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As Tiger was tearing up the course at Augusta yesterday, his new Nike Golf ad was going viral. In the spot, Woods gazes blankly into the camera while being addressed by an unseen speaker: his dead father, Earl.
What's in it for Tiger? Without speaking a word, he humanizes himself. Tiger's close bond with his demanding father always felt like the one warm, relatable dimension of an otherwise cold and remote personality. In a moment of crisis, it's no surprise that Tiger's PR team would decide to play the dad card—even if that meant resurrecting a corpse. (By the way, is it me or is there something very Hamlet about the way a haggard Tiger gets interrogated by the ghost of his father on the misty ramparts of a golf course?)
What's in it for Nike? They couldn't possibly drop Woods as an endorser. There's far too much wrapped up in the relationship to part ways. Long after this scandal is mostly forgotten, Tiger will still be the world's most electrifying golfer. To sell low on him now would be awful business strategy.
Nike might have kept quiet, holding off on new Tiger ads for a while. But timidity is the opposite of what the brand stands for. Nike is all about provocative athletic supremacy. Remember, this is the company that had Charles Barkley boldly declare, "I am not a role model."
Tiger's fall from grace may in fact be the best thing that ever happened to Nike's golf division. It brings new depth and edge to their leading man—creating a fascinating, if distasteful, back story to play off and build imagery around. This new ad is more gripping and compelling than all of Tiger's other Nike spots combined. No doubt Nike's tennis marketers are now wishing Roger Federer would reveal some dark personality flaw.
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Advertising Age has come out with its end-of-decade Top 10 lists. To no one's surprise, the magazine names Crispin Porter & Bogusky the No. 1 ad agency of the aughts. I've previously expressed my distaste for CPB's bullying, misogynistic aesthetic. (There was the Volkswagen ad in which a dude suggests his girlfriend is too fat. The Burger King ad in which a dude complains about eating "chick food." And the Haggar ad in which a dude smears dog feces into a slightly less dudely dude's palm.) Still, I can't deny the agency's uncanny ability to buzz through the cultural clutter and wedge its brands into the pop zeitgeist.
In its list of the decade's best spots, Ad Age includes a pair of classically epic ads that I'm pretty fond of. Nike's "Move" is crisply edited, gorgeous to look at, and just a little uplifting. Sony's unfortunately titled "Balls" answers a visual question that needed to be asked: What does it look like when you drop 250,000 SuperBalls at the top of a steep San Francisco street? (I once overheard an envious ad exec marveling at the budgetary feat. "What an outrageous shoot," he muttered, practically licking his lips. "Can you imagine how many windows they broke?")
I have bones to pick with a few other choices, though. The iPod ad in which silhouettes bop around to music has always rubbed me the wrong way, as it suggests that humans are ephemeral shadows while their iPods are of lasting, weighty importance. I've also never been a fan of the absurdist confectionary ad genre, and I make no exception for the Cadbury milk chocolate spot in which a gorilla plays the drum part on "In the Air Tonight." First of all, shouldn't it be a cow, not a gorilla, since the point is that the candy bar uses dairy milk? And more important: They messed up the song. The real drum fill comes in a transition from verse to chorus, not from chorus to chorus. Song arrangement fail! This is why you see so few successful simian session musicians.
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The Twilight Saga: New Moon opens nationwide one week from Friday. The attendant hype machine is already in overdrive. Among its more curious offshoots: a promotional tie-in with automaker Volvo. The marketing effort includes product placement (lead vamp Edward Cullen drives a Volvo XC60 in the film), a contest (to win an XC60 just like Edward's), a Web site (WhatDrivesEdward.com), and a Twilight-themed Volvo television ad.
When I first saw this ad, two questions sprung immediately to mind: 1) Aren't 'tween girls the core audience for the Twilight series? A 'tween can't obtain a driver's license, never mind afford a relatively pricey set of wheels like a Volvo. 2) Aren't vampires basically immortal? Volvo's central brand attribute is safety, which makes it an odd choice for a driver who can't die. Shouldn't Edward be tooling around in something delightfully risky, like a two-seater convertible without a roll bar? Or a vintage Pinto?
According to Volvo national advertising manager Linda Gangeri, the relationship with the Twilight series happened partly by accident. Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight books, made Edward a Volvo driver before there was any financial benefit to doing so. When the first Twilight film came out, Volvo execs were shocked to see how much screen time Edward's Volvo received—a full four minutes, which is a lifetime in the world of product placement. The first film's huge success made it imperative for Volvo to get involved with the sequel.
Gangeri claims that while 'tweens can't drive or buy cars, they have significant input into their parents' car-buying decisions. Also, she argues that Twilight in fact appeals to female fans of all ages—including "Twi-moms." Gangeri says that Volvo as a brand skews slightly female, and the partnership with the film is an effective way to get visuals of the XC60 in front of female moviegoers.
As for Edward the vampire, it turns out he drives a Volvo not for himself but to safeguard human friends who ride in the passenger seats. So his character is nurturing and protective, yet also sleek and sexy. Those are exactly the qualities that Volvo hopes consumers will associate with its cars.
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In his epic 2006 broadside, "Why I Hate Zach Braff," Slate's Josh Levin made a desperate plea: "If Zach Braff is the voice of my generation, can't someone please crush his larynx?"
