An awesome new spot for American Airlines. The casting is spot on. Brilliant. I only wish this youtube file was less pixelated so you could see all the nuances of the actors’ performances.
Also, this youtube version isn’t the funniest cut of the spot. The one I saw has Milos getting a spot on the Shanghai team. It’s a funnier ending. But hey, this one’s worth the peek-a-loo.
Microsoft just spent a boatload in advertising in an attempt to bring a little credibility back to the brand, but all of that came crashing down the moment Chiat Day, the LA-based ad agency with the Apple account, created this humdinger of a spot.
This is, without question, the best ad I’ve ever seen to discredit a competitor. Two guys in front of a white background, a desk, a stack of money, and a bookie cap. That’s it. That’s the production.
Oh, and some brilliant PC/Mac banter.
Compare that to the super-expensive 90-second Seinfeld spots or the subsequent (and super-expensive) global-hopping “I’m a PC” spots created for Microsoft, and Apple wins hands down for getting the most bang for their advertising buck.
The Apple spot is so dead-on brilliant in fact, that I can’t help but feel a little sorry for Microsoft. Before they launched their campaign, Microsoft was like the nerdy IT guy three years behind the times. But now, after a $300 million global ad campaign and a single Apple spot, Microsoft seems more like the real Wizard of Oz: all theatrics and no substance. Pull back that curtain, Toto, and you’ll find a very desperate Bill Gates turning all the knobs and switches.
It’s genius, folks. Genius. If Microsoft thought they had egg on their face before, this is what I’d consider a whole omelet, complete with cheese and ham and all the fixings.
It’s advertising at its greatest and yet most cruel. Sorry Microsoft, this battle goes to Apple.
Burger King, in conjunction with ad agency Crispin Porter, which has been getting far too many blog posts from me recently, created a website some time ago that allows users to upload a self portrait and turn themselves into Simpson characters. I decided to give the site a try. You can do so yourself by clicking here.
You have to answer a series of questions, like what color you want to be, your age and style of hair. I think the final outcome is more a product of the answers to the questions than the photo you upload. My character didn’t even have glasses when it finished. I had to ask the site to add them.
In the end, though, I thought the final outcome looked surprisingly like me. What a handsome devil!
My office at work has TVs hanging from the walls. It’s nice. The screens nearest me are broadcasting ESPN all day, so I never miss the day’s Top Ten plays or the biggest news in sports. I’m not really a sports fan, but I do enjoy watching two-second clips of athletes doing amazing things. And since we are a business after all and have to get work done every now and again, the volume on the TVs are all turned down so as not to disturb us.
The lack of audio, however, didn’t keep me from noticing a new Volkswagen spot from ad agency Cripsin Porter Bogusky that features the never-aging Brooke Shields. I love the current campaign with the talking, black VW beetle because it’s a nod to the Bill Bernbach days and the invention of modern advertising he initiated back in the … 60s, was it? Anyway, it’s advertising history, and I respect Crispin for resurrecting what worked so well in the past, even if they weren’t the ones who thought of the campaigns in the first place. (See also Burger King’s “The King” and Crispin’s work for Orville Redenbacher.)
In any event, when Brooke Shields came on screen with the new Volkswagen Routan, I took notice. I had heard that Volkswagen would be introducing a minivan, and as a minivan owner myself, I was intrigued.
Since the sound was off, I didn’t hear a word of the commercial, but I assumed it was funny and particularly noticed the url at the end of the spot. www.routanboom.com.
Go to this website. It’s hilarious. The idea there is a simple one: the Volkswagen Routan is such a marvel of German engineering that it has initiated a baby boom. People are so desperate for the Routan that they’re having babies in order to justify the purchase. Brooke Shields calls it “the biggest challenges we face as a nation” and calls for those watching the video to take notice and join the cause. “Please,” asks the straight-faced Shields, “have a baby for love, not for German engineering.”
It’s great, and more importantly, completely different from anything else anyone is doing in the minivan market. Bravo, Volkswagen. You continue to stand out. You clearly understand the mindset and attitude of your demographic and nail it in your advertising every time. As an ad lover, child-rearer and minivan driver, I applaud you.
OK, here’s the link to see the ad posted at Entertainment Weekly. Hilarious. Enjoy.
