps at the supermarket. Doh. Of course, since this is spam, they had no actual interest in a partnership, since they didn’t bother to look at the site they were sending it to, look at who runs the company, etc.

All the spam originated from 208.82.15.227.rainbowbroadband.com, and we sent a complaint (well, two actually) to the Rainbow Broadband admin listed at ARIN. Apparently an ISP located in New York.

If you type in the IP in Firefox, you also get this warning:
This Connection is Untrusted
You have asked Firefox to connect
securely to 208.82.15.227:4443, but we can’t confirm that your connection is secure.

In Internet Explorer, once you get past the bad security cert warning, the browser pops up a login/password dialog. This is common with log-ins for spam / bulk email applications.

It’s really too bad these start-ups and “also ran” companies feel compelled to spam businesses and websites in order to build an audience; why not buy advertising in the PR industry magazines if you’re serving the PR industry? Why not buy Google AdWords? Spam is the last choice for a company without moral character, in my opinion, and any company that sends bulk “unsolicited” (meaning the recipient didn’t ASK FOR IT) email should be banned from having Internet access.

In the case of this “company” spamming our sites with their fake partnership emails, which are nothing more than requests for website owners to carry their content. And they aren’t offering to pay the people receiving the spam, either. Wow – you want me to post your content on MY site for free? Suuuuuure.

Of course, on our contact us page it also states “do not send us partnership requests.” But since no human actually visited our site(s) before sending us all the spam, I shouldn’t expect manners or consideration.

I feel bad for their “2000 clients” who are now a party to this bad business practice, and who will likely eventually find their content on a block list along with anything this company does, thanks to their spam blasts.

In doing a reverse lookup at DomainTools for their main domain name, we can see a lot of IP changes over the years and folks who change the name server for their site 5 times in 4 years, usually means they are getting kicked off a system once their evil is uncovered (not sure if that applies here, just saying we’ve seen that to be the case in the past):
NS History – myprgenie . com :
5 changes on 5 unique name servers over 4 years.
IP History:
7 changes on 8 unique name servers over 5 years.

Follows is the spam email in question, for your enjoyment, derision, and if you need to validate your own complaints to Rainbow Broadband in a spam complaint.

Not sure yet whether we’ll send you a trophy, a certificate, or just include you in the annual roundup of the biggest spammers we’ve been annoyed by in 2010. Good job PRgenie!

In a relatively unscientific test we bought pizzas from several Domino’s outlets, both delivery and pick-up, and put the new round meals to the test. What we found, however, had more to do with the creation of the pizzas than the ingredients, in this simple test. One pizza was slightly over-cooked (almost burnt on the bottom), one had too much “brushed garlic” on the crust (must have used a house painting brush versus a chef’s brush, more oil than garlic), and one had none of the new garlic on the crust. It’s a new recipe, but the same old crew.

On the one with the best overall construction and balance, we did find that the sauce was better and a little more sauce than on past purchases, the cheese tasted more like a restaurant and less like those $1 per box frozen pizzas many of us had when we were either in school or first fled the next into our first apartments. The sauce was a little sweeter, and had some red pepper in it, and so had more of a sense you were eating restaurant pizza than a fast food product. The cheese did have more taste, and the mix of more than one type of cheese really helped. Crust was better, except the one with too much oil (seriously, three times more than it needed).

When done right, the new pizza is a definite improvement. I would have to say, I don’t find myself wanting to throw half of it away the next day as the last time I bought their product locally (in Southern Calif.); on the other hand, it was not as good as a comparable cost pizza from Papa John’s in my opinion, at least.

Stephen Colbert tried the new pizza on his show, on January 6, and whether you believe him or not, he claims the pizza is better (“did an angel just gave birth in my mouth”), but hilariously rips on how the old pizza was truly truly awful. He called Domino’s Pizza his “Alpha Dog of the Week.” (It’s funny to hear the audience vocally cringe as he’s about to take the first bite.)

