Flyers

At work, there are frequent charity fundraisers. Just this week, there were two on back-to-back days--a lunch for a woman who'd been in a car accident and another the following day for a man who had cancer. Both were worthy events, but the difference in flyers posted around the office were amazing.

I will confess immediately that I did the flyer for the woman in the car accident. There is a short, grabbing headline, a picture of the woman and her children, and the necessary information. First, what happened and why she needs financial assistance (this is also kept brief, but hopefully grabs the heart) and then a Where, When, What, Cost list in bold. This allows people to see the important information in a glance without having to study the flyer in detail.

Then there was the other flyer. The headline is long and confusing because of the poor grammar. I actually had to stop and read it twice to grasp what they were trying to say. There was no paragraph of explanation because that was what the headline was. It was necessary to search for the important information like where this was being held. The date and the cost were easy to see, so that worked.

I see bad flyers all the time at work. Literally, the flyer has about a second or less to grab a passerby's attention. Lengthy, confusing headlines don't do that. This is typical. Graphics of the food being served at the lunch instead of pictures of the family in need (or the charitable organization). Everyone knows what food looks like. Show the family, make it real.

Don't even get me started about grammar. My least favorite is the apostrophe atrocity. That would be using apostrophes where none is required. For example: Thank you for your contribution's. UGH! ::sobs:: I hate apostrophe atrocities. Not every S requires an apostrophe.

I'm not the only one who creates good flyers. Another department put together a flyer for a smoothie fundraiser that was exceptionally well done. It conveys the what you get brilliantly and the other information is easy to see in a glance. Someone else made it and did a fabulous job!

The thing is that these charity fundraisers are all good causes and it's a shame to lose people who'd potentially like to attend the lunch, but their eyes skim right over those flyers that are dense with text and confusion. The key always is to make it as easy as possible for people to know what you're asking of them. I try to do that with my flyers and I think I succeed.

My advertising degree at work.

Day-O for the Win

I talk about commercials that I don't like all the time, but I thought I'd share one I do like. I know, this almost never happens, right?

What I like about the ad? First, the humor. This is always one of my favorites when it comes to advertising. I think we can all appreciate an entertaining commercial that makes us smile.

But what the advertiser cares about are other things. Does it get my message across? Does the ad make my company name memorable. I think this ad worked on both counts. The message is driven home and it's a brutal one, which is part of why it resonates so strongly. It might be coated in humor, but there's some cold, hard truth here. No worries, though. There's a solution and it involves the advertiser's product.

There have been a lot of commercials that I've liked, but was blank when I tried to think who'd paid for it and this isn't effective advertising. This ad passes this test as well. One viewing is all it took, too, not multiple impressions.

But you're not interested in all the nuts and bolts of advertising. What's the ad? Here you go.

Daytime Drivel

Every day I'm at work, I go to the gym during my lunch. Most of the gym has sound and we get to listen to music. That I like. What I don't like is that the locker room has a television.

OMG! Daytime television is so bad. The rotate channels. We started out with the channel that had "The View" and while that was not my cup of tea, it was okay. Now, we're on a station that has a ripoff of The View. It's like the show wants to be The View, but it's not even in the same ballpark.

Then when I'm done working out, the news is on. I hate the news. I know, that sounds weird. I was a journalism major with my primary interest area in advertising copywriting. The local news, though, is all about murder and mayhem. Super downer.

That would be bad enough, but it gets worse. As bad as daytime television is, the advertising on daytime television is worse!

I have never seen so many commercials for ambulance chasers in my life. You deserve compensation if you've been injured in an accident, if your parent has been injured or abused in a nursing home, if someone has waved at you and you banged your hand against the wall, you might be eligible for compensation. OMG!!!

Lawyers should never have been allowed to advertise. It's not just one law firm either there are several. You would think that they would have some pride and not be bottom dwelling slime suckers, but you'd be wrong.

Today, the advertising was even worse than lawyers. I'm not sure who the advertiser was, but they are trying to scare old people. What were they trying to scare about? Not being buried or having the funeral that they deserve. What the heck?

