Deep thoughts in a sea of groin kicks: Super Bowl 2012

I loved the Clint ad. I loved that it had bigger things on its mind. I love how people are talking about what it means. Was it a political statement? Was it an Obama ad? Does the nation need a rallying cry during the Super Bowl?

I loved the halftime in America theme, at halftime. Best marriage of concept and content ever.

The Clint ad has talk value. The Betty White ad won’t last beyond the 24-hour news cycle.

I loved how epic it was. Super Bowl ads need to start being more epicly awesome. Like the Clint ad, like the Eminem Chrysler ad, like this one from a few years ago.

When your competition is groin kicks and monkeys, this is what you do:

The loathsome God-awful loathsomeness that is political advertising

At the risk of bringing out the right-wing nutjobs, I mean enthusiasts, that for some reason read this blog, I have a story to tell. I worked for a month or two on Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008, around the time of the Iowa caucuses. I wrote a bunch of TV scripts as well as about 200 slogans for the campaign, including 'Yes We Can' and 'A Politician We Can Believe In' (which the campaign appropriated to 'Change We Can Believe In.')

So I wrote all this stuff, and Obama won Iowa, but then a funny thing happened. The campaign basically said 'thanks, your work is done here.' It turns out when his campaign blew up, paradoxically the people running it felt they had to close ranks with who was doing their ads, which at the time were a handful of Chicago advertising-agency creatives like me, and replace them with a hack Washington agency that specialized in political work.

But I really enjoyed it, and I'm thinking when I get kicked out of the agency world, I'll open a political ad agency. If I did, I'd make ads like this. But oh, the clients.

Thanks to Rick Hamann for the tip.

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Traveling is just awesome

In another lifetime I spent three months living in Paris. These three films take me back to that time. Sponsored by SAS Airlines, they were made by 3 dudes who took the around-the-world trip of a lifetime and documented it.

Amazing is so overused as a word. 'This banana is amazing.' But these films are amazing.

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Gary Vaynerchuk and the Thank You economy

A never-aired interview of the social guru by Piers Morgan. How brands should use it, why it matters and why it's the future.

18 minutes is a long time to focus, I know. Make me proud.

My new "Santorum Yourself" app

You enter the words "freedom", "God" and "Reagan" into it, and it spits out a 25-minute acceptance speech suitable for caucus or primary-state victory celebrations.

Anybody try to steal this idea, and my patent lawyers will be on you faster than you can spit.

TV Commercial Report Card

Hey America. 100 Words has been too lazy to write, I mean on hiatus lately, so here's a report card on the endangered species we call Ye Olde Televisione Commerciale.


The 12 readers of this blog know I love Goodby, but I find this ad fundamentally dishonest. What, the old fat guy didn't notice 5 cameras standing around filming him, not to mention a bunch of ad jerks like me drinking Starbucks and eating craft-service taquitos? How again was this spontaneous? C.


Every time I do a dialogue commercial I think ‘I’m never doing a dialogue commercial again’, because actors can’t act it, directors can’t direct it and writers like me can’t write it. This proves I was wrong. A.


Aaron Rodgers is doing the WWF-belt thing a lot less this year. Maybe because I said it was beneath him last year when he was doing it after every score. Docked a half-point because I couldn’t understand what the guy with the cheesehead was saying at the end until I’d seen it about six times. A-.


Old school, but sometimes old school is so old school it’s new school. State Farm’s work is getting a lot more interesting. PS How'd they get Adrian Brody? B.


These people all need to be killed. And to steal a line from Bob Winter, how embarrassing for those cars. D.

Sign of the times

Steve Jobs was the best creative director ever

Here he is introducing the 'Think Different' campaign to colleagues at Apple. CDs, account people, planners, take note. This is how it's done.

Creative Philanthropy

Brandon Knowlden is an art director at my agency. We share a wall, and an account (Porsche.)

But that's about where the similarity ends. Brandon rocks a mohawk, brings page and screen to life with killer designs, and is about to run the Chicago marathon. None of which I will be doing anytime soon.

Even more impressive, Brandon is raising money for the American Liver Foundation by asking people to sponsor a portion of his marathon run. And when you do, you'll not only rack up karma points. You'll get a poster designed by Brandon and written by ace wordslinger Rich Black, who works across the hall from me.

Sponsor Brandon's run by clicking here.

Boardwalk Empire takes over the NYC subway

Talk about experiential advertising.

Here's the whole deal.

The Hybrid Creative

This is not a blindingly original insight but I thought it was unusually well-worded, and in of all places, mudslinging, bitter-creative-populated Agency Spy. From a poster:

"Anyone who really knows what's going on realizes the business is moving - sometimes running, sometimes crawling - towards a hybrid model, where truly gifted creatives will know how to tell and sell their visions in whatever box the consumer is paying attention to that week."

