Based on purely anecdotal evidence, and our professional opinion, there is no question as to this year’s most effective commercial and the overall winner of the Super Bowl ad wars. Not only was this Doritos commercial the best of the bunch, but the overall best group of advertisements goes to Doritos hands down. They were witty and fun and creative and just plain viral.

Check out the other Doritos commercials below.

So what’s going to distinguish the 2010 Super Bowl commercials from previous years? You want to know the truth? Nothing. They will still focus on cute little babies, animals and humor. There might be some very subtle sexual innuendo.

Marketers know human nature. They know what moves people. And the 2010 Super Bowl ads will pretty much follow the same formula – hopefully with some added twists. Perhaps the real news will be whether America still approves of Tim Tebow when all is said and done.

Stay posted… Super Bowl Commercial videos to be posted below.

The problem is sometimes it has hard to defend Microsoft when some of their advertising decisions make them look even lamer rather than support their brand.

Take their attack ads aimed at Apple. Turns out they used deceptive advertising. First they used actors to be their “real people”, as you can see in the screen grab below where the “store visit” tool less than a second, including researching all the product in store (the bald man is still walking by as she enters, shops and leaves … fastest shopper ever). Then they had to edit the part where they imply the competing Apple products are more expensive than they really are.

Fastest Shopping Trip Ever

Way to help your argument Microsoft!

“M.J. was introduced as the greatest player ever and he’s still standing there trying to settle scores,” one Hall of Famer said privately

In the lead-up to and in the wake of Michael Jordan’s big Hall of Fame induction weekend and the (disturbingly petty) speech he gave during it, Nike has been pushing these “Leroy Smith” viral videos. Question is, Who is Leroy Smith?
Check it, Savvyites:

Harvest Leroy Smith is the reason Michael Jordan had to play JV throughout his sophomore year of high school. He’s the man who beat out MJ for the last spot on the Laney High School varsity basketball team, and now he’s an internet meme with Charlie Murphy’s face.

Jordan says getting cut from the varsity high school team was a major turning point in his life, so much so, he even invited the man who got his spot, Leroy Smith, to his Hall of Fame induction. Looks like MJ’s obsessed.

During his speech (which, like I said, is doused with petty whines and weird ramblings) he makes Smith out to be just some goon who played high school ball and only made the team over MJ because some cosmic architect was trying to shape his competitive nature. What he doesn’t mention is that Smith was at least good enough to play ball at UNC-Charlotte, and then overseas in various minor leagues before he decided to quit and settle in with a sales job, get married, and have kids like a regular human being.

However, when Jordan mentioned his version of the Smith story to Nike executives, they created an ad campaign based around a washed up “man who claims to have motivated Michael Jordan”. Granted, it really screws with the image of the real Leroy Smith, but it is effing hilarious. Strangely, I don’t see any plugs for Nike anywhere in these videos. Maybe this is part of Nike’s anti-advertising thang. Whatever it is, they’re really pushing it, there are 15+ videos on the Youtube.com account and there’s even an NBA.com interview with the fake Smith.

So check it, here’s the complete collection:

Leroy Smiths Hall of Fame Petition

News Stories: Leroy Smith Exposed (1/4)

News Stories: In the Recording Studio with Leroy Smith (2/4)

News Stories: Motivation in Action with Leroy Smith (3/4)

News Stories: Behind the Scenes with Leroy Smith (4/4)

Leroy Smith’s ‘My Gift to the Game’ music video

Leroy Smith message for Peter R Casey

Leroy Smith’s 2-on-2 Hall of Fame Challenge

GetYourBasketballOn: Shuffle & Sweat

GetYourBasketballOn: The Mind Maze

GetYourBasketballOn: The Blind Mantis

GetYourBasketballOn: Giant Target Drill

Dragon Attack Drill

ABC Focus Drill

Welcome to Leroy Smith’s Website

via GetYourBasketballOn.com

I love speculation about the future, mostly because it usually goes so wrong. For instance, in 1985, Ebony Magazine published an article called “Portraits of the Stars: What They May Look Like in the Year 2000“. In it, they commissioned an artist named Nathan Wright to depict what he thinks “today’s” (1985’s) artists would look like in the year 2000. The best part… Michael Jackson. Read on for the pictures:

Check out the entire page from the Ebony article:

Michael Jackson in the year 2000, via the lens of 1985

Nathan Wright said of MJ: “At 40, he will have aged gracefully and will have a handsome, more mature look.” So basically, he’ll look like Lando Calrissian…

In The Year 2000…

The irony is, none of the words Nathan Wright used to describe Michael Jackson are appropriate for his actual year 2000 self.
See:

“…graceful… handsome… mature…?”

Let this be a lesson for you amateur futurists out there. Clouded, the future is; Impossible to see.

TAG Heuer recently ran an ad campaign for their Monaco brand watch. It was a contest to guess the winner of the above “Duel” between two important figures in the history of the Monaco series, Steve McQueen and Lewis Hamilton. The contest officially closed on June 10th, 2009. Apparently, it’s been one of TAG Heuer’s most popular online contests ever.

According to TAG Heuer, Lewis Hamilton won the Duel… but I don’t think anyone wins with this ad. They sliced up the original footage from the Steve McQueen 1971 film Le Mans to shoehorn his image into the ad, and then used a poor quality voice actor that sounds nothing like him to dub over his lines. Ironically though, McQueen’s shoehorn/voiced over performance is better than Lewis Hamilton’s actual performance. And McQueen’s been dead for almost 30 years. Overall, the ad is fairly lame on that level. Still, it has racing footage, so I can’t call it all bad. Check out the full version:

TAG Heuer’s reasoning for using Steve McQueen in this ad is because the company is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2009, and McQueen helped bring the Monaco brand into prominence by wearing one on his wrist in the film Le Mans.