I can't even believe how much this funeral home??? I'm not even sure was a funeral home. I have no idea who the advertiser was, which is a total fail on the part of the advertising agency. But this ad was modeled after the shyster lawyer ads for get your compensation now. Same type of language. The funeral you deserve. The compensation you deserve. Maybe there's like one advertising agency that just does these horrible low-budget slimy commercials. Maybe that's why they sound so much alike.

And don't even get me started on the ads for pharmaceuticals. Is moderate to severe plaque psoriasis such a huge problem that we need like 10 drugs for this condition? And is it really necessary to advertise them constantly?

While the pharmaceutical companies are focusing on getting your skin so you can feel confident, more and more of our antibiotics aren't working any longer. Are these companies working on new antibiotics? As far as I know, they're not. This is why there needs to be some public good put ahead of profit. We do not want to live in a world where antibiotics no longer work.

I'll save my rant about drug companies and what they should be working on as opposed to what they actually are working on for some other time. I'll just say that there advertising does not inspire me to want to use any of their medications. When you listen to these ads, they spent three quarters of their time listing all the side effects. And they often have "including death" as one of the side effects.

If I remember correctly from my time in advertising school, lawyers and pharmaceutical companies were given permission to advertise on television about the same time. I don't know who was in charge of that decision, that they've made life miserable. As bad as daytime television is, the advertising is worse.

I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing

I haven't actually watched Mad Men, but there was a mini-series on Smithsonian Channel (I think it was Smithsonian Channel) about advertising that did a lot of cutting between the TV show and real ads from that decade. I believe it was four weeks long and looked at the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. It was long enough ago that I watched it that I can't swear this is correct, but I'm close. :-)

Anyway, they showed how Mad Men concluded--with the Coke commercial from 1971. Even though I hadn't watched any of the series, I knew it was a genius way to conclude it just from everything I'd heard about the show. The ad? I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing.

In May of 2016, the real creator of the ad, passed away and the Washington Post ran a nice article about his creation of the jingle. It seems his plane to London diverted Shannon, Ireland because of fog and he was inspired by what he saw at the airport the following morning. Yes, they were delayed overnight.

The article includes a video of the commercial, a video of last few minutes of Mad Men, and a video of the man who created the ad talking about it.

I am totally an advertising geek. It was my major in college and it continues to fascinate me today.

There's a couple of interesting points. Well, interesting to me anyway. :-) It started out as a radio jingle and people called into radio stations requesting it. With this huge popularity propelling it, the jingle became part of a television commercial. It was supposed to cost $100,000, but because of weather and other issues, came in at $250,000. At the time, it was the most expensive ad ever. The other super interesting thing is that because of the jingle's popularity, it was actually released as a song. When was the last time you heard that happening?

Here's the ad in case you don't want to click over to the article:

The Worst Advertising Has to Offer

As bad as advertising is during regular viewing hours, it’s a billion times worse during the daytime. While I was up in Minnesota, helping my dad clean out the house, I worked with the television on. Most of the ads were geared to retired folks or (apparently) people who are entitled to some kind of compensation.

At home, I just hit the mute button and ignore the crap. It wasn’t so easy in Minnesota because I was trying to work and repeatedly reaching for the remote wasn’t conducive to progress.

It wasn’t only on that game show channel I found either. I’d discovered another station, one that did a weekend binge of Black Sheep Squadron with Robert Conrad, and it was every bit as bad with one added commercial for some replica watch. Gah!

How bad were the ads? After a few days, I started muttering STFU every time a commercial break started. Luckily, my dad wasn’t in the same room I was in most of the time, and when he was, he doesn’t hear real well. :-)

I’m not sure about this, but I wonder if they alternate ads from big pharma with lawyer ads to sue big pharma for bad drugs? It sure seemed that way.

Super Bowl Commercials

Those of you who know how into advertising I am are probably wondering why I haven't talked about any of the commercials from the Super Bowl yet. The biggest reason is that none of the ones that I saw were OMG good. There were a couple that I really liked--The trailer for Independence Day 2 was fun and I also liked the ad where the dad was trailing his daughter and her date wherever they went, but other than that? Meh.

