As advertisers flee from the super-controversial MTV show Skins, which is the first ever TV show to depict sexual situations on TV with young people, one brand stands out from the rest. H&R Block, who is pulling its ads after the shows too-hot-for-tax-advice debut.
This of course raises troubling questions such as, why the hell is H&R Block running ads on MTV? Note to H&R Block media planners: if you see your ad next to pimple cream, you are in the wrong place.
Ah, leave it to the advertising press to humbly look back on its predictions for the year and somehow find that they were all correct.
Here’s one of my favorite prediction recaps with regards to the future of cell phone advertising:
We were right: Ad Age predicted that carriers would key up for 4G and, yep, all four major carriers have 4G now
Amazing! How did they predict this would happen? I mean, other than the fact that all the cell phone carriers announced before the start of this year that they were transitioning to 4G.
Here’s my crazy prediction: new computers will come out in 2011 that are faster than the old ones. Can’t wait until 2011 is over to see if I’m right!
That’s rule #1 in advertising. Be funny and even if your ad associates your product with creepy, losers, it will get praised, at least by the ad media.
This spot from Goodby (everything you need to know about this agency can be found here) takes a product that sounds pretty cool (Google TV), and in a mildly amusing fashion, makes me never want to buy it.
I just read a 148 page report on condiments, which, without irony reported that “a certain degree of confusion is inherent in the condiments market,” and then went on to point out how condiments are not only for putting on sandwiches, but can accompany “dips, spreads, seasonings, garnishes, and ingredients in complex from-scratch recipes.”
Further commentary on this, at this point, seems unnecessary.
The masters of lowering expectations, BP is celebrating the results of a recent poll suggesting people hate them less. I smell a tagline in there somewhere.
The list of best marketing and media companies is out, and guess what? I haven’t worked at any of these places (or even heard of most of them–maybe that’s why these jobs are so great–they do not exist).
But based on the picture, if you work at GoDaddy.com, not only do you probably see women in lingerie prancing around all day (like at any serious IT company), but you get to go rafting! Rafting–OMG, that makes those 60 hour work weeks TOTALLY WORTH IT!
Someone pass me a paddle.
The newspaper industry tries to reverse declining readership by advertising in newspapers.
Cruise liners are scrambling to put together commemorative cruises to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Titanic (the boat, not the movie).
Apparently they’re promising that 62% of passengers will drown and die.
A little gimmicky, I think. Personally, I’ll wait for the commemorative 100th anniversary Hindenburg zeppelin flight, just around the corner in 2037.
The new Julia Roberts ad could do for lotus-petal necklaces and organic tees, what Pretty Woman did for glow-in-the-dark condoms.
Whereas I cannot find someone to pay me just over minimum wage to teach 18-year-olds how to use semicolons, someone got paid to come up with a car that does this.
You may say spending $25k on a skin moisturizer is ridiculous, but then I guess you don’t care about your skin very much, do you?