http://adage.com/rss-feed.php?section_id=287 en-us 120 http://adage.com/rss-feed.php?section_id=287 http://adage.com/img/adage-logo-sm.gif http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=140550
In the new Verizon commercial from McCann Erickson, New York, the iPhone is the newest resident of the Island of Misfit Toys..]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=140550 Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=140115
Rhett and Link voluntarily produce spots for little companies that amuse them. One such was the Cullman (Ala.) Liquidation Center, an outfit that buys used mobile and modular homes, fixes them up and resells them. It certainly has no media budget. But it does have a commercial, shot on a shoestring by Rhett and Link, with no production gloss but plenty of moxie.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=140115 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=139945
It's an anthem. A manifesto. A generational declaration of defiance. And the advertiser behind it is ... Miracle Whip. That is correct, the salad dressing/sandwich spread/middle finger to the Man. Or at least to the mayonnaise.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=139945 Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=139754
Sarah Silverman is not the first to raise the question of whether the church is anachronistic and perverse. What's kind of new is bargaining with the Pope over his $500 billion crib.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=139754 Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=139587
The hero of Kaplan Thaler's Wendy's campaign is undisputedly the hot, juicy, square, unfrozen, unreheated patty.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=139587 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=139438
The Expense-a-Steak Headquarters stunt from Walrus, New York, for midtown restaurant Maloney & Porcelli's is one of the cleverest ideas we have seen in 24 years of AdReview-ing.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=139438 Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=139289
Tire maker BF Goodrich has introduced Nation of Go, a website, community and mobile app to plan road trips. Whether you are a seeker in the Jack Kerouac mold or just a sightseer in a Winnebago, there is a place for you at nationofgo.com. Your motivation is irrelevant to BF Goodrich. So what does it care about?]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=139289 Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=139144
Uh-oh. The online consignment crafts marketplace/community Etsy.com ran a contest seeking 30-second spots from the general Etsy-sphere. The results are positively remarkable.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=139144 Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138976
This just in: General Motors has some issues. Luckily, here comes the new chairman, Edward Whitacre Jr., with a boast -- and an offer -- designed to turn it all around.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138976 Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138850
Putting aside the careless and amateurish art direction in the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's soft-drink PSA, the message is loud and clear. But it is also literally nauseating.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138850 Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138758
Embarrassing as this is to admit, AdReview is one of those irresponsible morons who talks on the phone and checks his BlackBerry while driving. But he has been chastened, thanks to a viral video produced by a regional Welsh police department, showing in horrifying detail the aftermath of a quadruple-fatal accident caused by a teenage driver texting behind the wheel.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138758 Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:00:11 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138605
It's hard to say whether the new spot for U.S. Cellular, titled "Shadow Puppets," is more clever or more charming. We only wish it were likely to sell cellular, which we fear it will not. This breaks our heart, because in many ways this ad incorporates the advertising values we most believe in.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138605 Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138490
Last week, we looked at the Famous Footwear campaign. This week, for a little change of pace, we shall look at the Famous Footwear campaign.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138490 Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:32:16 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138360
Yikes. What do you get when you combine a banal and utterly generic media campaign that says absolutely nothing about your brand with a social-media element destined to generate no interest within ... whadyacallit ... society?]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138360 Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138130
Harry and Louise are back -- though, weirdly, this time they're fronting for proponents of the government's plan, the Pharmaceuticals Researchers and Manufacturers of America, and a group called Families USA. Nothing else has changed, however. It's still two terrible actors reducing complex issues ad absurdum.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138130 Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138007
Yet, lots and lots of beer advertising is content to tar all of us with the same brush, to reduce us to cartoon characters of masculinity. This includes a decade of Bud Light battle-of-the-sexes gags, Miller Lite's ill-fated "Man Laws" and Heineken's recent green-tinted Bud Light ad about guys squealing over a huge, built-in brewski fridge. So a thousand bravos to Droga5 and its spot for Foster's Victoria Bitter, an Australian beer ad that fills every bill.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=138007 Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:38:31 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=137864
Unhappy after United Airlines refused to compensate him for a broken guitar, Canadian musician Dave Carroll made a music video devoted to his customer experience.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=137864 Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=137733
The flawless integration of design, strategy and theme in the new Levi's campaign from Wieden & Kennedy isn't what makes it so special. What makes it special is that, more likely than not -- at least in the U.S. -- it will generate little more than a rolling of eyes on a mass scale.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=137733 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:19:21 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=137468
In the branded film "Cayman Went," there are ample opportunities to bludgeon home the Caribbean Paradise message, but director Bobby Sheehan resists.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=137468 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=137136
If Modernista was looking to trigger mental associations with Palm Pre's first ad, it may have blundered into the wrong ones]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=137136 Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136988
An AdReview reader was incredulous that Capital One could be so unchastened by crisis as to encourage wanton spending. After all, for every dollar or two or so of rewards value on credit purchases, there's $100 to pay the bank, often with accruing interest charges that are just this side of loansharking. But here's the thing: This isn't a credit-card ad.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136988 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136837
In the space of 30 seconds with a famous basketball player, one of the greatest agencies in the world has managed to capture three of the five characteristics AdReview most despises in a TV commercial.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136837 Mon, 25 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136697
The next 600 words nominally review the latest Apple ad, but actually they represent more of a bone toss.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136697 Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136546
This Tabasco spot, from Duval Guillaume, Brussels, forces us to re-examine our notion of badness, and perhaps to be a little less reflexively dismissive.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136546 Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136422
Former Arnold creative Lawson Clarke is trying to regain his rightful place in the advertising economy by advertising himself into a new gig. He is doing so via malecopywriter.com.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136422 Mon, 04 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136260
A new campaign for Post Shredded Wheat pre-emptively grabs the "old and unimproved" positioning out from under everybody.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136260 Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136083
Poor Domino's. It will be very difficult for anybody to order a sandwich or a pizza there for, say, the next 200 years without imagining a curl of cheese being stuck first in the cook's nose. Or worse. This thanks to two nincompoops and their YouTube video about their zany food-defilement high jinks.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=136083 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=135948
A new Chili's multimedia campaign from Hill Holliday caricatures the competition by creating a fake casual-dining chain, P.J. Bland's.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=135948 Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=135791
Will everyday Americans be grateful to KFC for pitching in for the community? Or will they have a slightly different reaction -- such as, let's say ... disgust?]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=135791 Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield) http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=135423 Ad Age, no less than any other media organization, is being buffeted by the twin storms of recession and business-model disruption. Just this week, we shuttered our Washington bureau, laid off a correspondent, a video producer and sales-side employees and slashed costs across our operation. AdReview has no space because we haven't the advertising this week to underwrite it.]]> http://adage.com/garfield/post.php?article_id=135423 Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0400 bgarfield@adage.com(Bob Garfield)