For those unfamiliar with the This is SportsCenter campaign I say, where in the world have you been? ESPN has been running the campaign for years, and it’s one of the most brilliant advertising efforts ever created. Yes, I said that recently about another campaign, but it’s true in this case as well. I could watch these spots for hours. In fact, if they released them in theaters, I’d probably throw down the ten bucks to see them on the big screen. That’s how fun they are.
And the idea is so simple. SportsCenter is so close to the world of sports that athletes and mascots are actually on site, often working there, in the editing suite, in the cafeteria, out in the parking lot. The place is just oozing with athletes. Simple. Genius. High-totin’ hilarious.
The latest spot however deviates from the athlete strategy. This one stars Stephen King, a long time Boston Red Sox fan and occasional sports writer. SportsCenter has hired King to write reports and give the show a new writing perspective. The only hang up? King is injecting his sports reports with “demons” and players with “telekinesis.” Funny. King may not get an Oscar for his performance, but this one’s a home run in my book.
On a similar note, a few months ago one of the brand managers at ESPN came and lectured at our agency about the ESPN brand and the history of the SportsCenter campaign. I found it fascinating. The most interesting tidbit: the offices featured in the ads are the real thing. They don’t build sets for these shoots. Those are real SportsCenter cubicles. The people milling about (athletes excluded) are real employees. Cheap and effective.
Please, SportsCenter. Don’t stop. Keep these coming.
Recently someone anonymously posted on this blog and suggested that I check out Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels. I had never heard of Child but as soon as I picked up The Enemy, I new I had come home. This, ladies and gentlemen, is my kind of book. A tough-guy, gritty mystery that keeps me hopoked from page one to closing.
Ironically, a few days after I began listening to The Enemy on CD (read by Dick Hill, a veteran of the audiobook world) I stumbled upon a column by Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly. The column was all about the false notion circulating in fiction these days that men don’t read. Don’t write a book for men, wannabe novelist, men are too engrossed in their football and steak sauces to pick up one of them silly books.
Hogwash, says Stephen King. Poppycock. Men read. In fact, King suggested a name for the kind of books we men typically devour. Manfiction. And the best example of manfiction, says King, is Lee Child and his Jack Reacher novels.
I believe it. Jack Reacher is the ultimate loner tough guy, a large, husky former military police officer who is part drifter, part criminal investigator, and all man.
I suppose part of my fascination with Jack Reacher is that my dad was an MP back in the day. Dad was mostly stationed in Germany when I was a kid, but he’s told me a lot about his experiences as an MP, and his description of the military matches up quite nicely with how Child portrays it, which is: highly political and full of self-centered pricks.
Don’t get me wrong. The military is full of valiant men and women who fight for no other reason then to protect the innocent and preserve freedom. Jack Reacher is one such example.
But among these hundreds of thousands of selfless soldiers is the occasional careerist, the officer who seeks power, the man who dreams of becoming a general and squashing those under him simply because he can. Jack Reacher refers to these men as (pardon my French) assholes.
And in The Enemy, there are a few such characters. Not because Child is trying to taint the image of the military, but because this is a mystery, after all, and it’s the author’s job to throw suspicion on a lot of different characters in order to keep us, the readers, tagging along, desperate to know the truth.
I picked The Enemy as my first Jack Reacher novel at random — it was the first one I found at the library — but now I see how truly lucky I was to pick this one first.
The Enemy is the eighth Jack Reacher novel, but unlike most, it takes place while Reacher is still in the military, or more specifically just as the Berlin Wall is coming down at the beginning of 1990.
Reacher is a young major and has just been transferred from Panama to North Carolina. It’s New Years. Just past midnight. And Reacher gets a phone call. A two-star general has been found dead in a seedy hotel room, apparently having died of a heartache while cavorting with a prostitute. The general, Reacher learns, is a married man and the commanding officer of the Army’s Armored Division in Germany. In other words, a very important person. Reacher’s orders: protect the military. Clean up the mess and keep it hush hush.
But the general’s briefcase is missing. And hours later the general’s wife is found murdered. Slowly Reacher uncovers a much grander plot at work that puts him in ever-increasing danger.
I won’t divulge more than that. I’ll only say that The Enemy is the type of book I hope to be reading when I’m ninety years old, the type of book I’ll never tire of. Jack Racher is the man. And if men really aren’t reading as some naysayers say, then please send me all the Jack Reacher novels you can find. I for one can’t get enough.