CBS’s The Early Show did a report on the new effort, and the staff gave the new taste high marks.

Domino’s has also setup a website, at www.pizzaturnaround.com where they are actively doing both viral marketing and archiving industry and media response to their new campaign.

Surprise! If I were on a desert island and had the choice between coconut skins roasted on the fire or Domino’s new pizza, I would prefer the new pizza. It’s not superb, but it doesn’t entirely suck. Room for improvement, yes; but primarily in the efforts of the crews building the pizzas and baking them. Better than the box it’s delivered in? Definitely a yes.

Now, while this falls about as low as one can get down the pole of what matters in the world right now, below unemployment, health care, and so forth, it’s nevertheless become a rallying cry, or topic du jour for the design community who despair over things as minute as the space between headline letters (ahem, I do that, too, admittedly; it’s called “kerning”), that Ikea has switched from a rich custom type font, to the lowest common denominator, a type face created for the Internet by Microsoft, called Verdana. A style of type which was not designed for print where the lovely bits interact with ink and paper, but for the cold cathode ray tube (CRT), and other display technologies which have evolved into LCD, OLED, plasma, and e-ink.

The main upset seems to stem from the fact that Ikea has “always been known for design.” And this is true, to an extent. Ikea has always had a mix of super cheap pressed board crap clothed in lovely colors and silly Sweden-inspired names with a healthy dose of umlauts, very cool desk accessories, storage stuff, and some often inspired decor pieces, as well as some lovely high-end “real wood” furniture pieces. I know, my curved desk I’m working on now, my bedroom furniture, my living room wall unit, and book cases all came from Ikea during the ’90s. I’ve been a graphic designer since my teenage years (ahem, the late ’70s/early ’80s), and I always “dug” the stuff at Ikea because it was both affordable, but some was really cool, too. Plummers was here first, and I tend to like their stuff better now, but Ikea really was a fun place to walk through and look at the mix of whacky desk lamps, and grid design flat-packed furniture.

So, this issue with Verdana … well, the problem stems (sort of a pun there for you typographers) from the fact that it doesn’t look as good when printed large as a headline, compared to a font which has been “drawn” to look good at large sizes, letter space (kerning) is harder to control, and because it’s a wide, open style, whereas many headline styles are designed to have thinner curves, and narrower widths to fit better in page layouts. Verdana just wasn’t built for the world of magazines and newspapers. All you really need to do is look at any price that has a 1 in it, like a large $129 price. The horizontal space, or white space between the 1 and 2 is too much, and creates an unpleasant empty space, even when kerned close together. Yeah, it’s true. But, really, so what. Verdana works because it’s big, blocky and seems to be missing subtle curves in places, and sometimes looks like it’s bold, even when it’s not. But you can read it at a distance, up close, and it shouts its readability. Not as pretty as the old font, admittedly.

But really, is that a bad thing? I am very knowledgeable about type, having gone to Compugraphic Typesetting School in 1984, and I also got my start in design with blue pencils, and dry-transfer lettering which went onto art boards by hand. I had my own typesetting business in 1987, and I started doing Web design in 1994. Verdana was a popular font once it was introduced because it looked great at font size 1 in HTML, whereas Times and Arial/Helvetica did not. Before CSS, it was common practice to use Verdana for footers, captions, small type, superscripts, and navigation. And for text on, ironically, many of the design oriented Web sites that wanted to use something other than Times or Helvetica.

Yes, Verdana is a font introduced by Microsoft, and was often eschewed by the Mac oriented design community simply because of that, and it being a “Web font,” not designed for print. Funny thing, too, is that the Mac version of another Microsoft font, Georgia, really does look gorgeous on the Mac, and has many of the traditional type elements, where the Windows version is more blocky. I ran into this when I chose to use Georgia for our company logo in 2000, but when we switched to Windows XP in 2006, the font didn’t look the same when you viewed it at 400%, or printed it at headline sizes like 72 pt. I haven’t looked at Verdana on the Mac lately vs. on Windows, but wouldn’t be surprised if there is a slight difference there as well. I chose Georgia for our company for the exact same reason Ikea chose Verdana, it’s a cross-platform, multi-language, multi-format type face – meaning, you can use it for print, for Web, for PDF, for video, and you can have a consistency. And, it does look very clean and open when translated to other languages; Microsoft did a great job at that.

