GEICO Cuts Ads

A wake-up call for Glenn Beck and his ilk:

GEICO Cuts Ads from Glenn Beck's Show

Orville Redenbacher

Another good father commercial. At first I thought this one would be another stereotypical little-girl-tea-party ad, but it breaks new ground. First, this is a black family. There are still too many narrow-minded bigots who think that black families don't even exist as such, nevermind that their little girls have the same hopes and dreams as their daughters. But the clincher is when the big brother and father dress up and fold themselves into tiny chairs to be part of the tea party, all to get some popcorn. "Napkins, napkins." Too funny. My own father would have taken the whole bowl of popcorn away from me and told me I was selfish, so you can just imagine how much I appreciate this commercial.

I've been wanting to post about this ad for a long time, but had to wait to find it on YouTube. It wasn't on the Redenbacher site.

Fatherhood

The Ad Council has several PSAs running, including two promoting good parenting by fathers, but this one is my personal favorite. Actually, this is one of my very favorite commercials, period. Who wouldn't love to have a father like this?

I hope this ad inspires a few guys to get over themselves and not be embarrassed to be good parents in whatever form that takes.

FreeCreditReport.com

This is a series that turned out to have legs. It's actually pretty cute, for the most part. I don't care for the bicycle one. And I wish they had learned to move their hands on the guitar necks for the "happy bachelor" ad.

As an aside, PopPop loves this particular commercial. Not because he has clue one what it's about — he doesn't even understand the lyric. He likes it because he's seen the Elder Pea sing the ditty. So it must be good!

EDIT: and here's a spoof of the ad. And I hope everyone realizes that there is a catch — your 'free' credit report is contingent on enrollment in Triple Advantage, which will run you $14.95 each month.

O.M.G. - McNugget Love

Hard to believe this site is real, but seeing is believing. The comments are, well, more delicious than McNuggets for sure.

Title: Since I was a youth

Message: I am going to keep it real. Mcnuggets have always been my favorite meal. My first sentence was "Nuggets Mommy, please!"…

Gag me with a spoon.

Super Bowl XLIII ads

NBC must have lost a bundle this year — it seemed like every third commercial was a promo for one of their new shows. At $3 million for a 30 second spot, that's a lot of money for promos. It was clever to get Budweiser to pick up half the tab on one of them. And when did 2D become 1D??

Some of the commercials were educational. We all know how to pronouce Hyundai now. Matt Light isn't a half bad dancer for a big guy. Ed McMahon and MC Hammer have a good sense of humor, in spite of their circumstances. Who knew Alec Baldwin was so funny? Talking babies are still cute. Danica Patrick should stick to driving.

Without question, my favorite commercial was aired early in the first quarter - the Dorito's Snow Globe commercial:




Too bad PETA didn't get to run their Veggie Love ad:



Watch the 2009 Super Bowl ads at Hulu:

Geico and Progressive

I never liked the caveman commercials from Geico, though at least the tagline tied into the general idea of so easy, even a caveman can sign up online, etc. The gecko is a silly play on words with Geico, and someone might be able to explain to me why the gecko has a cockney accent. But Geico has finally scraped the very bottom of the barrel with the plastic eyes. A pair of flat plastic googly eyes from a craft store sitting atop a couple small bundles of cash — the money you could be saving if you switched to Geico. Who is the target audience for this crap?




I like the Progressive girl just fine, but I think that series is getting ready to jump the couch.

Bring on the Super Bowl!

Over it

I am so sick of Sarah Palin.



A week from now this will probably piss me off no end, but for now, it's hitting my funny bone.

Chi Chi's

Does anyone else find this series of commercials really stupid? The cyclops ad is no better than this p.o.s. I don't understand how a robot or a cyclops will sell salsa.

Anheuser-Busch has agreed to sell itself to the Belgian brewer InBev for about $52 billion. I hope InBev is smart enough not to change the Clydesdale ads.

Hotels.com

Hotels.com has a few pretty good commercials about how hotels get good ratings because of their website. Some even feature well-known actors. This one definitely takes the cake. Absolutely brilliant and you just have to love the guy getting the abs paint-job. Perfect.

Cars.com - Plan B

A funny series of commercials is beginning for Cars.com, where a guy gets a great price on a car because he did his research on Cars.com. He explains to the salesman that he is happy he didn't have to go to Plan B, which is a variety of things, like having a witch doctor shrink the salesman's head, or having the salesman eat brownies laced with horse laxative, or having the salesman fight Glondor inside a stone circle. Funny and clever.

Monster.com

This is my current favorite commercial. There's a perfect job for everyone. This is a perfect commercial. Monster.com has done several very good commercials, including Don't Fight Monday, Find Your Own Path and When I Grow Up, but this one, imo, is brilliant.

Holiday Inn

I like this commercial. In fact, there is a whole series starring Jerry Lambert as Ted. Check out the Humpback Whale, the Pillow Menu, and the Race Suit commercials.

Jeep Liberty

I'm not sure I'd call this a successful commercial, because although I like it, I wouldn't identify it with Jeep if the blurb wasn't there at the end. When you see a Clydesdale, you think of Budweiser. I associate brown with UPS - and I'm not sure that's a good thing, but as an advertising hook it worked. This commercial doesn't say Jeep any more than it says Range Rover.

I like it anyway. The squirrel is especially good. I do have one question, though. What the hell kind of birds are those?

