To make up for it, I have a couple commercials here I want to talk about. Which should we do first, the good or the bad?

I think good first. So here we go:

This is from the Washington State Lottery, and it’s ingenious! The spot is artfully done and it just gives you/me an uplifting feeling when it’s done (pun not intended). I believe it is intended to give that uplifting feeling so when you think of the state lottery you don’t think, hmmmm, government controlled regressive gambling. Instead you think, Yay! Flying! Brilliant.

Now the bad:

This is a sloppy advert. The two parts are stereotypical (which I know commercials rely on because of time constraints) and insultingly so. The insensitive husband innocently insults his overly-sensitive wife by telling her that she’s being healthy. Yeah…

That alone isn’t enough to get a mention here. No, this ad is here because of its production. They used a British commercial, dubbed over the actor’s voices (to get rid of the accent), and CG-ed the box so it matched the American product.

The way the box moves makes it painfully obvious that it’s CG. Really, can you tell me that having someone CG a cereal box was less expensive than just reshooting the commercial? Or, perhaps, thinking of a better one?

And on a completely unrelated note, in about one hour it becomes my birthday. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I remember when a birthday was one of the best days of the year, a day to be looked forward to. Now, it’s just … it just is.

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This site is not affiliated in any way with companies or trademarks represented in these fine advertisements. Commercial content presented here, either video, still shot, audio, or otherwise, remains the property of their respective owners. All trademarks represented on this site are the property of their respective owners. No copies of advertisements are or will ever be given or sold to anyone, no matter how much they plead with me to sell it to them. Materials presented here are for editorial purposes only.

I say “eh” because my favorite commercial of my extensive Olympics viewership so far this year has come via the Canadian Broadcasting Channel. This video took tons of hunting down to find, as apparently no one in Canada has heard of YouTube.

Obviously the commercial has the cute factor going for it, which doesn’t always reel me in. But for some reason, here it does.

The commercial shows pretty much all of the major winter sports and does so in an entertaining fashion. It made me want to watch the Vancouver Games tomorrow.

Good job, Wonder Bread (called Wonder+ because it’s for kids? For Canadians? Bunch of hosers, I say).

Another of my favorites has been from United Airlines. They’ve done a whole new series of their animated “It’s Time to Fly” adverts for the Games. You can see Two Worlds, Butterfly, and Heart (my 2nd fav) on YouTube. All feature Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

The best is Sea Orchestra which prominently displays the Rhapsody.

I applaud United for giving different artists and animators relative carte blanche in deciding how to visually portray what is essentially the same message: travel can unite and separate.

There have been plenty of other passably good commercials. The LeBron / Yao Coca Cola commercial comes to mind. Not fantastic, but stylistically good.

Now on to the bad ones.

I’ll make a passing note to Chevy. Stop using Mellencamp’s This is Our Country. We get it. You pander to the mid-staters. Advertise on their stations. The song is annoying.

I’ll make note of this here, but I must first give credit to firejoemorgan.com. They broke the story and I thus give full credit to them.

(And they run a fantastic blog railing against bad sports journalism. If you’re reading this, you must enjoy reading bitching, so get on over there and read the hilarity. Finish here first, though.)

Here is Kerri Walsh (not Kerry as they say) in a 24-Hour Fitness commercial:

The commercial itself isn’t bad, but come on … “best seven out of twelve?”

Nevermind the phrase is either “best of thirteen” or “first to seven,” but what does “best seven out of twelve” even mean if you take it literally?

Does it mean whoever plays the best in a game regardless of the outcome is the overall victor? Kerri Walsh may have kicked some out-of-shape guys’ asses, but they looked good losing, so they got the best seven games.

Eh … moving on.

Subway’s latest ad campaign promotes their new Scrabble contest, obviously designed to challenge McDonald’s Monopoly monopoly. Unfortunately for them, their commercial just doesn’t pass the stupid test.

Did you just see what I saw?

People walk into Subway, and a guy walks out drenched and nonchalant. Remember the nonchalant part.

They spot another gal just inside the restaurant who is drenched, and happy. Remember the happy part.

Then we find out the source of said drenchage. Guy wins a contest and is so ecstatic that he flings his drink up into the air, drenching the family next to him.

Now I can see why he’s happy. But why would anyone else be happy or nonchalant. Why wouldn’t they be pissed off that they have been covered with sugary, sticky, icy soda?

