Hasta La Creative!

Boost Mobile , the prepaid division of Sprint Nextel, is unleashing a series of spots that play off of the the “Unwronged” spots featuring Danica Patrick. I am so glad that some advertisers still have a sense of humor because I am about tired of hearing how all of these companies that were started during the Great Depression want to comfort us. Not that we don’t need a pick-me-up every once in a while, but enough is enough.

The creative is aimed at supporting a new $50 a month, “Monthly” Unlimited’ offering from Boost. The commercial features the Motorola Clutch i465, Boost Mobile’s first phone with a computer keypad. The creative was developed by Boost’s advertising agency of record, 180LA.

When I first saw the spot, I thought that it would run a couple of time and then get pulled due to some sort of  perceived offense. I am happy that I was wrong.

Although a bit far-fetched (Danica Patrick using prepaid cellular service), the overall creativity is refreshing. We are all aware of studies conducted during economic crises, and how the companies that spend through the storm emerge stronger on the other end.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Project Manager, and New Business Account Coordinator. His passion is writing. If you would like to get in touch with Jeff, please leave a reply or follow the links: www.linkedin.com or www.twitter.com.

There comes a time in a vodka’s life when it has to…

With the Summer heating up, and the economy moving like sluggish sewage in July, Advertising Age reports that the Summer of 2009 is going to be “cruel.” It reminds me of Bananarama.

According to Adage.com:

Attack ads have been on the rise for the past year, but comparisons are getting sharper, responses are growing testier, and an increasing number of ad battles are ending up in court. Just don’t expect a letup, because they’re also working.

If you decide to run an attack ad, Ad Age has provided helpful tips to keep agencies out of trouble. (It’s almost as if Ad Age is egging on agencies for a Summer of heated battles to alleviate boredom…”Here! Take this knife!” Hmm.)

However, it’s good advice…Sara Lee filed suit against Kraft Foods last week over taste test ads between Oscar Mayer and Sara Lee’s Ball Park Franks. According to Sara Lee, Ball Park Franks have suffered a blow from which they will never recover. (Now THAT’s advertising!) Unfortunately for Sara Lee’s legal team, Ball Park is outselling Oscar Mayer in grocery stores nationwide. My guess is that this case will be over before it starts. (Please keep in mind that I am not a legal analyst.)

Luckily, Advertising Age does have access to a legal team, and below are there tips to stay out of trouble. However, I have also embellished on their recommendations:

1. Don’t name your competitor
Just make it brutally obvious who they are.

2. Stay positive
You could say “You’ll save money at Joe’s coffee.” Or you could be honest, “One cup at Bobs place, or a weeks worth at Joe’s. You decide.”

3. Back it up with science
Numbers are very useful for making your point. Manipulate.

4. Have a contingency plan
If you get sued, release the most offensive spot. They’ve already sued, what’s next, name calling?

5. Don’t steal your competitor’s claims.
As if! Belittle their claims, cast them in false light, but don’t steal them.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Project Manager, and New Business Account Coordinator. His passion is writing. If you would like to get in touch with Jeff, please leave a reply or follow the links: www.linkedin.com or www.twitter.com.

The newest “Priceless” ad shows a young father and his son doing what young father’s and sons do: spending quality time together. It begins with the boy filling up a water glass for his father (no bottled water here) and walks through how the boy helps his father become a better man by showing him how to save the environment by purchasing low-wattage light bulbs and choosing paper over plastic at the grocery store.

Honestly, I have always enjoyed the ads, (and the parodies) feeling that the campaign was well thought-out and made an impact. Until now.

This is a picture of my actual credit card letter that came in the mail prior to President Obama’s “reform” of the industry.

But it doesn’t matter anyway…the whole reform is a scam:

So notwithstanding today’s Obama ballyhoo, companies can and will continue to charge basic rates up to 30 %. Congress could have regulated interest rates limiting them to a few points above prime. But Obama and the Democrats (and, of course, the Republicans almost all of who take contributions from credit card companies) hypocritically caved in.

Raising Your Family With Good Moral Values: Priceless. For Everything Else, There’s Visa/Master Card.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Project Manager, and New Business Coordinator. His passion is writing, contributing to BMA as well as freelancing. He’d love to hear from you, so leave a comment or follow the links: linkedin.com or twitter.com.

