I just love this ad.  What with the writer’s strike and everything, I guess Macy’s just opted to skip on doing anything original, interesting, or compelling, and instead just filled 30 seconds with a bunch of celebrities (in some cases, of questionable talent).

What’s so awesome about this ad though, is just how ridiculously anathema to Jesus this is.  Yes, the ad says the p.c. "holiday season", but luckily I am not worried about bottom lines - this ad, and the entire "holiday season", is about Christmas.  No, I am not biased - I am not a Christian.  Jews are about 1.5% of this entire country.  My group - spiritual but non-religious - about the same.  Kwanzaa?  Well, that was invented by some dude just 40 years ago, so don’t even start with that bullshit.

So, this is the Christmas season.  And what better way for Macy’s to put their best foot forward on the season than by showing a bunch of stars that are mostly likely going to Hell!  We’ve got P-Diddy (or P-Daddy, Puff Daddy.. whatever the fuck the douchebag’s calling himself this week), whose crew goes around shooting people in clubs, Jessica Simpson - who has pretty much built a career on being men’s masturbatory fantasies, Martha Stewart - insider trading ex-con, Emeril the over-rated and gluttonous one-catch-phrase chef, Trump the shameless self-promoter… Let’s see… greed, pride, lust, gluttony, wrath… I don’t think all the cardinal sins are covered, but goddamnit, Macy’s, I’m giving you an "A" for effort!  Good show!  Merry Christmas!

Have a great Turkey Day!

Apparently, someone caught up with Ben Curtis, the "Dude, you’re getting a Dell" guy and found that he is now a waiter at a place called Tortilla Flats in New York.  The campaign was canceled after he was arrested for buying weed.  I’m not sure which is more sad:

1.  That a nationally known commercial actor is now asking whether you would like hot or mild sauce with your chimichanga.

2.  That some reporter actually woke up one morning and thought, "I wonder what the Dell dude is doing nowadays?"…  And then actually followed through with it!  The background research, interview preparation, plane ticket to NY, et ceterahh, et ceterahh.

3.  Or, that I found it worthwhile to cover second-hand.

I found Dell dude and the whole campaign more than a little annoying, but who really pisses me off is Dell.  Dell, you made a casting call for the person that could most convincingly deliver the word "Dude" in a sentence.  Did you not consider the possibility that the winner was a pothead??  It would be like Fox kicking Paris off Simple Life after the sex tape came out.  Did they?  No!  They already knew she was a dirty lil whore (I mean that in a good way)!  Taking it from behind while chatting with friends on the phone is her thing.  People saying "Dude" - well, smoking pot is their thing.

Wise up, Dell.

btw, I went ahead and Google-mapped Tortilla Flats.  Better hurry if you want him to wait on you.  His "band has been given the green light"!

Hello, good citizens!  It has been a couple months since my last posting.  I am afraid that, despite my words of caution, I got pretty heavily addicted to Silpada.  Just started out as a little dabbling on the weekends.. you know, a quick rush… a "ladies night out having fun with jewelry".  But then I was doing Silpada on weekdays, missing work.. it was getting bad.  When I missed my brother’s 30th birthday party because "I’m at a Silpada party and just can’t get away", I knew I was in too deep and needed help.

I’m in rehab and doing better.  I’ll admit, there are times when I see some big jangly silver contraption on a 40-something woman’s wrist and think, "god damn it, I need to throw a party!"  But the cravings are fewer and farther between now.

Truth be told, I just caught a bit caught up in work and such.. I hope to start posting a bit more.  And why not start with an ad that I think is pretty damned cool.  The new "Training Day" spot by Nike.

Why is this so cool?  For one, Steve Nash.  To tell the truth, that’s really the reason I’m posting this.  Don’t get me wrong, the ad is pretty good in its own right, but I’ve happened across some Nash articles here and there lately and I gotta say, this guy is The Shit.

In the modern sports world of murdering dogs, beating wives, and sex parties (… well, two out of the three are bad, anyway!), it is so damned refreshing to hear about a guy that has a Zen philosophy about fame, puts team before self, and organizes charity tournaments half way around the world to help children.  Great Nash quote from one of the articles:

He is totally uninterested in being a celebrity, calling it something “to distract the bored from their nothingness.”

Oh, and although he is a pro basketball player, he has a healthy respect for the world’s most Beautiful Game: soccer.  You’ll see that showcased in the ad.

I have some Nikes on order and I’ll admit, it was solely because of the cool iPod plug-in whizzy-bang add-ons, but after finding out they have Nash on board, I’m glad I bought ‘em!

I’ve always dug the whole Current TV concept - anyone can submit a video concept, which is then voted on to determine what content makes the tv channel.  Given the utter shit that has taken over much of television (thanks, Reality TV!), stations like Current could be our deliverers.

Little did I know that Current TV was started in part by Al Gore (my god he’s come a long way from Robot VP!).  And now, riding the Live Earth wave from July, Current TV is currently running a “:60 Seconds to Save the Earth” campaign.  Despite the misnomer (really, this is about saving humans, isn’t it?), this is a pretty cool idea.  Yes, user-generated ads is a well-worn path by now, but it takes on a different air when the goal is something bigger than selling Doritos, doesn’t it?  And really, all those ad contests are just following Current TV’s lead.