Now it turns out Ikea is on the defensive because designers claim they have been violated, betrayed, and that Ikea should go back to its original corporate fonts. There is even a petition circulating to tell Ikea to go back to its original style.

In my opinion, that’s a mistake. Frankly, Ikea is acting in a designer frame of mind, they have chosen to go their own way and embrace a standardized font which everybody recognizes. What many of the dinosaur design community is missing is that many of Ikea’s core audience, the folks getting their first apartments, their dorm room furnishings, first couple living together, etc., are now folks who grew up with the Internet. Many of the young adults buying their first EXPEDIT, JAVNAKER, or KVART, have more experience reading their iMac screen, and MySpace page than they do reading the New York Times or Newsweek.

Frankly, Verdana “communicates” very well with youth culture because it’s the typeface of their generation, not their great grandparents. Sure, Futura or Optima, or any of the lovely Adobe or ITC fonts give us a rich history of details in the hand-making of letter styles, but for advertising, marketing and the sale of goods and services, this was a calculated and intelligent design choice.

It’s a business, not a design contest. In a worldwide depressed economy, anything a company can do to standardize, and become more efficient should be applauded and not derided. Of course, most designers work for somebody else and don’t have to deal with the business issues. Very few are both left brain and right brain enough to understand why Ikea has chosen to do this. The negative publicity the design community has drawn out regarding this change has, in fact, proven the point that Ikea’s designers made the right choice. End of days? Not quite.

Isn’t it a designer’s prerogative to buck conventions and question the standard way of doing something, and choose not to do what is expected? What’s wrong with choosing to use the “wrong” thing, to make the right choice for a brand style? Kudos Ikea team, you make me proud for proving you do have what it takes to be a mover in the world of design.

Crispin may be coasting on past glory in their creative department, but boy-oh-boy do they have some killer salespeople! Imagine the guts it took to visit Microsoft after the embarrassment of those idiotic Seinfeld spots and say “We have a new way to spend more of your money! No, wait, two new ways!”

First up was the “I’m a PC” campaign, which tried to be smart and ended up looking smarmy and more than a little stupid, especially when it was revealed that the ads were created using Mac computers. The current version of the campaign (the “campaign extension,” as corporate-speak would have it) shows kids aged four to eight proudly playing with photographs on their computers. The take-away for businesspeople will be “Microsoft is so simple, a caveman can use it.” No, wait, that’s a different campaign. But certainly all dumb people will feel comforted knowing that Microsoft products are within their grasp.

As lame as that concept was, the Crispin account team sold it. And then they went one step further and sold another gem: a campaign that proves Microsoft products are the very definition of cut-rate.

Here’s the set-up: real people are given a thousand bucks to go buy a computer; they’re also told they can keep any money left over after the purchase. In the debut ad, an attractive redhead buys an out-of-date laptop PC and is delighted she still has a couple hundred bucks remaining. There’s been no follow-up to see if the actress is pleased to be associated with the words “dumb” and “cheap.”

I use the word “actress” because the commercial is a fake. It’s not a reality spot when you hire a member of the Screen Actors Guild and stage the “shopping” scenes. The actress is Lauren DeLong, who has appeared in “99 Pieces,” “Hatched,” and “Ladybugs.” She has also appeared under the name Lauren Penner when she played Head Nurse in “This Hollow Sacrament” and under the name Lauren Kuhn when she played Jacuzzi Girl in “7eventy 5ive.”