Nope. Doesn’t pass the stupid test.

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This site is not affiliated in any way with companies or trademarks represented in these fine advertisements. Commercial content presented here, either video, still shot, audio, or otherwise, remains the property of their respective owners. All trademarks represented on this site are the property of their respective owners. No copies of advertisements are or will ever be given or sold to anyone, no matter how much they plead with me to sell it to them. Materials presented here are for editorial purposes only.

I’m actually quite the fan of this commercial. It’s innovative, funny, and conveys a clear message: AT&T makes you not-dumb. Let’s watch, shall we:

I really like the “Chuck” character. The basketball-shooting version is crazy, whimisical, and stupid. He’s one of those guys you’d see at a bar that would really annoy you at first. You’d slowly realize that he’s just having a good time, so why should you fault him for that? Chuck’s alter “phone” ego is even better. He takes whimsy and turns it into a professorial discourse until his exasperated fist-pump at the end. Excellent.

But there are other AT&T commercials. The one I want to focus on today isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just a rehash of “Chuck.” But this time, “Ronnie” isn’t as likeable.

Pool Ronnie is an idiot. He’s (1) “playing pool” by himself without even trying to hit anything in, (2) singing to himself in public, and (3) air-guitaring to himself in public with a pool cue. If he was in your bar acting as such, you wouldn’t eventually grow to like him. In fact, the more he carried on, the more you’d actively hate him.

Phone Ronnie ain’t much better. He even uses the word, “dillweed.” I’m sorry, but “dillweed?” Who says that? It’s the equivalent of “doodyhead.” Phone Ronnie isn’t entertaining at all. He passive-agressively yells “thirty times!” at Pool Ronnie, and just shrugs at the end. Bleh.

Like I said, not a bad commercial, but if you’re going to reuse the same concept at least make it as entertaining as the original.

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This site is not affiliated in any way with companies or trademarks represented in these fine advertisements. Commercial content presented here, either video, still shot, audio, or otherwise, remains the property of their respective owners. All trademarks represented on this site are the property of their respective owners. No copies of advertisements are or will ever be given or sold to anyone, no matter how much they plead with me to sell it to them. Materials presented here are for editorial purposes only.

So the car manufacturers have risen to the occasion you’d say. Fuel efficiency is rising along with the gas prices, they tell us. Great, we say.

But it’s bull honky. I see car commercial after car commercial trotting out their “best fuel economy in America” ads and, with the notable exception of Toyota, they’re lying to us. I don’t get who they think they’re fooling when they tell us 24mpg (EPA rated) is “fuel efficient.” In 2000, the Ford Focus was rated at 26 mpg city / 33 highway. I don’t think things have changed all that much.

Plus, as we all know, EPA rated efficiency hardly means what you’ll actually get in use. It’s like trying to figure out how much money you’ll get from your paycheck after federal tax, income tax, OSHA, medical, and your 401k. After all is said and done, there’s about 75% left over (there’s that number again).

In my opinion, the car manufacturers can’t even use the word “efficient” unless they’re over 30 mpg city. Yes, I’ll concede that car manufacturers are getting marginally better with fuel economy. But a few mpg improvement does not a warrant a parade.

In a time where over half of Americans believe that fossil fuels are the biggest cause of recent temperature increases and almost everyone would agree that even if that’s not true, burning fossil fuels is still not a good thing in the long run, the car manufacturers have an obligation to improve efficiency. Instead they balk at increasing truck fuel economy by 10 mpg in 10 years. European vehicles are already there.

I just don’t get it. But meanwhile, stop bullying us with misleading-at-best, outright-lying-at-worst commercials about fuel economy.

So I realize that adverts are a part of life, and I have to slough through them to get to the programs I want to watch (this season it’s just Heroes, Studio 60, and Venture Brothers, though I watched Project Runway and try to watch Weeds whenever possible). Advertisements singularly aim for one goal–like the networks–to get their brandnames stuck in our head and to get us to visit them. How they go about this task varies greatly.

