Write The Future

With the World Cup set to start tomorrow, I thought I'd post Nike's latest epic ad, which you may or may not have already seen if you've been watching any sports — or TV in general — lately.

I got the biggest kick (pun intended) out of Wayne Rooney's alternate futures. The English striker's segment also contains a funny pair of cameos by some members of the U.S. squad, which is hoping to pull off "Miracle on Grass II" on Saturday.

Speaking of Rooney's portion of the ad, our loyal readers who are fans of tennis — of the table and non-table varieties — might enjoy the five seconds starting around 1:40.

As Seth Stevenson points out in Slate, this ad probably had a budget exceeding those of some of director Alejandro González Iñárritu's feature films. The resulting product, in any case, is marketing at its Nike-est.

Super Bowl Commercials 2009

One week later, here's my take on 2009's notable Super Bowl commercials.

The Good

• Audi — The Chase: Jason Statham helps Audi take a stab at its competitors, saying that while previous decades might have been owned by Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Lexus, it's now time for the four rings to shine. It doesn't hurt that the car itself is one slick beast.
• CareerBuilder.com — Tips: I agree with everyone who says that this ad got tiring after the first 30-45 seconds, but in terms of getting people talking, it was second to none. Watch twitter explode when it airs, in The New York Times' interactive tracker (click "Talking about ads").
• Cars.com — David Abernathy: This type of ad has been a trend recently (e.g., Dos Equis' "Most Interesting Man in the World" ads), but I can't argue with the result here, even if it was a bit disappointing, for some reason, to find out that it was for cars.com.
• Hulu — Alec in Huluwood: I love 30 Rock and I love Hulu, and I love 30 Rock on Hulu, and I don't love this ad, but I like it a lot.
• Monster — Double Take: Simple, well-crafted, and clever. It easily got a laugh out of me.

Honorable Mention

• Bud Light — Sweden: Conan O'Brien + Japandering in Sweden (Swedepandering?) is a great starting point for comedy, but Bud Light's typical frenetic editing left the overall commercial a bit lacking.
• Coca Cola — Avatar: You can always count on Coke to bring the harmless but fun branding ads. "Avatar" is a take on our increasingly virtual connectedness, and the power of physical contact. Also, pretty girls are gamers too!
• H&R Block — Death & Taxes: Something about the tax services provider's ad stood out to me over many other equally eligible candidates. It must be the Abe Vigoda.
• Miller High Life — 1 Second Ad: If this really aired during the broadcast, then I missed it, but it's a concept that always gets a response when I mention it to people. As expected, it's just one small (but expensive) part of a bigger overall campaign.
• Pepsi — Refresh Everything and Pepsuber: The Pepsuber ad (with Richard Dean Anderson) probably wasn't very funny unless you've been following the recurring MacGruber sketches on SNL (and even then, maybe not, for many people). Combined with the aspiring-to-be-anthemic "Refresh Everything" ad, though, it was a decent one-two punch for Pepsi. Still doesn't make up for the logo downgrade ...

The Bad

• Cash 4 Gold — Ed McMahon & MC Hammer: Setting aside the fact that the shady company is basically a scam, it was pretty sad to see the hard-for-cash Ed McMahon (fresh off a stint rapping for FreeCreditReport.com) and MC Hammer trying to make the funny, though there are chuckles to be found.
• Castrol — Grease Monkeys: There are worse ads that I could have put on my list (I'm glancing at you, Doritos). Indeed, the production values here aren't even that bad. It just seems like they took the path of least resistance. I kept waiting for the punchline, and all I got was a man-on-chimp smooch. That's not going to cut it, Castrol.
• GoDaddy.com — [all of them]: Scraping the bottom of the barrel again. I wonder what Danica Patrick gets paid for these ads.
• Jack in the Box — Hang in there Jack: On the whole, I'm a big fan of the long-running campaign featuring Jack Box. This one had some nice touches — did you notice the angel on the store window in the final shot? — but it and the associated viral campaign seem wholly unnecessary to me. Or, maybe I just can't stand the thought of Jack not making it!
• Sobe — Lizard Lake: It's the second year in a row that SoBe has wasted its money on these pointless dancing lizard ads. Adding 3-D, football players, and ballet only made it worse. Whenever I see these ads, I can just picture the marketing meeting from which this mish-mash of bad ideas emerged. The focus groups must dig it or something. On the other hand, I credit them for being way above GoDaddy.com's level.

Now you've heard from me. What's on your list?

Jack's Bowl Cut

I saw a billboard for Jack in the Box's Teriyaki Bowls the other day and couldn't help but laugh at the photo and tag line. (The line "curds and whey" [and its delivery] in the commercial cracks me up, too.)

Raisin Brahms

Things I Didn't Know, December '07 Edition

Here are some of the things I've learned over the last couple of months:

— Phil Knight, founder of Nike, has been taking writing classes at Stanford, and is a good classmate.

— Nintendo has some excuses for its (mind-boggling, IMO) inability to meet the demand for Wii systems, as elaborated in Wired and in the WSJ.

— Bill Bellamy is Shaq's cousin (link to FHM, so maybe NSFW).

— There's a documentary about CalTech basketball called Quantum Hoops.

— PCs with some Award/Unicore BIOSes will, seemingly at random, play classical music to signal problems with CPU fans and power supply voltages!

— Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, was created as an advertising gimmick for Montgomery Ward. His creator's brother-in-law wrote the now iconic song about Rudolph, sung by Gene Auntry, for a Max Fleischer cartoon.

— Speaking of Christmas music, there are tons of cover versions of "Last Christmas", Wham's gift to the world.

— The Ten Mafia Commandments.

— An expert Scrabble player would not have set the highest Scrabble score ever, given the same circumstances in which it was achieved.

— The first three-way tie in Jeopardy history (where everyone came back) was a true act of generosity, and the guy who made it happen planned it that way.

Cherry Chocolate Rain

If you haven't seen it yet, Tay Zonday is back, this time on behalf of Dr. Pepper.

Sometimes Steal Music

Remember, kids: Don't steal music.*

*Unless you use it — along with video copyrighted by Apple — to make your own clever ad for the iPod touch, which the company's longtime ad agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, spots on YouTube and remakes into a broadcast version, with you at the helm. Also, it helps if the song you steal is hip, catchy, and has a lyric that seems to reference the product.

Update: Don't worry if the song has already been used in a bizarre ad for a competitor's product.

Dominos - Moustache

Those crazy Perlorian Brothers are at it again ...

(perhaps old to some, but new to me)



[QuickTime link]