I am so glad someone has started putting these commercials on YouTube (so that I can in turn steal them and put them on my own site).  I’ve wanted to comment on these ever since seeing them months and months ago.  Have a look at an ad for the Jiiiiitterbug!  {stupid music} Jiiiiiitterbug! cell phone for senior citizens.

I’m sure she’d be ok with the regular phone with bigger buttons, but if I gave that 3-button jobby to my grandmother, she would probably beat me with it.  Then toss me the phone and say "Just press the bottom button, dear!  Jiiiitterbug!"

My grandma is closing in on 80, and she seems to be doing just fine on her plain ol’, standard issue "young people’s" model (my quotes, not what she calls it).  I mean, am I the only one that finds this phone and ad a little demeaning?  And I truly love this: they top it off with older folks (a lot of them don’t even look all that old!) in the commercial being stereotypically crotchety.  "And it’s not bogged down with a gazillion features like those other phones!  Finally, a simple, fairly useless phone to match my simple, fairly useless mind!"   I mean, come on!  No one?  I can’t speak for my future, 80-year-old self, but I would be pissed! 

With the artistic help of a friend, I’ve decided to really dispense with the bullshit and bring Jitterbug’s point home to the senior citizenry.  I present you the Jitterbug Adchops model:

Now hurry up and die already!

Still swamped with work stuff, so I’m being neglectful again.  So I’m going to take the easy route and post a couple YouTube vids.  Now, I’m not into shameless self promotion (unless I’m trying to get laid by a hot chick, in which case my shamelessness knows no bounds), but I posted a vid up to YouTube to share with a couple friends and it’s now at 740 views… so, maybe you’ll find it amusing.

So, I’m cruising through "Most Viewed" the other day and stumble upon this Japanese chick.  All she does is flirt with the goddamn camera for 40 seconds.  Forty seconds of staring at a fucking camera, and she gets half a million hits!  Anyway, I decided to take a piss.  So, enjoy "Japanese attention whore", followed by my dramatic recreation of said attention whore.  Have a good weekend.

Just awesome.  Deciding to dress up in cardboard helmets and red capes, then hold the line against an oncoming bus… if that’s not a stroke of genius then I don’t know what is.

The 7-11 convenience store chain has a neat cross-promotional with The Simpsons right now - for the month of July, select locations have been turned into “Kwik-E-Marts” from the show.

We can only wait and see on how well it’s executed, but it’s a very cool idea in concept.  We truly are in a time of massive cross-pollination between media forms and marketing styles; this is yet another testament to the new Gestalt - in this case, a parody of a parody!

They’re really going all out.  Not just renaming products (Slurpees will, for the month of July, be labeled as Squishees), but contracting suppliers to actually create products from the show: Malt-O-Meal has created a new product to don the label “Krusty-O’s”.

The advertising concept is called reverse product placement (I’m sure the exec who came up with that term is verrrry proud of himself).  Instead of a real product being placed in movies, songs, etc., an initially fictional product uses its media familiarity to make the jump into reality.

Not content to just bring fiction into reality, they’re going the other way as well (lots of “going both ways” lately, huh?), with their “Get Animated” campaign.  Through their Slurpee.com website, you can be registered to win various prizes, the grand prize being a guest spot on the a Simpsons episode.

For those of you reading this who are in one of the selected cities, please visit your local Kwik-E-Mart give us your thoughts on it!

Brilliant ad by Hallmark for their new Cards With Sound series (the ”tv ad” department did a much better job than the “name this card campaign” department, don’t you think?)  - cards that have clips of popular music play when you open them (as opposed to the bleepy Casio-like cards that were so fucking annoying).

I just crack up every time I see this guy.  They would have been hard-pressed to find a guy that looked less able to pull off Hammer moves (links to original vid.. you know you want to see it again!), yet execute them so flawlessly.

This ad especially resonates with me on a personal level, as it reminds me of the “concert I’m most embarassed I went to”.  Come on.. we all have one!  Get this line-up:  MC Hammer with openers En Vogue and… (wait for it!).. Vanilla-fucking-Ice!  Yes! En Vogue can sing, and Hammer puts on a great show, so I will defend them to this day, but I got nothing for Ice. Stupidity of youth?