And then there were the two that I really didn't like: The Doritos baby ultrasound ad was gross, but the worst beyond all doubt? That puppy monkey baby thing. WTF?

I'm sure the Mountain Dew executives were thrilled the next day because they were trending on Facebook and Twitter. I'm also certain that they didn't care that the vast majority of the response was extremely negative--any buzz is good buzz--but I believe that they are wrong.

Do I remember the name of the product? Surprisingly, yes I do. Win! say the Mountain Dew ad team. Not quite, say I. You see, that commercial was the weirdest thing I can remember seeing and very, very high on the disgusting meter. My reaction to that ad is so negative that I also have an extremely negative opinion of the product it was pushing. When I see that drink in the store, I can guarantee that some part of me will physically recoil. Judging by the strength of the negative reactions I saw online, I don't think I'll be the only one.

I could be wrong, but there's a line between making a bizarre commercial that people are talking about and making one that people are all talking about, but that is so repellent that it hurts the product. I believe that the Kick Start ad falls into the latter category.

Score Another One For Geico

Recently, I gave some faint praise to Geico's advertising agency for their Peter Pan TV commercial because the concept was clever. Now, I have to give them full praise and it kind of hurts. I've hated their ads for so long... Ah, well, I'll get over it.

FYI, for those of you who don't know it, I graduated from college with a degree in advertising copywriting, so I have a strong interest in this topic. I also tend to watch ads in a different way than normal people do. Even when I hate an ad, I can see the tactics behind it and judge the success based on that. I've said more than once that the Geico ads are very effective--I just don't like them. Until this latest spot.

The ad I love is called "Spy: It's What You Do" and it features a spy fighting off bad guys while he talks to his mom on the phone about squirrels in the attic.

I'm not sure why this tickles me so much, but it does. I love that the guy won't just hang up on his mom even given the situation he's in. It's sweet and it's the kind of thing a romance hero would do, at least some of them would. :-)

Of course, I enjoy the action/adventure part of the commercial and I think the actors did a fine job pulling off the concept. For me, it's a lot of fun. I also love the fact that the father won't hire an exterminator to get the squirrels because "this time it's personal." Heh!

Disclaimer: Believe me, Geico is not paying me anything for my opinions on their advertising. :-) As critical as I usually am of their stuff, they'd probably prefer I never blog about them again.

Put One In the Plus Column

I'm not a fan of the Geico advertising campaigns. I find most of them obnoxious, but I also know they're effective for brand recognition. I didn't know who Geico was before they began their TV ads years and years ago, but I doubt there's anyone who doesn't know who they are and what they do now.

But to give the company and its advertising agency credit, they actually came up with a creative concept. It's still on the obnoxious side and I still don't really like it, but the theme? Tremendously clever.

Which ad is it? The one where Peter Pan goes to his 30th high school reunion.

Most of the "That's what you do" ads have been horrible, IMO, but this one? The premise is so awesome. Peter Pan, the boy that never grows up, is juxtaposed with his older-appearing graduating class. Seriously, I'd love to have watched the brainstorming session that pulled "What if Peter Pan went to his high school reunion?" out of thin air. How do you even get there?

This is seriously the first and only Geico commercial that I think is clever. (At least so far. Maybe they'll surprise me again.) I still don't like it. I know why I find the ad obnoxious--because Peter Pan is obnoxious--but he has to be because he's the boy that never grew up. Not only in size, but also in attitude.

And I like the song they chose for the ad--Frank Sinatra and "You Make Me Feel so Young." I find myself singing those lines from the ad at odd times. :-/

The Worst Advertising Has to Offer

Let me start this conversation by saying that I was an advertising copywriting major in college. I understand marketing strategies and campaign themes. I understand that sex has been used to sell products since the dawn of modern advertising. I'm not a prude and have no problem with sexy ads. I do, however, have a huge problem with the sexist schlock that Hardees/Carl's Jr. is passing off as television commercials. If there weren't child labor laws, I'd swear their campaign was created by adolescent boys.