The funny thing is that she’s by far the best thing about the commercial. If the spot had been real, people might have liked to learn more about her and how she enjoyed her HP Laptop. But because everything was contrived, when a reporter contacted her she replied that she had signed a confidentiality agreement and would have to see if she was allowed to speak to the press.

Marketing for Morons
At what point, exactly, did the advertising industry lose control of the situation and go stark, raving bonkers? It seems that anything goes nowadays. People acting like dim-wits? Absolutely. Animals doing silly things for no reason? Sure. Gross-out images just to grab some attention in a message-drenched media marketplace? You bet. Stolen concepts (like the Sony Bravia “Balls” commercial ripped off from a David Letterman stunt and the Fed Ex “crushed caveman” commercial cribbed from the “Bambi Meets Godzilla” movie from many years ago)? Yeah. “Real” commercials that are exposed as completely phony? All the time.

Okay, viewers can live with those problems, especially when using TiVo to avoid a great many of them. But from a marketing perspective, is there ever any thought as to how this foolish behavior relates to the product? Nope. Why is that?

Marketing by Morons
Well, let’s get some things straight about people in the advertising industry. Quite a few of them are earnest, hard-working, and bright individuals who just want to effectively influence people to buy products. Sure, they are also pleased to accept awards and large salaries for their efforts, but they actually do want to create good work. Unfortunately, they mostly toil for lazy, good-for-nothing, money-grubbing, egotistical nincompoops. The managerial ranks in this country are bereft of morality and blind to anything except their own gratification. Lunacy, prevarication and greed are not just reserved for bankers and brokers.

Ad agency writers and art directors often have to answer to a boss who knows less than they do about their own profession. Plus, a great many of these folks are stuck in a large corporate structure that rewards toadyism, backstabbing, and a cover-your-ass approach to everyday business.

In addition, all industries are being inundated by recessionary cutbacks, foreign price-cutting, and shrinking profit margins. To top it off, the marketing people at the client organizations are frequently adept at ruining any good marketing concepts that come their way. “We’ve never done it that way before.” “I don’t get it.” “My wife feels that the concept just doesn’t work.” And so on.

Oh, and here in the U.S., there’s one more alarming factor: a growing workforce that’s super-intelligent at using electronic gizmos but under-educated in terms of almost everything else.

So, while some great advertising ideas are developed, they get watered down, neutered, negated, emasculated, and subjected to death by committee. You see the result almost everywhere you look.

Great Big Piles of Money
If it seems that bad ads are proliferating, you’re right. Corporations are going nuts buying more and more ad placements (see “Advertising, R.I.P.” which started this column several years ago). I’ve been looking at some of the published budget figures for marketing and they are truly astounding. AT&T and Verizon each reportedly spend more than three billion per year on marketing. Right, more than three billion dollars each. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that is a little over eight million dollars a day just to try convincing you to use AT&T. And another eight mil each day for Verizon.

As soon as either one of those firms takes half of that money and puts it into improving their reception and customer service, a strange thing will happen: word-of-mouth from surprised and happy customers will help that firm grab an overwhelming majority of the business. (BTW, the same thing would work for Sprint, which is reportedly spending “only” one point nine billion per year.)

Also, look at these annual budgets: L’Oreal $1.6 billion. Anheuser-Busch $1.3 billion. Wal-Mart $1.1 billion. McDonald’s $1.1 billion. Not to mention the pharmaceutical companies, which are right up there with the big spenders but they do split up their spending on a per drug basis.

And then there’s Microsoft, which is reported to be spending just about one billion dollars on marketing each year. That’s right: they’re spending two point seven million dollars a day to reach you. My guess is that a lot of that money is being spent on incentives, co-op programs, promotions and the like. Because it sure isn’t being spent on persuasive advertising.

ExxonMobile
Before discussing their slickly produced spot, it might be beneficial to remember that this is a company so huge that it continued making profits even after paying more than three-and-one-half billion dollars in a futile attempt to make the Exxon Valdez oil spill fade from public consciousness. This is not just a mere conglomerate, it is an empire. The online realm of ExxonMobile has a charmingly misleading statement on the corporate page of their Web site: “We are the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and gas company, providing energy that helps underpin growing economies and improve living standards around the world.”