Complete Ad

Honda’s new commercial for the 2010 Insight has a deceptively simple appearance. A series of shapes and patterns flash across what looks like an old Lite-Brite set, or maybe an LED panel, or perhaps even just a series of computer generated dots on the screen. It’s nice to look at and nice to listen to, due to the pretty music playing along. Simple and nice. The interesting part is that the flashing dots are actually the flashing headlights of 1,000 actual Honda Insights. One thousand full sized automobiles, arranged in a gigantic grid in such a way so they appear to be a perfect rectangle from the camera’s vantage point.

Check out the “Making of…” video near the end of this post:

The calming music used in the commercial is “This Little Light of Mine” by Berend Dubbe.

The commercial’s director, Erik Van Wyk, set out to film the ad entirely “in-camera” – a daunting task given what he wanted to show. According to the Van Wyk, he “was quite militant about doing it all in-camera using real lights in a gigantic grid. People sense the honesty in the sweat and commitment of other people, not CG.” Which is, of course, absolutely correct.

Filming something like the “Let It Shine” ad is extraordinarily complex. Given the way perspective works, you can’t just line up the cars and expect it to look right. The process includes a lot of math and a lot of trial and error. The crew apparently used laser sights, GPS, and surveyor’s equipment to get all the locations right. The heights and angles and exact distances had to be tweaked and re-tweaked to make sure everything was in the right place.

Van Wyk said of the final edit, “After all the research and precision planning required; seeing the test animation play out for the first time from camera position 61.5 meters up in the sky was inspiring. It was perfect”

The Making of the Commercial…

—Official Press Release—
Honda Shines Bright In New TV Ad To Support Affordable Hybrid Car

‘Let it Shine’ was directed by Erik van Wyk and creative directed by Jeff Kling, John Norman and Sue Anderson.

I occasionally smoke Djarum cigarettes, and so does my girlfriend. I used to go to a little shop in Northeast Philadelphia called Artifax for them. But unfortunately, after discovering the world’s biggest asshole is currently in their employ, I will no longer be patronizing their establishment.

First of all, I’ll be 30 this week. I’m 6 feet tall, about 175 pounds, and I have a 5 o’clock shadow an hour after I shave. Now, he says I look under 26 so he needed to see my ID. That’s fine, that’s his prerogative, it’s a bit of a douche thing to do since I’m clearly over 18, but it’s fine… IF I were trying to buy cigarettes. The thing is, I wasn’t. Read on…

I wasn’t even paying for the cigarettes, my (over 18 year old) girlfriend was. I mentioned the Djarum Specials, and she asked for them and was paying for them with her credit card, and she had her ID. But simply because I happened to be there with her and I mentioned them, this absurd douche turns to me and says, in possibly the most annoying voice I’ve heard all year “Well, since you look under 26, I’ll have to be seeing your ID too“. The problem was, I didn’t have my wallet on me. So I said, “I’ll be 30 in three days. You know… I come here all the time, you’ve seen my ID before, and if you haven’t, that guy over there has. Don’t you remember me? Plus, I’m not even the one buying the cigarettes.”

He said none of that mattered. He also said he’d sell her another brand of cigarettes, but not the ones I mentioned, since they could possibly be for me. Let me restate that, since it’s so amazingly idiotic that it almost defies belief: He said he would sell her anything EXCEPT the brand of cigarette that I mentioned to her. I asked if she could ever buy that brand again… could she come back on her own and buy them? If not now, then when? An hour? A day? What’s the time limit? Or is it just an arbitrary bullshit nonsense rule that you just made up, you silly goose?

But the silly goose had no answer to my questions, he just decided that today was the day he wanted to flex his very limited authority and force his will on another person for no apparent reason. This hipster waste and lord master of the head shop decided that today, he makes the rules.
Even though he was smoking weed in the back. I saw him with my own eyes. I will testify to that effect in a court of law. Isn’t that against the law?

Whatever, I’ll never go back to Artifax. Never. And it’s all because of him. The store is miles out of my way and everything in there is overpriced, but I shopped there for so long because I liked the store. I liked the people. Do you know how many stores in Philadelphia have Djarums and rolling papers? All of them, that’s how many. Every corner store in the city has them. Artifax sole reason for staying in business is customer loyalty. Well done cultivating your only asset, jackass.

Here is the phone number for Artifax in case you want to call them for whatever reason – 215-331-0306. Ask for silly goose.

Most importantly, here is a partial list of stores in Philadelphia that are better than Artifax:

Better than Artifax:

Smokin Joes Tobacco Shop
901 Levick St
Philadelphia, PA 19135
(215) 333-7095
This shop is actually very close to Artifax, so if you live in that area, I strongly recommend Smokin Joes instead. They’re actually a much larger shop and it’s where we went after they refused to serve us at Artifax.

Wonderland
2037 Walnut St
Philadelphia 19103
(215) 561-1071‎

Jerry’s General
600 E Allegheny Ave
Philadelphia, PA 19134
(215) 634-1204‎

Avril 50
3406 Sansom St
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 222-6108‎

Every Other Store in the City
Any address
Just walk right in
Dial ANY number…
You’ll be better off.

Ahhh… Debbie Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas, together at last. Plus this movie has a mega shark and a giant octopus, apparently. How can it go wrong? My answer: In every possible way.

I don’t know what the makers of this movie were thinking. Maybe they wanted this movie to be the next Snakes on a Plane; maybe they had a lifelong vision of a mega shark and a giant octopus doing battle, and finally had the chance to make that vision a reality on the big screen. Maybe this is some sort of tax scheme or ploy a la “The Producers”. Who knows. Who cares. Whatever.