I did a little bit of reading before starting this post and apparently Hardees has been bottom-feeding with their advertising for years now. I was unaware of it until recently. I'm not sure if this is because there aren't many Hardees in Minneapolis and so they didn't buy advertising there or if they've changed their media buying strategy to stations I watch in the last couple of years since I moved to Atlanta. That's not as important as the fact that they have a history of sexism.

The first commercial I saw touted a big burger by having some scantily-dressed blonde ask a stranger across the aisle on an airline, "want to join the mile-high club?" That ad was quickly followed up with a "flight attendant" in a tight, tight dress practically becoming orgasmic over a burger. I'm sure the real flight attendants who sometimes have to deal with sexual harassment from male passengers really appreciated that ad campaign. ::heavy sarcasm::

This summer, there was the barely dressed (and hinted at being naked, but strategically covered) blonde who liked to "go natural." The latest has the model in the ad saying, "nice package" to one of the guys in the ad. Way to be classy Hardees.

But oops, the CEO doesn't want class. He wants the ads to be sexist and horrible and if they're not offensive, he's sending them back to the ad agency to rework. The ass CEO said as much in Entrepreneur: The CEO of Carl's Jr. Doesn't Care If You're Offended By the Chain's Sexy Ads 

NO! I don't mind sexy ads. I hate SEXIST ads. Ads can be sexy without being sexist. Ads can be sexy and classy. Ads don't have to be offensive to sell product. Of course, it appears that Hardees/Carl's Jr. doesn't want to market to adults, but rather 15-year-old boys.

The ad agency behind the awful Hardees campaigns is 72andSunny. No Clio for you 72andSunny. AdWeek even called out one of the Hardees ads in 2013 in an article titled The 10 Most Sexist Ads of 2013.

In a blog post on Vice titled Ad Agencies Have No Idea How to Talk to Women, the author says that he's not even going to talk about Hardees/Carl's Jr ads because neither the company nor the ad agency give a damn that they've reduced women to pieces of meat. Amen, brother!

You know what? IMO, this blatant sexism pervading the advertising world in 2015 is because there is a dearth of creativity out there. Instead of actually using imagination and talent to dream up a campaign that draws people to the product, ad agencies are sinking to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Sex sells so we'll just be obnoxiously sexist and we'll sell lots of product.

Apparently they are, but I've quietly added Hardees to my list of companies I'm boycotting. They probably don't care--I almost never eat fast food--but I don't care that they don't care about my boycott. This is my stand, however small it might be.

Television Commercials - A Small Rant

I'll preface my rant about TV commercials by saying that I don't generally watch network television, so most of what I'm seeing is on cable or during baseball games. This might make a difference in the type of advertising I'm exposed to because of demographics.

Television commercials are--by and large--horrible right now. Totally horrid. Beyond horrid. How many ads for different drugs do they need to run? Seriously? It's reached the point where there isn't an advertising break without at least one drug ad. Sometimes more. If it isn't a drug ad, it's an ad for a lawyer about suing drug manufacturers for side effects or bad consequences. Interesting juxtaposition there, especially when they run one right after the other.

There's also the fear-mongering ads for security companies and the I've Fallen and Can't Get Up people.

I've reached a point where I automatically mute all television advertising now. it's appallingly bad. I expect that with local ads like the ones for the tire guys in the Atlanta area. They're working with a much smaller budget, but national ads?

I stand by my opinion which was the FCC made an ENORMOUS error in judgment when they allowed drug companies and lawyers to advertise on television. Thanks a lot, FCC. You've made advertising unbearable.

My Super Bowl Top Three Ads

I was an advertising major in college and one of my favorite things about the Super Bowl is the commercials. This year had an odd selection of ads. I thought a lot of them were strange with a juxtaposition of action that seemed to have nothing to do with the product.

For example, The Chobani commercial with the bear in the general store. How does this say yogurt? Or the ad for the Maserati. It was a cool ad, don't get me wrong. I loved the visuals, the little girl, and the voice over, but I thought the ad was for some post apocalyptic movie or something. Nothing about it said car to me.

There were a lot of ads like that all throughout the Super Bowl. It's like most of the advertisers decided to film stuff that was cool and just tack their product on at the end, whether it fit logically with the images or not.