Quick tip to Hallmark: if you’re going to spend a lot of money and effort promoting a new product, you might want to make a clickable link on the front page of your website instead of making me conjure the fat ghost of Perry Mason to figure out where to order a damn “card with sound”.  Oh, and have them in stock. Oh, and have more than 5 to pick from

Come to think of it, Hallmark is really fucking up this campaign! But great commercial, guys.

Durex has a great campaign going on right now with their “ProposeTheRing.com”.  Great commercial and website tie-in.  As to how good the product is, don’t know.  Mine are on order… but this isn’t a product review site anyway. :)

Ads from the contraceptive and sex toy industry must be a lot of fun to make.  I mean, with other products (Eclipse gum, anyone?), ad agencies must always weigh their desires to go a bit risque against the possible backlash from the “Moral Majority” - you know, the ones responsible for our young men and women dying in Iraq, US refusal to sign the Kyoto protocol, and our crushing national budget deficit - the “good, values-centered” people of this great nation.

Fortunately, the sex industry is free from this worry.  “Good, values-centered” women probably have husbands who also ”walk in His Light”, which means strapping on a vibrating cock ring is out of the question.  (This massive wave of sexual frustration throughout our Heartland and South probably explains why these women are waiting for their treasures in the next life, eh?)

The ProposeTheRing.com website is really well done and worth a look.  On the one hand you have this classy looking design with your typical blue-blood-diamond-commercial classical music in the background.  Juxtaposed to that, though, is this ridiculous-sounding guy (Gunther the Tra-la-la guy?) making smarmy comments as you click.  Oh yeah, and the site’s about a cock ring.  So I suppose that might serve to “juxtapose” as well.  Bringing it all together is some brilliantly done copy.

I unfortunately can’t find a digital version of the ad.  If anyone has it, please send.  However, I did find a stand-in that will serve a dual purpose.  I’m in hopes that it not only stands in for the ProposeTheRing one (the two are actually quite similar), but also serve as evangelist-repellant.  This site has unfortunately become a bit infested as of late.  I really don’t know why.  So I’m hoping this much more over-the-top ad and pics of cock rings will serve as a sort of “Deep Woods Off”!

I’ve heard more than once how certain esteemed business schools have their students read books such as Art of War (<–click for gayness) and The Book of Five Rings (<– psst!  More gayness!) so as to learn how to properly vanquish their future business rivals.  I’m sure Miyamoto and Sun would have a good laugh at this notion, were they alive today.  For on the continuum of courage/honor/manliness, “bushido warrior” and “Harvard Business School graduate” are pretty close to defining the opposing endpoints.  But alas, every person or group seeks to validate itself by any means necessary.  In other words, Harvard profs are spreading on the bullshit.  Thick.  Perhaps they should also be handing out the “philosophical treatise”, On Bullshit by Harry D. Frankfurt.

Business schools are full of shit, but generally possess no self-awareness of that fact.  We of the marketing industry, however, we know better!  Say it proud!  “We are full of shit!”  That may have a negative connotation to many, but I don’t mean to speak of it in that manner.  Let’s face it, our 4th grade social studies teachers taught us that all humans need are food, clothing, and shelter.  And in certain climates (or in nudist colonies), one could even make the case that all we need is food.  So where does that leave the advertiser who’s trying to boost sales of his clients’ hi-def televisions, GPS maps, and Elmo dolls?  Why, spreading on the bullshit, of course.

On Bullshit is brilliant in its autology - not only is it on the subject of bullshit, it is bullshit.  In the book, Dr. Frankfurt (yeah, he’s an actual Doctor of Philosophy) is doing what the Brits refer to as “taking a piss”:  relaying information that borders on the credible, in hopes that wankers like the aforementioned business school students and this reviewer actually believe it, thus making for a great joke for the rest of us.  From the review:

Having a bachelors degree in philosophy [ed: read, “I am a bullshit artist”] I was intrigued…  this is a work of philosophy and as such has a degree of intellectual humor. Some of the observations and comments are funny but overall this is not a joke book, rather it is designed with a specific philosophical purpose… (he’s an “ivy league” Philosophy Professor and published by Princeton)
-Pedram Agharokh

Gotcha, bitch!