With all that in mind, a commercial would have to be spectacular to stop an intelligent viewer from frowning when their red logo pops up on the screen. And their advertising is far from spectacular. This particular spot is a brightly-lit conglomeration of live action and computer generated animation. It is also devoid of any humanistic touches, including the nervously grinning doofus who reads the scripted words of praise about “breakthrough technology…to access cleaner burning natural gas…to heat 50 million homes for almost a decade.”

Okay, first of all, showing us Erik Oswald, a “Senior Research Geoscientist,” is on the same level as hiring an unknown character actor and dressing him up like a doctor. And second, if what he was reading to us were true, don’t you think it would be making headlines? Especially now, when so much economic news about homes is negative.

This commercial, part of an odious series, is pure misinformation. As such, it should be studied in communications classes right alongside the work of Joseph Goebbels, head of the Reich Ministry for People’s Enlightenment and Propaganda.

Peter G. Peterson Foundation
As if mocking the corporate porn of the ExxonMobile spot, the next commercial pointed out the dangers of “$56 trillion in unfunded retirement and healthcare obligations” and stated that “America must chart a more responsible fiscal course.”

Naturally, it’s easy to be on the side of an organization dedicated to calling attention to “large and growing budget deficits, dismal national and personal savings rates, and a ballooning national debt that endangers the viability of Social Security, Medicare, and our economy itself,” as they say on their site, www.pgpf.org. In addition, the look of their commercial is magnificent, with deep-focus views of icebergs, clouds, ships, and choppy seas stretching to the horizon, all in that ultra-rich color cinematography that looks like steel which has been polished to the point of appearing translucent.

However, the whole thing doesn’t accomplish anything other than directing people to their site for more information. Perhaps it fails because of context. If you’re in the same room with such practiced liars as Goebbels or even Frank Luntz, his modern-day equivalent, your statements might fall a little flat even if you’re telling the truth.

Chevron
More flashing lights of overcrowded cities, plus disingenuousness galore, including a disarming statement that “this isn’t a liberal or conservative issue” and a plea that we use less energy, both of which are odd coming from a leader in one of the most rapacious industries on the planet. The clean look of the production is notable but strange under the circumstances. Because they think you are a complete moron, they direct you to visit this odd site: willyoujoinus.com. As if.

IBM
With quick bursts of images, both live action and animated, this spot is an ode to the beauty of mathematics. “Let’s build a smarter planet,” they say. Well, okay. Tell me more or show me where to go to get started. It can’t just be a matter of buying IBM products.

Toyota
At last, a spot that leads to something affirmative. The message of the spot is simple: less negativity, more positive action. If you want to join them, you can get a ton of interactive information at toyota.com/whynot.

Bank of America
Why is an insolvent bank advertising on network television, I ask myself and everyone involved in the bailout. That said, the spot is beautifully made, with glowing photography, smooth editing and excellent music.

T. Rowe Price
Oil rigs at sea in animation and live action. For an investment company. Okay, I guess. Does that mean TRP invests in oil rigs? Am I supposed to get a secure feeling from this?

Oil and Gas Industry
Yup, here’s an ad from a lobbying organization. How does it feel to have corporate whores presenting you with a dog-and-pony show? Perhaps that should be called a dog-and-pony-up-some-money show. They even have the gall to invite you to go online to read more of their lies at energytomorrow.org. Talk about lack of regulation: the org domains were supposed to be for legitimate nonprofit organizations, not shills for humongous corporate entities engaging in pillaging the earth.

