Post Advertising

As General Motors and its US competitors slide closer to oblivion, GM, the leader of the domestic auto-making pack, still fails to understand that survival in the post-advertising age demands that it tell an authentic story with all its words, images and actions.

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I'm not sure if this is supposed to be some sick, Brazil-inspired joke, but the "thought leaders" at Ad Labs raided the Half Bakery to come up with ten "half-baked" advertising ideas that they hope to see in the future. Ad Labs calls them "brilliant"; I call them scary, and not good scary. Let's hope we don't see them anytime soon, for everyone's sake. Read on for a deep trip into a possible ad nightmare.

The ten ideas (and my responses):

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When in the past year have you seen a deluge of positive blogosphere activity surrounding an interruptive television ad? Of course, there are lots of campaigns with TV ads as a small component that have generated positive response from the ad community as well as their intended audiences. But show me one time when a standalone TV spot has garnered any web attention aside from lukewarm approval, slight amusement, slight disdain or extreme disdain.

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Rare is the occasion when professional athletes are taken out of their element—off the court, out of the pool, say—that they look as good or perform as well as when they are doing what they do best. This commercial for Guitar Hero World Tour (a.k.a. Ersatz Rock Band), featuring Kobe Bryant, Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps and Alex Rodriguez, is no exception. Roll tape:

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Dunkin' Donuts' latest advertising efforts claim that in a national taste test, its coffee was ranked better than Starbucks' coffee. A bland television spot then pushes you to a website where you can...is it "learn more"? Is that what I'm looking at? No, that's not it. A website where you can't learn more. That's what I meant. Here's more, for real:

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Many months ago I tried to join the Chrysler Advisory Board, something the company set up to make it look like it was listening to its audience. In July, I got a form letter from a computer telling me that I wasn't Chrysler Advisory Board material. I was heartbroken. So you can imagine my delight when I got yet another email from Chrysler telling me that there has been a reconsideration and that I would be welcome on the board if I would just answer a few questions. It sounded so good....

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Purple: The official color of quirky and the official color of Yahoo! When an older woman wears a shawl and wants to signify that she is creative and still has some zazz left, what color is that shawl? Purple. And when someone really creative with clay and making things out of beads wants to search for something on the web, what search service do they use? Google, probably, but maybe Yahoo! or MSN or Ask.com, too. Unless they stumbled upon this crap sammie of a microsite and are as gullible as Neville Chamberlain at Munich, circa 1938. Dun know what that means? Google it.

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Last month, ESPN gave you a reason to look forward to Monday. Give up? It's Monday Night Football, which you know—in case you've been living in a cave or, um, you're me—moved from ABC to ESPN two years ago. (Don't blame me; I’m a basketball girl.)

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It's really, really hard to make fun of a marketing initiative that, ostensibly, tries to help people. It's also really, really hard not to make fun of this video in support of the book The Joy of Diabetes:

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Where is the mainstream media when you need it? When it's about reporting on the presidential race or mooseburgery, sure, they're so ready to be like, "he said this" and "she said that" or whatever. But when it comes to the important issues, where is the ball? On the ground because they dropped it, that's where.

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Because we already talked about McD's today: This can always be said about fast food commercials and it's why I hate fast food commercials, but why do they always make the value proposition to be that the food is so damn good, it's impossible to resist. In the below spot, the character chooses certain death for a few bites of McD's fries. I'm not lovin' it: 

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In the magazine world, it's September already, and you know what that means: 900+ page Vogue and other phonebook-sized fashion mags. Even the vaunted New Yorker has a fashion issue in September. While paging through (yes, I read the New Yorker. Fool!), I found the following (first the left page, then the right):

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