So which ads did I like? I'll post my top 3.

The best ad of the night for me was Radio Shack. I loved the humor and the fact that it was just plain fun! See how many 80s references you can spot.

I had a hard time picking for second and third place. These two ads could go in either order, but I ultimately decided on the Budweiser commercial with the puppy as the second best ad of the Super Bowl. Cute animals. What can I say?

The third place commercial--which easily could be my second favorite--is for Cheerios. The little girl is adorable and she gets a puppy out of the deal. :-)

The Night Watch

This is totally awesome!

And if you're as interested as I am, here's the Making Of video. You'll have to click the CC button on the bottom and select subtitles in English.

Really, Advertisers?

Another blog written in Minnesota: I didn't plan to talk about television advertising again, but I saw yet another commercial that has me irritated over the portrayal of women. My college major was advertising and I understand why women are used in ads for products aimed at men. The problem is how women are portrayed.

The latest example is a commercial for Armor All. A man comes out in a bathrobe because he hears noises in his garage. A Viking-like male is in there and he's holding a box of Armor All products. The first man admits that the product was a gift from his brother and the Viking guy says he doesn't deserve it or the car (that's covered in dirt). So far, it's fine.

Then comes the part that I didn't like: a scantily clad woman prances out (and I use the word prances deliberately), looks at the guy she's sleeping with, looks at the Viking, and as the Viking leaves, she prances after him.

Really? Really Armor All? Women are so brainless and fickle that they'll follow some strange man dressed up like a Viking because he's got a clean car?

The number one offender in my opinion is Axe personal care products for men. They're the ones who had a commercial where a man was portrayed as his hair style and the woman as a pair of breasts. That was downright offensive.

Their latest campaign for their Apollo line features a woman in jeopardy (fire, shark attack). She's rescued by a man (firefighter, lifeguard) and instead of thanking him, she spots a man who uses Apollo products and brushes past the man who saved her because Women love astronauts.

I don't have a problem with the saving part; I consider that a legitimate ploy for the ads. What bothers me is the subtle message being transmitted by the way the women are portrayed. It's not just Axe. It's not just Armor All. It's a message being sent in a number of ads to young men and women who watch television and it's not a positive message.

I'm not naïve. I know women have been portrayed as objects in advertising for a long time, but there's something different about the current trend. It's not just that it's 2013 and we should be beyond this—although one would hope we, as a society, would have grown up a bit more than we have—it's the idea that women are that brainless. I hate using the same word over and over, but it fits the scenario. They're like Stepford women, nothing more than robots to satisfy males.

When I was in advertising ethics class in college, we looked at using sex (and women) to sell products. We examined print ads, which granted are different than television commercials, but I think it will sort of illustrate the difference in how women were used back then as compared to how they're used now. (Heavy emphasis on the word used.)

The one ad that really sticks in my memory was for liquor. We see a man and a woman alone in an upscale living room. He's in a suit, she's wearing a black dress that's sexy, but wasn't so revealing that a woman in real life wouldn't wear it out for an evening with her guy. The models are sharing a drink and a suggestive look. In the corner of the ad was a bottle of the liquor being advertised and a glass with ice cubes. The ice cubes definitely had a phallic arrangement, but that would be something picked up subliminally. Most people wouldn't look at a print ad long enough to notice it consciously.

In the liquor ad, the couple are portrayed as equals. They're both interested in each other—it's a choice they're both making.

In the TV ads today, women are not equals. Women aren't even portrayed as people in the Armor All and Axe commercials. Women are merely objects for the man to take or not take as he wishes.

I've been trying and trying to remember if this brainless, Stepford portrayal of women has been around and I just hadn't paid attention, but I don't think so. I tend to study ads and notice nuances and trends because I got used to doing this while I was in school. This seems to have popped up within the last five years or so and it doesn't seem to be abating, not when the Armor All commercial really didn't need a woman in it at all to get the message across, but they put one in anyway.