American Chemistry Council
Farms in the country, construction in the city. And more city lights! Medical procedures followed by kids playing. The American flag and NASA. Lipstick. What? Yes, lipstick. It’s all of “What’s essential 2 American life.” When the cosmetics appear, there’s a super that reads “essential2american beauty.” If you go to the American Chemistry Council Web site, you see that they “make the products that help keep you safe and healthy and create a brighter future for you and your family.” Aww, doesn’t that just melt your heart? “We are nearly one million men and women dedicated to making sure you have what you need for today and tomorrow.” Things like sarin, hydrogen cyanide, cyanogen chloride, napalm, agent orange. . . .

Microsoft
This was the weirdest of them all. With quirky animation designed to resemble a USC student film circa 1974, we hear a badly recorded interview with Bob McKnight, head of Quiksilver, makers of clothing for surfing, skating, or snow riding. He is asked about the “economic tsunami” and his first answer is “Um,” which the animators gleefully spell out across the screen “Ummmmmmmm.” Despite the frivolous nature of the visuals, the interview topics turn serious. “Watch the management of your assets very carefully.” Well, duh. “Without technology, we would be nowhere, it helps you to still rip it up.” Well, WTF. Then the spot concludes by telling you to “ask for people_ready enterprise solutions.” Right, “people underscore ready.” This is bad_advertising.

[tags]bad advertising, television marketing, bad TV commercials[/tags]

Well, here we are again the last couple of days of the calendar month, now February, and the ads have come back, and numerous folks have suddenly noticed them and started mentioning it as if it was entirely a new thing. Which, it seems like it will be officially full-time come March 1st.

Certainly we can’t begrudge was is ostensibly a “free” online service from pushing ads in our face, much like everything else in our society (the local TV stations now sell their helicopters in “wraps,” so the choppers look like giant flying McDonalds billboards — at least the birds can see them and fly away in terror); but, for me, it is very distracting from reading the news when doing specific searches, since I am not looking for ads, in the same way I might be when searching in the “main” search engine. Sigh.

Of course, I’ve learned to ignore the ads wrapping my mom’s whacky pet photos in my gmail account, and I tune out most other things at some point, so I’m sure I’ll get used to it. It’s funny to see the kinds of ads that show up in relation to news searches, since I typically look for news on topics completely different from what I might search for in the main engine. Particularly bizarre was a search I was going on behalf of one of my clients, who is running for Los Angeles mayor on a pro-cannabis platform, and he happens to be a pastor. In doing a search for pastor and marijuana, and Los Angeles, some really odd and particularly “adult” results came up. I’ve tried to replicate that, to no avail.

A posting on a Google company blog by Josh Cohen, a business product manager at Google, had this to say:

In recent months we’ve been experimenting with a variety of different formats, like overlay ads on embedded videos from partners like the AP. We’ve always said that we’d unveil these changes when we could offer a good experience for our users, publishers and advertisers alike, and we’ll continue to look at ways to deliver ads that are relevant for users and good for publishers, too.

Oh well. Now I have to see competitor ads when looking for my own company and client news items. Kind of annoying, and sometimes I find myself wanting to click on the ads from a competitor to use up their ad budget. Er, but that would be wrong, wouldn’t it? (Did I type that out loud…whoops.)

[tags]Google News ads[/tags]

Well, the game started. Run, pass, block, kick, etc. etc. etc. Then it was on to the main attraction, the eleven bazillion commercials. Well, supposedly only 67 ads, but it sure felt like more.

Standing out for me were the car spots, like the one with the crashes, and all the ads with people saying really incredibly stupid things. Wow, that made for an absolutely hilarious good time and certainly did a lot to raise the public’s attitude about our profession.

Okay, on to the ads.

Hyundai
There were three commercials for Hyundai, one of which was exciting visually (brightly colored vehicles going impossibly fast) and aurally (Smashing Pumpkins on the soundtrack). The commercial invited viewers to edityourown.com although that site takes so long to load that I’m certain it drives people away. Another was a well-produced montage of rival auto makers shouting “Hyundai?!” as they read about some award the Korean manufacturer had received. The ad was well-produced but insipid. Their last one was meant to be comforting and humanistic, I guess, but instead was just a downer as it condescendingly says “buy a Hyundai and if you lose your income we’ll let you bring it back” or words to that effect. Tell you what, why don’t I just keep my current car and then none of us will have a problem. Besides, since everyone was paying $100,000 a second to run their spots, I don’t have a lot of faith in their fiscal judgment.

