If Billy Mays Got a Long-Term Case of Laryngitis, I Would Not Be Disappointed

He annoys the daylights out of me.

John McCain is a Creepy Old Man

Yeah, so funneling money to 527s, rather than the candidates, really cleaned up the advertising.

Observation of Annoyance

I'm not particularly offended by what I'm posting about here, but I do find it rather curious and distasteful...

It seems to be a commonly-accepted gimmick in advertising to poke fun at 12-Step-like meetings.

One I hear regularly on my satellite radio goes something like, "Hi, my name is John and I'm addicted to Sirius."

"Hi, John!"

Then they go on to pitch buying a second radio and getting a special deal on a second subscription.

While reasonable people can certainly disagree on what kinds of ailments, mental, physical or both, are more destructive, can you imagine Playtex running an ad that claims, "Our bras offer so much support, it's like you had a mastectomy!"

$.02

Keith Richards, the Fashion Man

I saw this Louis Vuitton ad in the Sunday paper and it kind of cracked me up...

Cool History Channel Ad on Huffington Post

Obviously, there's the part of me that wishes I could use the Internet without ads I don't ask for, but I kind of like this 3-D ad that The History Channel pushed on HuffPo this morning.

That's Using Yer Noggin

I came across an interesting article on marketing research this morning.

(Wow, that's a real attention-grabber.)

But it was cool because it reminded me of my past life, in a way.

When I was in school, we did some experiments trying to predict how generously people will behave in (admittedly contrived) economic experiments. In an anonymous, zero-sum game, we gave individuals a sum of money with the offer to share some, none, or all of the money with an unknown other.

For me, the most fun part of the exercise was setting up the design. But in our discussions, one of the pie-in-the-sky ideas one of our colleagues had was to try and measure the parts of one's brain that light up when they make generous versus non-generous decisions.

In and of itself, it might not tell one much, but it's related to this article about marketers who are starting to make a more practical use of the idea.

They're showing people advertisements and seeing which parts of the brain become active when they see different advertising images.

While the proof of these studies' value comes when people actually act (purchase) based on the ads, in an experimental setting people often have trouble either articulating their response or being honest about it.

This kind of research undoubtedly has scary possible repercussions, but it's also fascinating to me.

Hanging Me By a Fire Would Change My Life, Too

It's clear what they were trying to get at in this advertisement I got on Hotmail this AM, but for some reason, hanging a little girl like that by the fireplace struck me as odd...

Those Naughty Coffee Fiends in Seattle

I came across an interview on CSPAN2 with a guy who wrote a history of the Starbucks chain the other day.

While I only watched it for a few minutes, I thought his explanation of the history of the logo we see on the cup was very interesting. So I did a little research and found some more detail on this site.

I pulled out the images so you can see below where the logo originally started (and what the viewer's eyes were presumably drawn towards) to the much more sanitized version we have today.

For the record, I've never been a fan of their coffee...primarily on the grounds ;-) of taste. I'm more a Dunkin' Donuts guy.

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh! I might have to change my preferences on this. I just checked their site and DD seems to have brought in that Spawn of Satan, Rachel Ray,as a spokesperson.

Another Great Advertisement

I know that as I read this post on National Review about Flipp's performance in the Ames Straw Poll yesterday, I sat back and wondered where I could get some Mormon Undies!

Thank god for relevant advertisements.

Where's the Beef?

These are some great ads from the past....

The Problem with "Dumb" Online Advertising

What happened in the Twin Cities tonight is just awful.

I used to drive across that bridge regularly...be ready for a bigass investigation.

Anyway, I went back over to the Star Trib for a little local coverage and found a prime example of stupid advertising strategies.

If you don't set up your site to scan content of the page and compare it to what you're advertising, you could end up with this...a picture of a bridge collapsing, a big rig on fire, and an auto company pitching its truck as having passed America's toughest road test.

Doh!

First Apple Ad

They've come a long way.