Kohler gets one right, or even two

Wow, time flies.

I've been seeing a great Kohler commercial, one that is a sharp contrast to the loser I've already posted about. This one is clever, funny, and not offensive to anyone.

A plumber has just finished installed a new shower in someone's home. Of course, he needs to test it out before he can say it's good to go, and so he does. The thing is, you have no idea until the punchline that the man enjoying the shower (which is pretty amazing), listening to opera, is the plumber. You find this out when he walks out to the living room and tells the homeowners, "That should do it. Enjoy your new shower." He's dripping wet and still tucking in his shirt. Good stuff.

Now here is one you might expect me to take offense at - the burned hair advert. Yet another commercial playing the dumb blonde card? No, not quite. This woman is shown to be a person of some influence and power within her company, yet she is so enthralled with her new bathroom faucet, she burns her hair off. Again, funny without being offensive.

Then there are the genius commercials they do in other languages. I just love the French philosophical spy advert. It doesn't hurt that they are driving my dream car, a Goddess. One man is waxing pop-psychological and the other gets frustrated and tells him to knock it off ... until he sees the toilet. Why not do this type of ad in English and run it here? Come to think of it, that might be the most insulting thing Kohler does.

Flying hair

NuTone has a cute commercial running now. A couple is looking at a house, and as the wife walks around talking about paint colors, the husband is doing the more practical thing and checking the electricity. The bathroom lights work just fine, but the switch that is supposed to run the fan doesn't seem, to him, to be operational. He is unaware that his combover is standing on end. His wife gently tells him that the fan is working, and we get the punchline - the NuTone bathroom fan is so quiet, you don't even know it's running. Cute, and not insulting, unless you think the husband should still have enough nerve endings on his scalp to know when his hair moves.

9/11

It's been six years since the World Trade Center in NYC was destroyed, and while I don't want to dwell on all the feelings that brings up, I was reminded of another favorite commercial.

Budweiser did a beautiful job with this NYC tribute ad. Without one word of dialog, they pay their respects very effectively. I'm a fan of the Clydesdale series anyway, but this one never fails to bring a tear to my eye. Sentimental fool, perhaps, but so be it. I have to say I try not to watch the "Spot" ad, where the homeless dog gets sprayed with mud and ends up on the wagon. That one reminds me too much of the "Feed the Birds" old woman in Mary Poppins. I can't watch that movie because I can't get around the sadness of that scene.

Trivia note: the actress who played the Bird Woman was Jane Darwell. It was her final role of almost 200 film appearances. She was also Mrs. Dolly Merriwether in Gone With the Wind.

Kohler

Here's one that I find irritating on a couple different levels. I hadn't seen it for a while, but there it was early this morning, waving the 'stupid' flag. I would think men would be insulted by this ad. Maybe not.

First, we have a married (or at least involved with someone) guy who is so desperate to impress the gorgeous lady plumber that he starts flushing everything he can put his hands on. He must have flushed his brain earlier, before filming commenced. Are men really this stupid? I know of at least one who would stoop to this, but he is a vapid lying waste of oxygen, unlike most of the men I've known. I really want to believe he is an anomaly.

Second, if a woman looked like that, what are the odds she'd be a plumber instead of a model? Somewhere between zero and none? But it's a *guy* fantasy that any man can get the hottest chick in the room, if he manipulates her just right.

Third, "can't help it can't help it can't help it"? WTF? More excusing the poor guy for being stupid, thoughtless and selfish, because he can't control himself?

Crap like this could really radicalize me if I could take it seriously. At this point, though, I'd never buy anything branded Kohler.

Liberty Mutual

I've been trying to think of a commercial that pisses me off, but frankly I haven't been watching a lot of TV lately, so I decided to go with another one of my favorites. It doesn't hurt that these Liberty Mutual commercials are using music that I think is beautiful. The band's name is HEM.

I've said for years that I don't expect to change the world, but I think I can change MY world. I believe that's a good goal to have. Do the best you can, every day; be completely conscious of how what you say and do and think affects others. Lead by example. Take nothing for granted. Now I know I'm not successful at this every day, but I do make the effort and I do think about it all the time.

And that's what I like about these Liberty Mutual commercials. People are doing the right thing for someone else because it's the right thing to do, not because they expect a reward or anything in return. Someone sees someone else helping a stranger, and it rubs off, and they help someone in turn, and it goes around. It isn't just the person helped who is affected, it's someone who witnesses the act who absorbs the message and acts accordingly. I'd like to believe that the Golden Rule really could work, if only we would all pay attention and walk our talk.

I may not be the shining example I'd like to be, but I do try.

Priceless

The MasterCard Priceless series has been very good overall. One of my favorites of the current crop of ads is the Robot Dance. I just love this commercial. It's cute and funny and empathetic without pandering or making fun.

There are some good ones viewable on YouTube from other countries. This one for OxFam is truly gorgeous:

Others in this series that I've enjoyed are the Elephant, MacGyver and the Red Sox Series. Some, like the MacGyver spot, are a bit of an inside joke, and there are probably other locally aimed ads similar to the Red Sox commercial, but the point is establishing the brand. That they have accomplished with a catch line that is now part of the culture.

Not only did MasterCard give us a good series of ads, they've inadvertently given us a huge series of ad parodies. One of the best is Indecent Proposal.

Carry on, MasterCard!