Have you seen the commercials for Chantix? It is a smoking cessation prescription medication. All of these pharmaceutical commercials have a long recitation of side effects and warnings. We have heard them for years: constipation, nausea, gas, etc. Everything on the shelf has those side effects. But anxiety, panic, aggression, anger, mania, suicidal thoughts, hostility, [...]
I have one. You have one. Animals have them. While guys getting hit in the groin may still be popular, the biggest thing in advertising these days is your butt (not literally, of course). It started with the “does this dress make my butt look big?” commercial a few years ago. No one complained, so [...]
An old friend of mine, Peter Kaufman, recently invited me to a function where it was my job to be a panelist, talking to a fairly large group (who paid to get in – more for the drinks than the entertainment) about Super Bowl commercials. I was supposed to be a critic, comic, commentator – [...]
I have said this for 20 years (if you have worked with me, you know it already): Every commercial should have a dog, preferably a talking dog. Bud Light knows this truth of advertising. Few branders have put as many dogs in commercials as they have (thank you DDB Chicago).
Now I have witnessed ad dog [...]
Somewhere, someone gave the order. The edict has come down, in case you were absent for the meeting. The Ad gods have spoken. Every retail commercial on TV must look exactly like a Target commercial. You know the ones; they look like Target advertising but they’re not. Doesn’t matter what your store is, just make [...]
I have been hearing about this for a while; the Geico cavemen (created by the Martin Agency under the creative direction of a wonderful un- caveman named Steve Bassett) may get their own sitcom on ABC. Apparently, Martin Agency writers are working on the scripts as I type. There is only one problem: The spots [...]
After two mechanics did the lip-shimmy up the chocolate shaft of a Snickers bar while working on a car and ended the ordeal with a kiss during the Super Bowl commercial snoozathon, a particular group got offended and started complaining, and Mars apologized and yanked the spot “forever.”
Here’s my annual breakdown of the game and the commercials and the halftime show. Wait. What’s that smell? Oh, it’s the commercials. I thought somebody had left a cheese log out since the college bowl games. All in all, not a good year for our biz on the big one. A nice spot here and [...]