Ian Swenson .com

Here we are, back again with me railing and lauding commercials. Good fun, eh?

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.

http://www.ianswenson.com/v/wonder_gettingready.flv

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:

http://www.ianswenson.com/v/24hourfitness_kerri.flv

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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