That's all. I just thought it was true.

What is art?

There's a fascinating movie I recommend you see. It's called 'My Kid Could Paint That.' What's fascinating about it isn't the story so much, about a three-year-old artist to whom people pay thousands for her work. It's about the nature of art, what people see in it, why it matters to them, what it's worth, and whether it is in fact art.

Tonight I finally saw this, a 30-foot high statue of Marilyn Monroe, on Michigan Avenue. I find it just awful. But as you can see from the picture, people are interacting with it, leaning against it, taking pictures up her blown-up skirt. And that doesn't even count the dozen or so tourists next to me taking pictures.

If art causes a reaction, if it invites involvement, then Marilyn is art.

Paul Revere: friend of the British

I know I need to stop writing about Palin. I know this is a blog about marketing. I know I need to go on a 12-step quit-Palin program.

But like Ennis Del Mar said to Jack Twist, "I can't quit you, Sarah Barracuda." Especially when she gives and gives and gives, like in this bit of revisionist history.

After this: I stop. I swear.

Totally narcicissistic. Completely brilliant.

Simple, undemanding, beautifully-executed. Hot sauce!

The Intel Museum of Me. Or you, if you click here.

Obama!

I'll admit, I was going to post something about 'without Facebook, where would we get our news?', based on my daughter's sharing with me the news of Bin Laden's death last night from reading about it on Facebook and Twitter, whereupon I went to all the mainstream news sites like Yahoo and CNN and they had nothing. Social rules the day again.

But then a friend sent me this, and I thought it was even better. My apologies about the language.

That "Friday" song: what in the hell is going on?

A month ago, my daughters showed me this. It was three days after it came out. It already had 12 million views.

A few weeks later, I was shooting at a Porsche dealership, and five people were gathered around an iPhone, watching it. At a place that sells $100,000 cars.

Today, I saw it's up to 119 million hits.

I'm not going to say this is a sign of the apocalypse. I just don't get it. I mean, it's a bad song, cheesy video, inane lyrics. But 119 million hits?

It's too big for me to wrap my head around. The enormity of it is crushing me. I'm a speck in the universe. I am but a shell of a man. I am Brundlefly and Rebecca Black is a big gigantic rock.

Do you need a reason to drive a Porsche every day?

Maybe not. But if you do, there are about 500 reasons to at the new site I just finished.

Here's the link:

http://www.porscheeveryday.com

Note to all those thinking about building a site around 500 pieces of content: talk to me first. I just might give you 500 reasons not to, starting with marriage and sanity preservation.

But, I'm pretty proud of it. Visit it, share it, enjoy it. Thanks.

Santa Monica

After 10 hours in dark editing bays, I wanted to see the ocean my last day in town. I decided to go for a run to Santa Monica Pier and back. On the way to the pier, the sun behind me sank closer to the ocean. I ran hard so I could see it set on the way back: a little contest. As I made the turn, it was just above the water. I ran past people standing along the bluff, watching, photographing. As just a sliver of sun remained above the water, I ran past a cluster of palm trees. Clearing them, the sun had slipped into the Pacific. I saw a dolphin 10 feet offshore, jumping in and out of the water.

Animated songbirds did not appear around my head at this point, as my client suggested at dinner later that night. Still, it was pretty cool.

Farewell, Santa Monica.

Thoughts on travel

I’ve been traveling a lot the last few months scheming ways to get people to buy small, expensive German sports cars. Some thoughts from the road.

LAX, which must be ground zero of cel phone usage, has zero cel service. Why.

A rental car bus after a long plane ride is the worst place in the world to be.

At a time when airlines are charging for everything but reclining your seat, why doesn’t every plane in the world have wifi? I’d pay 10 bucks for it for a puddle-jump to Detroit.

When you’ve traveled 1700 miles and you’ve carried your bags every step of the way, do you really need a dude at the hotel to carry them another 20 feet to the front desk?

I think the airlines sit around and dream up ways to annoy you.

I had Pinkberry for the first time. I hate the word amazing, but that stuff was amazing.

Imitation is the sincerest form of, um, not having your own idea

They say good artists borrow and great artists steal. If that's the case, Mercedes' ad agency is staffed with a bunch of freaking Picassos.

Below, my spot for the Porsche Panamera:



And below, Mercedes' "homage" to it that ran in the Super Bowl. My lawyers have advised me to use the word "homage":



Note to Mercedes: if you're going to steal, steal from the 1962 Tokyo Art Director's Annual. Not a spot your competitor ran just last year.