Why do I think this is happening? Leaving the larger societal issues for the professionals, I'll speculate that it's laziness on the part of the advertising community. Sex sells, but instead of being subtle about it—which takes some time and cleverness on the part of the copywriters—let's just throw it out there because that's easier.

This lack of subtlety is something I've seen across a broad swath of commercials, not only the portrayal of women as sex objects. Ads have hooks. When I was trained, the copywriter tried to camouflage the hook with a carefully wrapped worm. Now, the ads like maybe try to yank a worm on the hook, but don't do a very good job with that. In fact, I've wondered for a while if viewers don't notice the tactics advertisers are using to reel them in or if the advertisers just don't care if their target market sees their hook.

Whatever the reason, though, this portrayal of women needs to change. There's a big, big difference between using a woman's sex appeal to sell products to men and objectifying women so that they're nothing except sexy brainless robots. I've had enough of the Stepford women.

Death Star Over Copenhagen

This is a commercial and it's hugely cool, especially if you're a Star Wars geek.

Advertising Win

I've lamented for a while how unexciting and uncreative most advertising has become. This has even reached Super Bowl advertising which used to be Clio Award worthy once upon a time. (For those who are unfamiliar with it, the Clio Awards are advertising's version of the Oscars.) The last five or six years of Super Bowl ads has left me disappointed and sad. I graduated from college with a major in advertising. I love well-done ads and I'm happy to sit and watch great ads for hours. However, aside from a few bright spots now and then, there hasn't been much worth my time.

This year, though, there was a huge bright spot on the advertising radar. Honda CR-V did a Ferris Bueller commercial that I thought was brilliant. Why I thought this ad was awesome: 1. who hasn't seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off? 2. It's a largely well-liked movie and it's become iconic in many ways. Even if someone hasn't seen the movie in years, we all can remember the teacher saying, "Bueller. Bueller. Bueller." The film is filled with moments like this that people remember. 3. We don't forget it's a Honda ad, but at the same time, the sell isn't pounded out over and over. Honda allows us to enjoy the spot. 4. People are talking about this ad. Honda is getting a lot of free press, including here, I guess, as I discuss their ad. You can't buy buzz and if someone specifically goes to YouTube to watch the commercial, Honda is getting more rapt attention to the spot than they would have with a media buy.

How true was Honda to the movie? I found a video where someone put the commercial side by side with the movie. You be the judge:

If you want to enjoy the ad on its own merits, here's the extended version of Honda's homage to Ferris:

Music Hunt

One really great thing about the internet is the ability to track down information quickly and easily. As a writer, being able to get an answer to a research point for a book almost instantly and being able to get right back to the story is a blessing. It's proven to be handy, though, in other ways.

There has been some really great use of music in television commercials lately. It started with Geico using Let Me Be Myself by 3 Doors Down. Geico nicely put the name of the group and the song title at the bottom of the screen so I was able to jump over to iTunes and buy a copy for myself. Most advertisers haven't been so helpful and this is where the internet comes into play.

There are two other songs I've been grooving on. One of them, Build Me Up Buttercup by the Foundations wasn't too hard to figure out. One Google search gave me the name of the group (I only had the song title from the lyrics of the ad) and it was painless.

The other ad music I've been loving wasn't easy to track down. Oh, I could guess at the song title from the lyrics. That was easy. The hard part was figuring out which version was the right one. I wanted the same one used in the commercial.

What ad was it? The one for the 2010 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. The ad is awesome by itself. A bunch of ballplayers suddenly inundated with sand, another player jumps at the outfield wall to catch a ball and falls through it onto the beach, and a giant sandcastle in the form of Angels Stadium. It's just a fun commercial. The music made it even more fun.

But the song, California Sun was covered by about a million different bands/singers. I looked at the list and was like, wow, which version?

Google didn't exactly help me here, but it led me to YouTube and some kind soul posted the name of the band. Thank you, sir, whoever you are! The version I wanted was by The Dictators. I bought it and have been grooving ever since.

Once, before the internet, getting the name of the band for California Sun would have been a futile effort. Now, it's as easy as heading to YouTube. Awesome!

Watch the fabulous and fun commercial (complete with awesome song) below.

