I have lots of friends on both the traditional and interactive sides of the advertising business, but I have to tell you, the traditional folks are the most fun to fuck with about branding. You see, my theories about traditional advertising are that the ads themselves have a real purpose in the world – to [...]

The person who storyboarded this new spot from Audi must have been listening to Alice Cooper’s “Welcome to My Nightmare.” This spot is just creepy. It starts wit an entire pig untouched on banquet table. That’s fairly tame but were just getting started. Next up is the yawning fox fur coat. Frankly I’m glad it’s [...]

Can you tell which of these cars is a Hyundai Elantra? It’s ok. Be honest. If I hadn’t put the pictures together I sure wouldn’t be able to. But the marketers at Hyundai think you can. They are so confident their car stands out from all the other small cars on the market that they [...]

One of the many marketing strategies you can take when you’re not the first in a particular marketplace is to pick a fight with the top dog.  I don’t know if Motorola isn’t the top dog in phones anymore and I don’t have the time to look it up, but for some reason they are [...]

I think this new Dentyne campaign is a danger to the public. While borne out of good intentions the message in this spot could easily result in someone winding up in the hospital after being beaten to within an inch of their life: If you walked around essentially telling everyone you work, carpool or hang [...]

It definitely seems like the insurance industry may be providing the most entertaining advertising campaigns of any category these days. Whether it’s Mayhem playing the role of a team flag on your car, the gecko pulling out his wallet and cell phone, or just the ever-enthusiastic Flo dealing with strange customers, insurance companies generally are providing [...]

I’d like to thank the people at Colgate for completely creeping me out with this new spot: First off, regardless of Colgate’s little germ meter at the bottom of the screen, the brunette’s “Colgate mouth” doesn’t seem that much cleaner than the poor woman who was somehow cajoled into a dentists chair in the middle [...]

Someone make it stop! Please, I’m begging you! No more product placement in commercials. I don’t even know what’s being advertised anymore. First there was Helzberg diamonds in a Geico commerical then came the Jeep in a video game commercial. Now my friend and poker nemesis Scott Cheney informs me that Tron has infiltrated poor Flo’s idyllic world of [...]

While this spot could easily be called “The Amazing Poop,” “Poop Factor,” or “Top Load” it’s definitely full of shit and frankly made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. This is just wrong on so many levels starting with these kids blowing huge loads into their diapers. Even the number three finisher [...]

As someone who was around at the start of the video game revolution and played the living shit out of my Atari 2600 it’s hard to fathom how far the industry has come. From games with grainy, pixelated graphics like this tank battle game to commercials that look like big-budget Hollywood movies it’s like a big [...]