The :60 Second campaign was kicked off on July 7th with a promo spot by Cameron Diaz.  In a departure from her normal shtick, she opts to go for the “goofy, clumsy, cute, bat-my-eyelashes-at-the-camera” play.  Way to stretch, Cameron.  Anyway, since Environment’s my hot button issue, I’ll be nice.  Users can submit through Sept. 12, after which winning ads will be chosen and used by the Alliance for Climate Protection.  The grand prize winner will receive an SUV… wait, did I read that right?  Hmph.. holy shit.  Yeah, an SUV.  (okay, so it’s a hybrid.. meaning it gets almost as good a gas mileage as my 10 year old Volkswagen)

Be sure to check out AskANinja’s take on the campaign, too.  He’ll blow your mind.

I really don’t know what to make of this video at GoAwayParis.com.  It could be that one day, this guy decided, “Wow, sure seems a lot of people can’t stand Paris Hilton.  What a ridiculous thing to spend one’s time dwelling on.  I bet I can take a piss and make a fortune by starting a ‘campaign’, making a video, and selling these idiots cheap stickers and t-shirts!”  Roll cameras!

Alternatively, this guy could be one of the fucking idiots using up all his activist points in this bullshit endeavor.  He’s either a brilliant opportunist parting fools from their money, or he is kind of a douche.

Cast your vote in Comments section!  As for me, the black stocking cap and general gravitas of the song is tilting my vote toward “douche”.

Thanks to Cindy for the link.

I’m digging on the new series of spots by Burger King for their Western Whopper.  Here’s the “sorority blondes” one.

Burger King has just been rockin’ it for a couple years now with their advertising.  McDonald’s goes for gay-ass family-oriented stuff that is utterly tame - I’m trying to think of a McDonald’s spot right now and can’t come up with even one.  They are that forgettable.  Well, I guess they have the clown, but he’s just fucking creepy.  Does anyone else get a “pedophile vibe” from Ronald McDonald?  I expect Chris Hansen to walk in on those commercials at any moment.

Anyway, for awhile BK was lock-step with them - but then came The King!  He is one weird fucking dude, and the commercials have revolved around that weirdness.  And people love weird (well, I do, anyway).  The King, breaking tackles and rushing for the end zone.  The King, laying in your bed when you wake up, handing you a whopper.  The King, dancing a jig as people all over the country start growing handlebar moustaches.  Weird is good.  And memorable.  Stick with the King, BK!  I’m lovin’ it!  Umm, I mean..

Thanks (again!) to Stuart for sending the vid.

As is often the case after posting something up here, after the MC Hammer post I kinda wandered off on a bunch of web tangents of a Hammer nature - I believe the kids today are calling it “web surfing”.  Yep, I must have spent a good hour that I will never get back, just answering all those burning questions like “What’s Hammer up to now?”, “How does that Vanilla Ice dance go, so I can impress random bar patrons with it the next time I’m drunk?”, “How do I find the center of a circle?” (I will always be a nerd at heart), “Does MC Hammer have a blog?”  The answer to the last one? Yes!

Every time you see me
The Hammer’s just so hype!
I’m dope on the blog
and I’m magic when I type
Can’t touch this!
Can’t touch this!
HammerBlog! (whoa-oh oh oh-oh  -oh you get the idea)

I am the best rapper ever, I know.  Hammer, if you’re reading this, I challenge you to a blog rap-off!  A friend of mine commented on the last post that I had Hammer pants in high school (Lies!  All lies! :) ), so since I’ve been outed, I guess I need to take this all the way. 

As far as I can tell, the Hammer blog is pretty much him searching YouTube for videos that are in some way Hammer-related, or videos of musicians he likes.  In a bit of grand irony, despite his rap career, Hammer is a man of few words on his blog.  And since I ramble on forever about stupid shit, he’s totally getting spanked in this blog-off.

Anyway, be sure to check out this one from his blog.  A bunch of Taiwanese kids learning English by singing “Can’t Touch This”.  I hate sappy shit - the propensity of cat pictures on the web enrages me to no end - but goddamn these kids are adorable!

(quoted title taken from Sky News article.  Why try to improve upon a title like that?)

German All-Star fussballers Michael Ballack and Oliver Kahn have just won a lawsuit against the country’s largest porn retailer Beate Uhse for marketing two of their new vibrators as the “Ollie K” and “Michael B”.  Personally, I can think of nothing better than Die Frauleinen across Germany screaming my name at the heights of pleasure, but I guess if you get as many women as international footballers do, you get blase’ about it!

While - um, “researching”? - this post I stumbled upon a pretty funny, yet insightful article regarding the sports/sex marketing connection.  We must remember that to most of the rest of the world, soccer is about the equivalent of football, baseball, and basketball combined here (London alone has something like 8 pro teams).  And I am sure that such fanaticism leaves many women feeling a bit neglected by their husbands.  So what better way to get your Missus behind the home team, eh?  Now, on match day, both of you can be screaming, “Come on, England!  Come on, Eng-a-lund!! Hit it, ya wanker!  That’s it!”