I’m starting to ramble as usual, so I’ll sum this up.  The world is simply full of bullshit.  Everyone’s guilty.  And nowhere moreso than in business and marketing.  I still remember conference calls from my ad agency days, being on the phone with an irate client over some minor website problem.  And all I wanted to say was, “Dude, get ahold of yourself.  You sell burgers.“  Dr. Frankfurt’s book is a good read in that, although it’s not “real”, it nevertheless drives home some very real points, and between the lines seems to question the reader, “Hey, are you aware that you and I are both full of it?”  I mean, how awesome is this (from the book):  “I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis.”  Total bullshit.  Brilliant.

So, to marketers:  read the book.  Keep some perspective and have a laugh.  To Pedram Agharokh and the graduating class of Harvard Business School:  I wish you a successful and fulfilling career in the burger industry.

  Can you say, “Management Material”?

Tania Derveaux wants your vote for (Belgian) Senate.  No, I mean really wants your vote..

Upon hearing a challenger promise 400,000 new jobs for Belgium once elected, Ms. Derveaux called “bullshit” and opted to make her own outrageous claim: forty thousand blowjobs over the course of 500 days.  Outstanding!  Obviously a joke, but I’ll give her credit for “selling” the fantasy with an official “Terms of {ahem} ’service’ “ page, which may go down as the funniest TOS I’ve ever read (just an excerpt follows):

Description of Services
The Services consist of Tania performing fellatio on selected individuals who have requested the Services through this form. Travel and other expenses will be covered by NEE…  We adhere to high standards of service but due to time limitations each performance can last no longer than 5 minutes, no exceptions will be made under any circumstance.

General Requirements and Rules of Conduct

Any attempt to influence the depth of insertion by the user will
result in immediate end of service

Tania may deny service for hygiene reasons

 

Now, apart from the inherent and timeless Coolness of a beautiful woman offering blowjobs for votes, I have to commend the printwork of her entire campaign.  Some really provocative (no, not just sexually), artistic pics.  See here for the full, high-res collection.

Beautiful, funny, artistic, politically savvy, and probably has one hell of a sexy accent - I would sooo marry this girl…well, assuming the “40,000 blowjobs” thing is a joke.  I mean, talk about awkwardness at company picnics:

Me:  “Rick, I’d like you to meet my wife–”

Rick: “Tania!!  How are you?!  Congratulations on your win!”

Tania: “Rick..Rick.. oh yeah!  “30,145″!  Good to see you!”

Btw, anyone who knows me or has even read a few posts on this site does not even have to wonder as to whether or not I signed up for a blowie.  I’ll be sure to keep you updated on fulfillment of the TOS.

Found at AdRants

Brilliantly done new viral from Sprint/Nextel - Connectile Dysfunction Treatment Center .

Just so you can preview the jist…:

I would sit in the end stalls of airport bathrooms… trying hard…to get a connection.”

Slightly edgy. Nails the “horribly cheesy 2am informercial” vibe. Just well done.

(thanks to Aaron for the link)

The circle is complete.  First, it was the Internet watching TV and talking about it.  It was people biting TV clips, digitizing them and posting them on YouTube.  Now, the TV empire strikes back!

In this SNL clip from last Saturday, they have bit material from YouTube and worked it into their sketch.  (Credit to Scarlett for some great Grape Lady sound effects)

So basically I have here a clip from YouTube, that is from SNL, covering YouTube, covering TV news, which covered a real event.  We are 5 degrees of separation from our own reality!  Our culture is basically in the restroom of the local MoviePlex, looking at our reflections recede into infinity in the two opposite-facing mirrors.

Wait!  You are reading this on Adchops, which is simply writing about and linking over to the YouTube covering the SNL covering the YouTube covering the TV news covering reality.  Six!  Six degrees of separation!

I know… I just blew your mind.