Audi
Slam-bang excitement as Jason Statham is on the run through several decades and many other makes of cars until the Audi A6 sedan comes through for him. Big production, superb direction, crisp editing and dynamite audio. Plus, it made me want to go test drive the car. Hey, a commercial that actually achieved a change in the audience. The work of Venables Bell & Partners in San Francisco, this one is worth repeated plays.

Doritos
PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay division launched two commercials, one very funny, the other very, um, what’s the word I’m searching for here. . . oh, I know: stupid. The good one had the crunch of the product altering people, places and things until the predictable ending where the product user/abuser got his comeuppance.

Some Beer
Conan O’Brien starred as himself as he considered doing a commercial that his agent claims will only be seen in Sweden. We see the horrible spot, as do his fans, and O’Brien is openly ridiculed. The commercial was supposedly about beer, but I don’t see how.

Bridgestone
It’s difficult to believe that the Richards Group was responsible for this drivel involving Mr. Potato Head in one spot and some astronauts in another. Hey, I like tires and tread and cornering and traction. If you tell me stuff about that, I’ll pay attention. I positively do not purchase tires because of Mr. Potato Head or space travel. These are truly bad commercials. Although the outer space one did have “Jump Around” by House of Pain as the music track. Retro-Cool sounds, man.

Monster.com and their competitor
The Monster.com ad made me laugh out loud and I hadn’t even gotten to the tequila yet. With an operatic aria on the soundtrack, the camera lovingly moves through a nice office with a moose head on the wall. Then it keeps on going to show the cubicle next door where the rest of the moose has its business end right in the face of the chair moistener assigned to that desk. Yup, time to post your resume on Monster, dude. Later in the program, competitor Careerbuilder.com vomited up an ad that was mindless in the extreme, with the same lines repeating ad nauseam. Hard to fathom how the once-great Wieden & Kennedy could be responsible for this reprehensible piece of dreck. Unless, of course, Careerbuilder is for people whose sole attribute is being able to say “Would you like fries with that?”

Cars.com
Here’s a mini-epic of a guy who oozes confidence and success but who quakes at the thought of negotiating to buy a car. The facts provided by Cars.com are the cure for this problem. Nice spot, nicely done. DDB Chicago done good with this one.

Toyota
Although the production is terrific, unfortunately the ad is for another unnecessary moronmobile, the Venza. And this is from an auto company that’s supposed to know what it’s doing. I guess the idea is that since they’re helping the planet with the Prius they can also go after the troglodyte crowd that has to pad their own egos with an SUV.

Castrol Motor Oil
Monkeys and motor oil? Not a good mix. Although it was nice that the soundtrack features the title cut from Iron Butterfly’s 1968 “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” album.

Coca-Cola
“Mean Troy” puts Troy Polamalu into the part made famous by Pittsburgh Steelers legend “Mean” Joe Greene as he limps into the tunnel on his way to the locker room. But this is for Coke Zero, which, um, is different, and so, uh, different stuff happens, some of which makes you laugh, but I still don’t know anything about Coke Zero. The company also had a long animated spot in which insects steal a Coke from a nice guy and do icky stuff with it. Not sure how this helps make me interested in their product. There was also a Coke ad where people shape-shifted into and out of their online avatars. Coke helped two of them meet each other. Well, I know that my avatar is always thirsty and likes meeting pretty girl avatars, but I’m suspicious that the owners of those avatars are less like Scarlet Johansson and more like Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons.