Noise

Not that long ago, it used to be that advertising was confined to predictable locations. You'd see it on TV, hear it on the radio, see it on billboards and on the sides of buses. Now advertising is everywhere, and with all the noise, the target audience doesn't even see most ads let alone remember them or the product.

It used to be that only minor league baseball teams had advertising on their walls, now all the big league teams do. It used to be that if you saw a truck with writing on it, it was the name of the company that owned the vehicle, now it's just as likely to have ads on the two sides and the rear. It used to be that you could put down your tray table on an airplane and just have a plain, beige surface, now there's an airline that sells that as advertising space. It's gotten so bad, there are even public restrooms with ads in the stalls.

The kick off for the football game is usually sponsored. The replays of home runs are sponsored. Driving down the freeway this summer while the PGA was in town, I saw a Mercedes that was discretely labeled as the official sponsor of the tour.

And the thing is as new and more places are used for advertising, it takes more and more views before the product registers. If it ever does.

It all becomes noise. It's like walking into a crowd of people and since everyone is talking, you can't hear anyone. I was an advertising major in college and I have an interest in it, but even I'm burnt out on the plethora of ads that surround me. It's overload and I know I'm not alone. The sad thing is that they're talking about putting advertising in even more places--like inside books, both electronic and print.

I just have a single comment on that. No.

I want one place where I can escape the noise.

Where Have All the Clio Contenders Gone?

The other day at work I was talking to one of the guys and he mentioned how annoying advertising is--both television and radio--which of course got me going since I was an advertising copywriting major in college. I love talking about advertising.

My fascination began in junior high. Every year my school would get reels of the Clio Award (advertising's Oscars) winning television ads in and play them in the library. If we had a free period, we could go there and watch them, and I would spend as much time in there as possible. I loved watching the Clio Award winners. Seeing these ads after I left middle school was tough, but every now and then I managed it. I think my junior high fascination with good advertising is a large part of what had me switching majors from broadcast journalism to advertising.

You can imagine with my educational background that I dissect ads. You'd be right. The thing that disappoints me most is that the number of good ads on television has plummeted dramatically in the last 5-10 years. This is IMO, of course. Instead of being clever and entertaining, most of them are just annoying. I know some of it comes down to taste--I loathe the talking baby commercials for that online trading company for example--but others enjoy them.

And radio ads have been by and large terrible for a lot longer than this. Bad enough that I've threatened to dust off my portfolio and get into the business. :-) I might be out of practice, but I couldn't do worse than what's on the air now. Seriously.

Where have all the creative and entertaining ads gone?

Sure, there were always annoying, hard-sell commercials out there, but there also used to be fabulous spots that people talked about at work. You don't hear people talking about many now--unless it's to complain about how horribly annoying they are. That's not a positive even if there is a certain amount of name recognition there for the product.

Take the Geico commercials for example, the ones with the wad of money with the eyes atop it. All I've heard people say about those ads is that they're "creepy" and "stalkerish." Yes, everyone remembers it's a Geico ad, but does the company really want to associate itself with those two words?

I could maybe understand the creative ads switching to the internet, but you know what? I haven't seen anything particularly innovative and exciting online either. Where has all my good advertising gone? I can't even count on the Super Bowl any longer to deliver a wealth of good advertising. The best stuff I'm seeing right now is coming out of Europe and that's sad. America used to have some awesome campaigns and this current state saddens me.

I'm going to have to find out which ads were nominated for Clios recently and hop over to You Tube to watch them. I hope there's better ones out there than I'm seeing when I have the television on.

What's Up With Mom?

Has anyone else noticed all the ads on the internet that mention "mom?" They're everywhere and I don't get it. Some of the ads I've seen have been: "Obama wants Minnesota moms to go back to school." "Find out how a mom mixed two products and made a teeth whitener." There are more, too, but those are the two I've seen enough to have nearly memorized

First of all, let's forget about how spammy these ads are. Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised to find these headlines in my spam folder if they'd been sent via email, but where does the mom thing come in? I have to tell you, if I'm putting something on my teeth to whiten them, that mom damn well better have a chemistry degree! Can you imagine putting something on that just eats away the surface enamel because some mom combined two products?

