Nike's bold Tiger Woods Ad

Hmmm...

I'll be interested to see how people react to this one. Honestly, I'm sick of all the attention he is getting. Publicizing everything is just making him more of a figure to be followed. His advertisers were right to drop him. However, Nike held on. I'm amazed that they have released an ad so quickly. Sure, keeping the check mark on his hat was assumed, but a TV ad? Already?

The short clip shows a solemn Tiger as his father's voice (the late Earl Woods) asks him questions about himself. About golf? About life?

Nike is pure genius. Always have been, always will be. They have handled this in the best way possible and I think it would be hard to discredit them for this one.

Guru Grade: 6.5 / 10

Google Super Bowl Ad

"Parisian Love"

Game. Set. Match. Google has started advertising. World domination is imminent.

This spot shows the gradual steps an individual takes in their life as they fall in love in Paris. It's perfectly executed, right down to the subtle mistype of the Louvre and the backspace to get rid of the extra 'o'. (Reinforcing Google's double 'o'?)

The commercial ran just like their website does. It was clean, simple, and logical. Beautiful.

Guru Grade: 9.5 / 10

Nicorette - Quitting Sucks

Guru Grade: 4 / 10

Michael Bay directs Victoria's Secret Commercial

Hmm Michael Bay, director of the Transformers movies, has now made this ad for Victoria's Secret. It has half naked girls, fire, helicopters, danger, hardcore rock music... pretty much everything Transformers has!

Are they trying to appeal to men with this?

Guru Grade: 5 / 10

Plane Stupid: Polar Bear

Wow. This is very graphic.

But I guess that's what it takes to give the green movement some street credit.

Guru Grade: 8 / 10

Reebok Easy Tone - Talking Boobs

Reebok's new shoes are designed to make you work out while you walk. They promise a rounder, more sexy looking butt that will make other parts of your body jealous...

Can they say "boobs"?

Guru Grade: 6 / 10

New Zealand Book Council - Going West

A bit long, but cool.

Guru Grade: 7 / 10

The Weezer Snuggie

Um.

Orbit - Clean It Up

Advertising = Art.

Art by: Goons, a street artist out of Chicago
Directed by: Ace Norton
Music: Keep It Clean by Camera Obscura
Sponsored by: Orbit
Agency: Evolution Bureau - http://www.evb.com

Guru Grade: 8 / 10

Toshiba Regza SV Television - Space Chair

I always liked Toshiba's stuff. For this commercial they strapped a chair to a balloon and sent the thing up to space... or pretty close. "Armchair viewing, redefined." Sure, it's a stretch, but I like it.

Oh and Toshiba: expect to hear from my lawyers. My windshield needs to be replaced from being struck by falling chair legs.

Guru Grade: 8 / 10

Throwback - Tootsie Pops

How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center? The world may never know.

It's funny to see how different old commercials can be. The production values seem to increase exponentially every five years or so. Find an old VHS and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Trident Layers - Pay in Gum

This plays off of the idea that Trident Layers gum is worth as much or more than cash, and the babysitter, mail man, chimney sweeper, and electrician would love to be paid in gum! Lame.

I hope they don't make more of these. I just don't find them entertaining. Sorry, Trident.

Guru Grade: 4.5 / 10

AT&T Sues Verizon over Ad

This is the last cellphone related advertising news for a while, promise!

A lot of people know about the recent battle between AT&T (who have the iPhone as their main mobile device) and Verizon, but if you're unfamiliar, here's how it goes down:

AT&T is all like:


They have a few spots with similar "There's an app for that" content. It becomes ubiquitous.

Sooo Verizon attacks with:


Hilarious, yes? Well AT&T is not laughing, and now they've launched a lawsuit claiming that the spot has caused them to lose "incalculable market share" and "invaluable goodwill."Oh really? Who would have imagined that advertising could do something like that!?

AT&T is claiming that people are misinterpreting the "maps" and are seeing them as displaying all ranges of coverage, when in fact the maps only show 3G coverage. It looks to me like they're just sore losers.

Hang in there AT&T. It could be worse. You could be a 3G customer in Alaska! Check out that shoddy coverage.

Via

Verizon Droid - Stealth

!!! I'm not sure whether my excitement is for the commercial or for the free phone upgrade I'll be eligible for in two weeks.

The Motorola Droid is Verizon's Google-based phone (runs the Android mobile system) and it's "dropping" November 6.

The spot was pretty cool. It looked more like a trailer for a doomsday flick, but hey -- it captured my attention.

Guru Grade: 6.5 / 10

Halloween Spottings

I saw a Geico caveman and Flo from the Progressive ads! I just had to get this pic.

Tiger Beer - Zip

Soooo the dude was a chick the whole time? Confused.

Guru Grade: 6 / 10

HTC - You

More and more cell phone commercials these days... this one doesn't even claim a service provider. This spot is mostly boring until the end: "You don't need to get a phone, you need a phone that gets you." I think this line has so many possibilities, but the ad failed to bring out its true potential.

The song is Sinnerman by Nina Simone (Felix da Housecat Remix).

Guru Grade: 5.5 / 10

Porsche - Family Tree

Porsche has a new automobile on the market: the Panamera (panamera.com) and this is the spot to kick it off. The family tree idea is nice, and I like how it's consistent with the website. It's hard to differentiate the value of cars, but Porsche has a pretty good place in the mind of consumers already anyway. Will this ad sway people to buy a sports car in these bad economic times? Time will tell.

Agency: Cramer-Krasselt/Chicago, USA

Guru Grade: 6.5 / 10

Reese's - Perfect Halloween

While a one word slogan is usually a bad idea, it works great for Reese's. Chocolate peanut butter cups are perfect.

Happy Halloween!

Guru Grade: 7.5 / 10

Orange: Words

This was a powerful video. I think the music really did it... however, the pauses were awkward and they failed to deliver the final "umph". Still not bad.

Guru Grade: 7.5 / 10