I came across this YouTube video recently, “Dramatic Shift in Marketing Reality,” by the Berlin based agency Scholz & Friends. As l turned 40 this year, it made me think back to the halcyon days of three TV channels, Sunday newspapers without a small forest of supplements, no Internet, blogs, interactive posters or the new(ish) phenomenon of 365-days of retail sales messages.

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Through our work with LifeScan, I discovered Microsoft HealthVault, an online platform that allows you to store and manage all your health information in a single place. HealthVault is unapologetically commercial, working with doctors, pharmacies, insurance providers and medical devices manufacturers to make it easy for individuals to add information to their HealthVault account and to actively use that information to help manage their own conditions.

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Oh dear. Remember we were talking about brand sincerity a while back?

This is too good. You can read it all, but I'll give you the best bit - the opening line. "A car insurer admitted today it refuses to cover musicians despite featuring Iggy Pop in its adverts."

Nice one, Swiftcover.

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Well done Microsoft for proving a very important maxim for postadvertisers and content marketers everywhere - for content to work effectively, it has to exist above a certain quality threshold. Please click below and prepare yourself for four minutes of stomach-churning, toe-curling embarrassment. (Undoubtedly there will be some of you who will say "Hey, come on, it has got people talking! You're blogging about it, there's a buzz!" Well, there is such a thing as bad publicity. Ask OJ.)

Click....

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Retailers and brands alike are slashing prices this holiday season like none before. The amount of discounts I had to wade through before I ended up paying $1.74 for a wool sweater at Bloomingdale's this weekend was bewildering. Lucky Jeans (the jeans with nothing distinctive whatsoever about them!) is no different. Except, the brand is making you work for your money.

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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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