I don’t outright hate adverts. Some are very entertaining, or at least not annoying. Here are my criteria for quality commercials:

1. Innovation – Without innovation adverts are stale rehashes of clichés and previous adverts and are thus boring.
2. Not Pushing the Envelope – They can go too far with innovation and, admittedly, it’s a fine line. Each must draw his or her own line, and mine’s actually pretty far out there.
3. Humor/Irony – I admit humor and its black cousin, irony, are not necessary, but they do make commercials interesting. “To each his own” applies here, and what is funny to a 12-year-old boy may not be funny for my 70-year-old grandma (although, in that case they might align). However, advertisers know who their target audiences are, and generally I fall in there. So I’m a decent barometer.
4. Unexpectedness – This does not equal surprise, but instead parallels it. Commercials that set up a fresh and unexpected event generally work better.
5. Style – This is almost as important as content. Again innovation works wonders here, but having a new or “cool” style makes a commercial much easier to bear the 30th time I’ve seen it.
6. Replayability – Many commercials are intersting the first time, and nails-on-chalkboard gratingly bad the fifth. This harkens back to style.
7. Deference to Intelligence – Not every advert needs play to Frasier’s audience, but neither should they play to Will Farrell’s. Stupidity is a virtue to advertisers, and they aren’t playing to the lowest common denominator; they’re playing to their targets. However, a commercial that treats me like an idiot (because it’s aiming for them), does not a good commercial make. This one is my biggest gripe out of all the criteria.

To illustrate my points, here is a good commerical in my esteem:

You’ll notice that it had (3) great humor while being (4) unexpected and (1) innovative. The joke and general congeniality makes it (6) fine to watch over and over again as it doesn’t (2) take the gag too far. Its style is pretty standard, but that’s not a plus or a minus. But it doesn’t (7) treat me like I’m an idiot.

Six out of the seven criteria. Not too bad. And the last one, style, is neither good nor bad.

Now, a bad commercial to compare:

This one is not very (1) innovative as little people in suits and walking/talking food has been done. It also takes this gag (2) way too far, as the little girl looks like she just had a blast in the excremental slip-and-slide. That makes it (6) unrepeatable, as I cringe everytime I see it. The woman’s excitement over these brownies is hardly believable and (7) strains credulity. It fails miserably at its (3) attempt at humor.

This one fails with five of the seven criteria. Additionally, the others (style and unexpectedness) aren’t really pluses, especially since the unexpected moment was one of poor taste and an unbelievable reaction.

And on a side note, have you ever noticed that food in commercials looks worlds better than it does when you actually get it in real life? This has been true for me; everything looks bigger, fresher, and tastier, and when I get it it’s grayish, limp, and bland. If that principle is true, what does it say about the way these brownies look in the advert?

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This site is not affiliated in any way with companies or trademarks represented in these fine advertisements. Commercial content presented here, either video, still shot, audio, or otherwise, remains the property of their respective owners. All trademarks represented on this site are the property of their respective owners. No copies of advertisements are or will ever be given or sold to anyone, no matter how much they plead with me to sell it to them. Materials presented here are for editorial purposes only.

Also, I located a new website dealing with commercial reviews at www.dhadm.com. He’s also seemingly from Washington state, but seems to be much nicer to commercials than me. You may have noticed I’ve pilfered a few videos from his site, I hope he doesn’t mind. I’ll give the source credit in each post where a video of his appears.

Right now, I’m starving.

No one posts bad commercials online. It’s a travesty. If you venture to YouTube, GVideo, or what have you you’ll notice an abundance of good commercials and home-made commercials, but a dearth of the kind which I seek.

I have a notepad next to my desk onto which I scribble notes while aimlessly scouring the tube for redeemable programming. I have more commercials written there than I have reviewed to date.

South Beach frozen dinners. Taco Bell Bruno eating champion “I’m full!” nonsense. MoneyTree’s new digital mascot is an improvement over their worms in suits, but was a painful commercial to view. AT&T three camera football game. Comcast “It’s Comcastic” drivel. The list goes on.

My point is, sadly, that I’m unable to show to you bad commercials. I want to share the misery and then put your nose in it to show you where it stinks.

I suppose this is simply a plea for a TV tuner card. Sigh. Not gunna happen tomorrow.

They are both creative, well-acted/produced, and convey their product’s message well. Good work Cingular and GAP.

Now, on to the castigation.

Even though there aren’t any non-bot out-of-staters visiting this site, you may still be unaware of the Washington State Dept. of Health’s new anti-smoking campaign, “No Stank You.” Disclaimer (getting teens to not smoke is good, even if the questionable expense of tax dollars is funding it) aside, these commercials stink.