No such luck, Josh! In fact, although Braff's acting career seems to have stalled out in the past few years, we're now confronted at every turn by his intact larynx. Braff's voiceover work can currently be heard in two TV ad campaigns, one for PUR water filters and the other for Cottonelle toilet paper.
The celebrity voice-over craze is among the major advertising trends of the 2000s. For the most part, these star VOs have been subtle and professional. (Much of America likely doesn't even realize, for instance, that Jeff Bridges is the voice of Duracell and Hyundai or that Gene Hackman is the voice of Lowe's.) Braff's vocal performances, however—particularly in these Cottonelle ads—are so over-the-top annoying that they call attention to themselves. Not good attention.
Listen to Braff's supremely irritating take on the Cottonelle puppy. I recognize that the ad is meant to play on the viewer's soft spot for adorable house pets. But images of the puppy do that well enough. There's no need to have Braff hammily voicing the canine thought process.
Never has adorableness sounded so effortful. Never have an adult male's vocal cords issued so many cutesy sing-songs and plush purrs. Everything I dislike about the schmaltzy, doofus-y Braff seems to have been compressed into this single 30-second performance.
I also can't understand what possessed PUR to settle on Braff as the voice of water itself. Wouldn't water's personality be calm, centered, ancient, and powerful? Braff's vocal work here sounds bouncy, insecure, and less like a big dog than ... a puppy.
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CBS and Pepsi are teaming up for a promotion in an upcoming issue of Entertainment Weekly. When readers open to a two-page spread in the magazine, a tiny embedded video screen will flicker to life. Various buttons on the player will call up short promo clips from fall CBS shows, along with an ad for Pepsi Max.
The Financial Times compares the stunt to a singing greeting card and to the moving pictures on the pages of the "Daily Prophet" (the newspaper read by characters in the Harry Potter series). The FT estimates the cost to build the video screen into magazines was "several dollars per copy." Given this tremendous expense, CBS and Pepsi are placing the ad only in EW issues sent to subscribers in New York and Los Angeles—attempting to generate maximum buzz among TV freaks and entertainment-industry machers. Ad Age calls the promotion "intriguing," and claims it demonstrates that marketers are "experimenting with new technologies to get their messages out to consumers." A CBS marketing exec tells the FT that the ad is "part of the future—a way to engage consumers in new and surprising ways."
Ah, so this is the bold new future, and a potential savior for dying print-magazine ad sales: a teensy, low-fi screen that costs a huge amount of money to distribute in just two cities and can only play a few short video clips. Fascinating! If only this screen could be larger and sharper and didn't need to be shipped to people's homes because they already owned one, and it could display an unlimited array of content that people could click on for more information, and it were incredibly easy and inexpensive to distribute that content onto screens in every corner of the world. Seems like the sort of futuristic idea advertisers might get really excited about sometime down the road. Until then, thank goodness for bold marketing innovations like this one.
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Behold the Comfort Wipe—an 18-inch plastic stick to which you may attach a clump of toilet paper, thus easing the arduous task of wiping your bottom. I'm sure this product serves a vital purpose for some, and, hey, that's wonderful. I'd just like to make a couple of comments about the ad:
First, I think we could have done without the testimonials. Anyone who would actually benefit from use of this product will immediately recognize its utility. No need for a series of fecal narratives from "ordinary" people. And I'd prefer not to ponder the precise physics implied by the fat dude when he says, "Being a big guy certainly has its advantages and disadvantages. This is a great product." (Likewise, the older woman seems disproportionately jazzed about her newfound wiping freedom. I swear she's on the precipice of winking at us.)
Second, the ad claims that the Comfort Wipe is "the first improvement to toilet paper as we know it since the 1880s." I'm not sure what they mean by this. According to the invaluable Toilet Paper Encyclopedia, packaged bathroom tissue was introduced in the United States by Joseph Gayetty in 1857. The next major breakthrough came in 1890, when the Scott Paper Company put TP in roll form.
Anyway, and more distressingly: Comfort Wipe's assertion completely ignores the advent of "wet toilet paper" around the turn of the millennium. Have we already forgotten Charmin Fresh Mates and Cottonelle Fresh Flushable Moist Wipes? Pre-dampened bumwad was a brilliant innovation, as these things go—even if consumers have been slow to catch on.
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Back in March, Saturn launched its unintentionally poignant "We're still here" campaign. While most ads attempt to spur consumer craving, these spots seemed designed to elicit cringing sympathy. Which is not a winning brand image in the long run.
Now, on the heels of filing for bankruptcy protection, Saturn's parent company (for now), General Motors, is taking its own stab at tail-between-legs marketing. In a 60-second spot that hits the airwaves today, GM admits some mistakes, announces some strategic goals, and generally tries to look forward. The imagery is all rebirth and renewal—a sunrise, a butterfly, a prosthetic limb, and literal green shoots.
"Let's be completely honest," intones the announcer as the spot opens. "No company wants to go through this." True enough. I would also argue that no television viewer wants to go through it, either.
Instead of clamoring to get on the air and gab about its failures, perhaps GM should just have shut up for a while. Geez, you went bankrupt on Monday, guys. Maybe give yourselves more than two days to reflect on your sins. The truly contrite put their heads down and make things right. They don't grab the microphone and brag about what's next.