“Well,” he said, ” at least the economy looks to be turning around.” I nearly spit up…luckily the cat was still asleep. What? Who was this guy? Ahh-just another analyst on late night TV. One of the ones that don’t make it to Evening News. Credible at times, totally off-kilter at others. Think “Ross Perot.” The economy is in such a state that when the market closes “up” at any point during the week, it’s breaking news. “We’re sorry to interrupt this program, but the Dow has just closed at it’s highest point this week, and the S&P shows signs of breaking even. Tune in to Channel 6 News tonight to hear about this exciting historic development.” 

Unfortunately, with the economy, or lack thereof, many advertisers have been forced to reduce their spending, which means only one thing: More Informercials.

But wait! There’s More! If you act now, you can catch the Discovery Channel’s reality show about infomercials!. It’s called Pitchmen, and stars none other than Bill Mays. I watched it for the longest half hour of my life the other night, and two weeks later saw the product that was featured on the reality show in an infomercial. In fact, I wonder if they run infomercials during the reality show about infomercials. It would make sense…but we would have to change the show type from reality to surreality. Pitchmen would not the sole surreality member; Date My Mom,  Rock of Love and  Shot at Love with Tila Tequila would fit in the category as well.

If you have not seen or heard about the benefits of a ShamWow or a Snuggy yet, stay up past 10 pm and you will.  These two spots are on so much that they should be put up for a People’s Choice Award.

You’ve probably heard this before, but let just in case: Everything seen on TV…even the news…is not the whole truht. Some things are fit for consumption, others are not.  Take ShamWow and Snuggy: First, the ShamWow is a damn sham(e);  if you’ve ever watched the spot, you’ll know what I mean. And in surreality, the spokesman for the ShamWow. 

It seems that the intrepid host for the magical cloth was jailed for punching out a hooker when she bit his tongue, causing it to bleed profusely.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the  Snuggy, according to The Consumerist, has been found to be guilty of coming apart in the wash!

But wait! There’s More!

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Project Manager, and New Business Account Coordinator. His passion is writing. If you would like to get in touch with Jeff, please leave a reply or follow the links: www.linkedin.com or www.twitter.com.

Cree taps into the desolation that comes with spending most of your life under office light, which has a special way of making everything look almost aggressively bland: an atmosphere that first suppresses you before driving you to violent insanity.

This would appear to be a lot of money to spend simply to tell people you’ll back up their mobile phone contacts, something Verizon has been doing since, well, ever.

If the Religious Right thinks gay marriage is destroying the institution of wedlock, they’re clearly not regular Bridezilla watchers, which does to marriage what My Super Sweet Sixteen did for debutante parties: make people extremely reluctant to have them.

As soda ads go, this one’s pretty interesting.

Google, Google, Everywhere…

There’s probably not a day in our lives for the last five years that we have not come in to contact with Google in some way or another; a very charismatic and sticky brand, here is where we daily find Google:  from trade pubs (IT, Advertising, and Marketing) to our home and work computers, Google has become a brand that has become a staple of our day to day online interactions. There are, of course, purists out there that use other search engines simply because they are not Google…but they are few and far between.

Google excels in bringing brand extensions to the user…thus, they are able to capture non-search users with Google Reader (an RSS Feed plugin). They never stop innovating, which is most likely the reason for their success. Some of the company’s newer products include Google Health, Google Finance, Google Labs (very cool), Google Blogs, and even a program for purchasing TV advertising nationally using the AdWords utility. And recently released, there is Google Chrome.

Will Chrome Be The Gold Standard?

Google Chrome is the company’s answer to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Compared head-to-head with IE8, my choice would be Chrome. It’s super fast, does not use a ton of memory, “hangs” infrequently, and is extremely simple to use. It does have drawbacks: no zoom, no status bars, and managing bookmarks is a challenge. Other than that, I dig it. I also have IE8, which has a ton of features, but thus it’s never really worked correctly…

As Seen On TV

But the real reason that Google Chrome is in the headlines is for another reason entirely: Google Chrome has the honor of being the first Google product to be advertised on television (although search has made “appearances” in other advertiser’s spots).

Touted as an experiment, Google states that they will use the Google TV Ads system, which includes cable systems and networks that allow Google to sell some of their inventory. Echostar’s Dish Network and NBC Universal cable networks like CNBC, Sleuth and Chiller are some of their available networks. The entire endeavor will be low cost.

Google started a marketing campaign for Chrome last month in which it commissioned 11 videos from small creative firms that were initially posted and promoted on YouTube. Recently, Google started placing those videos on websites through ad buys, including an expandable ad on the front page of the New York Times’ website.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Project Manager, and New Business Coordinator. His passion is writing, contributing to BMA as well as freelancing. He’d love to hear from you: linkedin.com/in/jefflouis or twitter.com/jlo0312.