You can just taste the palpable demographic research on display here: “Kids smoke to be cool, so let’s make smoking not cool.” Yay! Great deduction. So do it right instead of screwing around with this nonsense.

Smoking is not cool. I learned that from D.A.R.E. in elementary school, not from not-cool commercials. Smoking may not be cool, but these commercials are even less cool. They’re so out of touch with what might actually work with teens it’s ridiculous.

Plus, for the rest of us, the adverts are shocking, offensive, and perverse. Par for the course for what the government normally produces, I suppose.

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This site is not affiliated in any way with companies or trademarks represented in these fine advertisements. Commercial content presented here, either video, still shot, audio, or otherwise, remains the property of their respective owners. All trademarks represented on this site are the property of their respective owners. No copies of advertisements are or will ever be given or sold to anyone, no matter how much they plead with me to sell it to them. Materials presented here are for editorial purposes only.

This advert actually made news, as you can see here and here.

First of all, the reason the commercial caught the attention of the likes of MSNBC wasn’t its lack of quality (all though it should’ve), it was because it had a “subliminal” message tucked away in it. I don’t believe this version posted on YouTube contains it, because I have yet to be able to find it.

Then ABC actually pulled it from the air because of the subliminal messaging. They undoubtedly received dozens of calls from viewers complaining that their children were beginning to become homicidal maniacs at the behest of KFC. Way to bow to pressure alphabet soup network.

My real gripe, however, is the commercial’s content. Let me count the ways:

1. Two idiots (I use that term nicely) go to an obvious toll booth, but they have neglected to bring change since they just visited KFC. They are (A) dumb as Jessica Simpson and (B) rude as Paris Hilton.

2. Everyone behind them in a horrific traffic jam honks until they realize the poor fools in front of them ran out of money because of their ill-advised chicken splurge. Instead of getting angry about this, people yell to confirm the facts. No folks, they don’t want to know when they can get going to important economic, familial, or masterbatorial functions. Nope. They just want to make sure that KFC is selling a piece of 30¢ chicken for only 99¢ at KFC (plus tax, of course).

3. Some yahoo truck driver uses his good ‘ol fashioned CB to say (in CB code, mind you) that “looks like we got a snacker backer here.” That’s right. He said, “snacker backer.” It rhymes you see, thus it must be funny. Or annoying–I keep mixing those two up.

4. Out of all of this, people seem not in the least bit miffed. KFC has solved all of their problems. They can sit here for hours, nay, days with the thought of these ultra-cheap, ultra-untasty cheese snackers running around their evacuated craniums. Instead of being upset that they can’t actually, oh, I don’t know, go to KFC because of a traffic jam caused by mentally defected ignoramuses.

Heavy traffic or traffic jams are extremely annoying to me. That feeling I am sure is shared by a few others. A commercial that reminds me of that annoyance, well, it’s just plain annoying.

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This site is not affiliated in any way with companies or trademarks represented in these fine advertisements. Commercial content presented here, either video, still shot, audio, or otherwise, remains the property of their respective owners. All trademarks represented on this site are the property of their respective owners. No copies of advertisements are or will ever be given or sold to anyone, no matter how much they plead with me to sell it to them. Materials presented here are for editorial purposes only.

They’ve been playing the remixed version of this commercial a lot during Sunday football games.

[ed. video no longer available]

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m no bobble-head hater. Plus, the music in this commercial is somewhat cool.

In the version that they are playing every commercial break here during football games is from the perspective of the poor schmuck just waiting for people to visit his lowly gas station. He’s just standing there … waiting … and waiting … waiting for these chic people in their fancy Jeep Compass to come drive up and pump his gas therefore allowing him to put food on the table for his wife, two grown kids who still live at home, and their brood of six ragamuffins.

That’s right, I have empathy for this guy. These Jeepies drive back-and-forth, back-and-forth for no apparent reason. Then the Jeep bastards drive up, bringing poor old gas man’s hopes to a zenith. I can pay the employees! Mashed potatoes and gravy tonight!

But nay! It was all a ruse in order to (environmentally consciously) throw away their (non-environmentally conscious) Styrofoam cup. Curses! Foiled again! Then the pricks drive off in their 30-mph highway Jeep (really, who are we kidding with that number?). Now gas man has to empty that trash and tell his wife, kids, and grandkids that no one’s eating tonight again.