Then there's the Obama wants moms to go back to school. (The ad promises all kinds of government money to pay for college.) Why only moms? Why not dads? Why not people without children?

I don't understand when motherhood in this context became a selling point. Sure, Mom has always been featured prominiently in advertising. The products extolling "Doctor Mom" and such, but why wouldn't the advertisers go with something like, "Combine two common household products to whiten your teeth."

It just seems like a truly bizarre advertising strategy and to see so many internet ads use this approach at the same time makes me wonder what's going on. I've started talking back to the ads. Sad, but true. At least the ads aren't answering. Yet. ;-)

Facebook "Advertising"

I have a problem with the so-called advertising on Facebook. I, BTW, think it more closely resembles spam than real ads, but that's not my issue. Although why FB is willing to take anyone's money and let their site look like the inside of my spam folder is something I'll never understand.

What are my issues then?

How about the ads where you can make $5,000 a month by working from home? Yeah, right. If this is like the scam that used to go around a few years ago, the only way to make this is money is by rooking others into paying you for your information on how to work at home. These ads are a pyramid scheme, which are basically illegal in a lot of states from what I understand.

Then there's the ads where I can "get my share of Obama's stimulus package." The great part about this ad is that it was appearing on FB weeks before the stimulus package passed. Do people really think the federal government is handing average citizens checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars? But then, why do they need this money when they can make $5,000 a month working from home?

I also get ads where I'm being offered a chance to self-publish. Um, no thanks. See, the Publisher pays the author not the other way around. When I think of all the teenagers or young adults on FB who have a dream to be a writer one day, I hope to heaven they're smart enough not to get taken in by a vanity press. You want to self-publish your family history? Great! Or have a non-fiction niche subject with a built-in audience that's too small for a publisher? That's a good option for self-publishing, too. Fiction? Nope. Don't do it.

The FB ads also show pictures of celebrities--implying an endorsement that I guarantee you they do not have--and FB has done nothing to rein in this misleading and probably illegal tactic. I swear if I could find some way to email Oprah, I would let her people know that her name and image have been used without her permission. So have images of Rachel Ray, Angelina Jolie, Cheryl Tiegs, and so many other famous people that even I recognize them. :-)

They've had their images and names associated with wrinkle removers (Does anyone really believe a Hollywood celebrity is wrinkle-free because of cream? I immediately think plastic surgery, but then I'm cynical when it comes to "miracle creams.") and a gazillion weight loss products of various kinds, including the magic berry.

Lately I've noticed a new ad with Katie Couric's picture--As seen on 60 Minutes. Here's their magic product that will make you live forever. Um, sorry, I watched that episode of 60 Minutes and they talked about a chemical found in red wine. Researchers are investigating whether or not they can make it into a pill form that will work. I'm supposed to believe that your doctors out-trumped the doctors interviewed on the show and beat them to the punch? Call me a cynic, but I'll wait until someone reputable bottles this.

I've also been challenged to compare my IQ to Bush, Obama, and Manny Ramirez of all people. (Baseball player formerly with the Boston Red Sox who finished the 2008 season on the Los Angeles Dodgers.) I've been offered a free hot pink MacBook just so I can use it and tell them what I think about it. Somehow I don't think Apple is just giving those things away in exchange for opinions. There are similar ads for pink iPhones--guess you're not supposed to wonder who's going to pay that monthly phone bill.

The thing that bugs me the most about these ads is that they are hugely misleading and designed to rook kids who don't know any better. If Facebook previewed the ads and just cut out the illegal stuff like the pyramid schemes and the bait ones that would help. What they should be doing is not allowing the ads that are using celebrity pictures and names without permission. If that isn't illegal, it's sure as heck immoral, but I believe celebrities have a right over their images for the purpose of advertising. Being a public figure does not give anyone the right to stick your face on an ad for miracle wrinkle cream or anything else.

Grrr! I wish I could tune these ads out the way others do, but I can't. I've reported the offenders on the celebrity front over and over and over, but Facebook does nothing. Anyone have Oprah's email?