Beer again
There were more stupid spots for some beer company that shall remain nameless. The commercials seemed to be telling us that horses make their beer, or horses like their beer, or horses sweat into their beer. Or something. A total waste of money IMHO but then I drink Red Stripe or Guinness (thank heavens I can admit that now that they’ve switched to really cool commercials with terrific pulsating electronic music).

Denny’s
Making fun of the kiddie-style breakfasts at their competitors, Denny’s is still ripping off The Sopranos. But they got across the point that they have a serious breakfast.

3D Extravaganza
This was a joke, right? Apparently, 3D stands for dim, dumb and dubious. First, it was nearly impossible to find the damn glasses. After going to a Von’s, two Ralph’s, a Fry’s and a Target, I finally located a floor manager who said they had them at Customer Relations (you know, the Return Counter). It took her 128 seconds to detach two pair of glasses for me. The press materials claimed that 125 million pairs of glasses were being distributed, so at 64 seconds per pair, that’s eight billion wasted seconds for the USA work force. No wonder we’re in an employment crisis. The 3D ads for “Monsters vs. Aliens,” SoBe Water, and an episode of “Chuck” were an embarrassment. The picture was dark, the screen dynamics were on the level of bad storyboards, and there’s more 3D excitement in every panel of “Doonesbury,” which is a 2D comic with witty dialogue but little action. Ya gotta love the publicity department for Pepsi’s SoBe, however, as they had this to say about their silly spot with an angry version of the Geiko gecko: Their ad is a “modern interpretation of the famed ballet Swan Lake, and the rhythmic effects when the players and creatures are infused with the refreshing and reinvigorating impact of SoBe Life Water.” What a load of BeEs.

GoDaddy
Both of their spots pandered to juvenile male sexual fantasies, so naturally I loved them. Brilliant work, guys. Each one directed viewers to godaddy.com for “more” or the “uncut” versions. All righty, I visited godaddy.com and sure enough, you could view the commercials in their TV versions or the “Hot” Internet versions. But the company is making a fundamental error here. There isn’t anything even remotely hot about the Internet versions. There’s nothing in them that couldn’t have aired on broadcast TV. They promised titillation and instead delivered an episode of Hannah Montana. But, you know, without the hot parts.

G
Oh yes, I just love it when a company spends a lot of money to promote my name. Turns out this is actually for Gatorade but there’s no way you would know that from the ad.

Bud Light
Guy in shirtsleeves carries a six-pack of Bud Light Lime through a raging winter location and it turns into summer. Okay, I’ll go along with that. The demographic that buys American beer would probably get this and like the idea.

This. That. The Other.
Man, there were a lot of ads. Some were okay. Chevron did their animated talking car thing with the nice Hector Elizondo voiceover at the end. AT&T showed their spot with the dad on a business trip sending home photos of his kid’s monkey doll. H&R Block showed us Death not getting good tax advice. Funny concept.

Stupidity
There was no end of folly in this year’s crop of ads. E-Trade had their idiotic talking baby. General Electric had a modern animatronic scarecrow with Ray Bolger singing “If I Only Had a Brain” to convince consumers that, um, well, that they like “The Wizard of Oz” I guess. Who knows with that company’s ridiculous advertising. Pepsi had a sophomoric parody of an action adventure show. Or was it Coke? No one knows or cares. Teleflora had something about flowers being delivered in a box instead of by a person. WTF? Who sends flowers in a box? Cheetos had an ad with an animated lion and some annoying people being attacked by birds. Again, WTF? Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes showed growing plants, as if that would convince anyone to buy sugar-coated cereal. Heineken keeps sticking with their bad Franz Kafka ads utilizing formerly good actor John Turturro. Infinity hates their own autos so much they’re back to showing other things for most of the spot, in this case, someone swimming. Cash4Gold was doing some sort of parody of a bad rap video.

And on it went. I’ve left out a bunch of them, but only because I just don’t care any longer. Anti-creativity, anti-innovation, and anti-entertainment were often the order of the day.

[tags]advertising, marketing, commercials, Super Bowl, 3D[/tags]