Besides my fictional narrative here, my real beef with the (remixed) commercial is its ensuing boredom. There’s no voiceover in it (unlike this version), and it consists of someone waiting, and waiting, ’til cool people come around in their cool Jeep so they can spend cool money on his lowly gas. That’s the way it feels and it’s quite insulting. Sure, it says, “Buy a Jeep and you’ll be cool.” But it also says, “Buy a Jeep and you’ll be a dick.”

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This site is not affiliated in any way with companies or trademarks represented in these fine advertisements. Commercial content presented here, either video, still shot, audio, or otherwise, remains the property of their respective owners. All trademarks represented on this site are the property of their respective owners. No copies of advertisements are or will ever be given or sold to anyone, no matter how much they plead with me to sell it to them. Materials presented here are for editorial purposes only.

But a few things have kept from realizing this dream. Firstly is this website AwfulCommercials.com that does exactly what I propose to do. When I first found out about this site, my heart sank. I was depressed that I wouldn’t be able to publicly rip to shreds adverts that sear pockets of stupidity into my cranium. But then I noticed that they only review one or two commercials every month. Surely there is a void to be filled.

Secondly, I was worried about the legal implications of posting other companies’ advertisements on my site. (Let me quickly interject here that I do not work for any company currently, and I have no affiliations with anything at the moment.) But then I thought, “Screw it.” If a giant conglomerate wants to send me a C&D letter just for saying the advertising firms they hire suck, I’ll actually be a bit honored.

And finally, I was worried about actually getting said commercials. Many I most despise are local (Seattle/Tacoma) and not really available via the interweb. But for now I’ll be limiting myself to ones posted on company websites. Eventually I’ll get a tuner card and record the annoyances for everyone’s viewing displeasure.

For my first commercial review is actually a commercial series I am kind of entertained by: The Apple vs. PC set. You may view the commercials here:

I was inspired to do this commercial shredding by one of my favorite webcomics, CTRL+ALT+DEL. You can view that particular comic here at: ctrlaltdel-online.com. Be wary, as there is some inappropriate language *gasp* in this particular comic.

My issues with these commercials are several. As the comic points out, Apple is trying to massively influence our perceptions visually. The PC is middle-aged, pudgy, and wears glasses that only Boeing employees and Mike Holmgren still wear. That means my personal computer at home is dorky, ugly, and stupid (btw, I bought my monitor at Boeing surplus, so there!). Meanwhile the Mac is, quite simply, a movie star. He’s suave, good-looking, and still slightly geeky, because that’s cool nowadays.

Then there’s the contention that Macs don’t have viruses. Or, more specifically, OSX doesn’t have viruses. This claim is actually true mostly. Their PC emulation can obviously get viruses, plus there are a couple hundred macro viruses that affect, you guessed it, Microsoft Word, Excel, and the like. There are, according to this pro-Mac article, only 26 Mac viruses out there, all for OSs earlier than OSX.

But that’s just sad. The author of that article calls me a “naysayer” for saying that, but it’s true. (I like that: Ian Naysayer Swenson.) PCs are used the world over in homes and, more importantly, in businesses. Yep, small business to Forbes-listed business use PCs (and Unix servers). Viruses are written my nasty impish little gnomes who derive pleasure from hehe-ing over the havoc they have caused.

They would have no hehe-ing if Macs were there target. Five percent of the market, as this author claims (though he hedges that assertion by saying that’s not computers sold per annum), does not a havoc-wreaker’s wet dream make. Plus, it has been noted (in a comment here) most virus writers are teenagers or thereabouts. Most teenagers can’t afford Macs.

Apple thus protects its customers from viruses and spyware by its relative anonymity and its pricing. These commercials remind me of how silly that is.

Disclaimers: I actually like Macs. No, really, I do. It’s just that their advertising misimplies that they are somehow better because of their low-market share and pricing.

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This site is not affiliated in any way with companies or trademarks represented in these fine advertisements. Commercial content presented here, either video, still shot, audio, or otherwise, remains the property of their respective owners. All trademarks represented on this site are the property of their respective owners. No copies of advertisements are or will ever be given or sold to anyone, no matter how much they plead with me to sell it to them. Materials presented here are for editorial purposes only.