Granted, no sport over here is as big.  But I still thing there are some missed opportunities here.  The “Bucking Bronco”?  “The Tennesse Titan”?  “The Houston Pocket Rocket”?  I mean christ, you don’t even have to change the damn team name!

And for us guys, I still think condoms with your team’s colors/emblem is a goldmine.

Hot stock tip: Invest in German cattle futures. David Hasselhoff is drunk… and eating a Whopper (you have to see this clip)

Someone turned this into a BK commercial, replete with the “man song” theme. Just perfect. Half-naked, eating a cheeseburger off the floor. Fucking classic.

This is so awesome to me. So awesome that I had to honor the Hoff in the proper way: I had some Scotch and got drunk before posting. Yes, got drunk, went to Taco Bell, got a 7-layer burrito (add chicken), drove home (back roads), dropped the burrito in the parking lot, brushed the rubbish off the tortilla (oh hell yes I’m still eating it), walked into my apartment and turned on “Man vs. Wild” at 1:30am (I am watching Bear Grylls eat a rotten zebra and light elephant dung on fire for warmth (oh yeah, he’s a fucking badass) and fired up the laptop (not badass). I’m ready to do this post justice… oh shit! Bear’s run into some angry hippos! Eh, another post…

Being German, I have long had an identity crisis - Germans love David Hasselhoff. And while I have always been amused by his career, I have not shared in that adoration. And then he went and got Totally Fucking Shitfaced . There is no other way to describe it. He’s on a floor, borderline-passout-drunk, eating a cheeseburger while talking to his daughter (original vid). I can now be proud and say, Germans love David Hasselhoff!

Let’s review. First it was Knight Rider. Gay (granted, totally cool when I was 10, but in retrospect, gay). Baywatch. Gay. Whatever the fuck this is. Funny. But Gay. The Hoff has, for most of his career (no matter how entertaining) been gay. He has been this phony tchotchke of culture. (God damn this 7-layer burrito’s good!)

This video finally makes Hasselhoff human. He’s one of us now. ‘Cause we’ve all been there. We’ve all been drunk off our fucking asses, stuffing our faces like it was our last meal on earth. This is his rite-of-passage with the public. He said “Fuck you” to his daughter, for chrissakes! I mean think about it. Have you ever been able to “relate” to David Hasselhoff? Hell no. It’s like he was fiction. But now? “Dude, you completely Hoff’d that Whopper!” “Holy shit, I shouldn’t have had that last shot…I am fucking 3 sheets to the Hoff.” Hell yes. David’s one of us now.

Huh. This post didn’t turn out so bad, considering I’m drunk.. ooh, Hasselpuppets!

Where possible, I try to point out marketing opportunities that are being missed. These opportunities often involve personalities (that could probably be acquired on the cheap) that would make great persons to tie to a product. And yes, the ones I cover will usually be female and hot - I am a man after all, and therefore “thinking for two”. So, to the point: Someone needs to snatch up Wafah Dufour!

This girl got some buzz a couple years ago (for reasons that shall be made known in a minute) but seems to be fading again into obscurity. I just don’t know why - she’s so perfect. She is exotic and absolutely gorgeous. Oh and one other thing - she’s Osama Bin Laden’s niece!

Now hear me out. I know many of you (by “many” I mean “most of my readership”.. and by “most of my readership” I mean “3 of you”) are thinking, “Tie my product to Osama? Are you crazy?!” Yes, but just a little.. and that is beside the point. Wafah is a product of Western culture. I’ve seen her naked in a bathtub (unfortunately, not in person). I’ve seen her making pouty-lipped “fuck me” faces at the camera. She is the anti-Osama! She would rather “serve in capitalist America than rule in Al-Qaeda”. What better way to stick it to fundamentalist Islam than to serve up their kinfolk as masturbatory aides to American teens?

That’s the philosophy of it - but marketing is not about philosophy, it’s about spin. Utilizing her is a move at patriotism. And the gut reaction to her among “patriots” will be negative. But the beauty of it is this: People who respond viscerally to appeals to patriotism are stupid (I defy you to find one bumper sticker saying “These colors don’t run!” in a Mensa Convention parking lot). And stupid people are easily controlled. So, while their initial inner thoughts on Ms. Dufour will be something to the effect of, “Wafah… Bin Laden… bad.. Wafah bad!” (this is an actual transcript of their inner monologue), a proper initial spin launched with her ad campaign would quickly convince them that she is the perfect Osama cockpunch. And anything that Osama doesn’t like must be a weapon against terrorism, right? So, in effect (according to the principles of Hillbilly Logic syllogism) your product, if sponsored by Wafah Dufour, will be fighting terrorism.

Oh, and she’s hot. Did I mention she’s hot? So you’ll appeal to another group of idiots - anyone with a penis that can properly pronounce his s’s… “esses”… “ss”… (how the hell do you pluralize the letter “s”?)