Adiocracy

We know you’ve seen this a thousand times, but how can we not include it in the Creepy-Ville gallery. Our favorite thing is, of course, the unibrows.

While the connection between one eye and two looks at your taxes doesn’t quite track — we’re guessing the original board presented by Campbell Mithun made a much tighter, funnier connection– we do get the premise loud and clear.

That’s our take. What’s yours?

(Have an ad or TV spot you want to rant or rave about? Go to ‘How to Review’)

We Googled, Yellow-paged, and 411-ed, and couldn’t find any Arizona Land Rover Association. We did find an Arizona Land Rover Owners’ site, a small affinity site for off-roading Land Rover off-roaders who seemed pretty into it. But nowhere on their site did we find a reference to Texaco Techron.

On the international site landroversonly.com we did find a Techron mention in a thread about the value of fuel additives, but this was in a general discussion which included Lucas Fuel Treatment, Seafoam, BG44K and others.

Our point is, the authenticity of Texaco’s claim is pretty lame. Let’s assume that the organization does exist. Texaco makes it sound: a) very official; b) important; and c) that Techron is part of the organization’s off-road pre-prep ritual.

But the body copy is crafted so as to be virtually un-endorsing: ‘When the Arizona Land Rover Association goes off road, they trust their vehicles to the unbeatable cleaning power of Texaco with Techron.’ If they’re going for some kind of insider cred, they need a real endorsement by an organization that matters. Be the official fuel additive of the Dakar Rally or the only fuel additive used by some big time African jeep safari outfit. But this kind of  trumped up baloney makes Texaco seem ingenuine and, frankly, a bit desperate.

That’s our take. What’s yours? 

(Got a rant of your own? See our ‘how to review’ page.)

Oh man. This B2B online video for Microsoft by UK’s rebel viral (which we pilfered from our juicy friends at AdGabber) makes your heart bleed for all those small businesses trying to do whatever they can to make it in today’s brutal economy.

What we love most about this is, it pulls the pants down on all those ‘recession experts’ and efficiency experts and speakers and companies promising to help give your business ‘the edge’, especially in times like these. Yesterday, we came upon a site billing itself as an expert in restauranting that promised to give local restaurants valuable, strategic, yet inexpensive ways to market their business in today’s economy. Cool, we thought. What kind of fresh advice do these pro’s have to offer?

Turned out to be nothing more than their version of Camp Network’s Pyramid Power Structure for Revenue Scalability: Make inexpensive leaflets and pass them out; make a commercial and post it on YouTube; do a podcast (?!); make a newsletter for your customers. The pathetic helplessness of the advice was enough to make us cry. Friends, these are indeed rough times. And videos like Camp Network help remind us that there are plenty of charlatans out there willing to rob small businesses of whatever preciously expendable time and money they have.

That’s our take. What’s yours?

Sinewy meat cliffs falling into rivers of bubblin’ fat, vegee detritous and mysterious glumps of thickener. We love beef as much as the next carnivore, but these ads of  meat as land mass for the Cattlemen’s Beef and Board and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association do not exactly ignite our meat lust. A commendable concept, especially if the creatives were told to execute against ‘the land of lean meat’ idea. But meat is not an easy food to photograph. And posing as huge tracts of land, it definitely doesn’t get the ol’ salivary glands dripping. Our guess is this campaign does not have (four) legs.

That being said, we think the execution below is a little less unappetizing. Plus, it looks like a place we hiked recently above Big Sur.

That’s our take. What’s yours?

Stock market = dread. Those who bother anymore, open up the stock pages (where they still exist) with one eye opened, but half-covered. Which is why we like the opportunity Pepto-Bismol and agency Publicis, NY took to blanket the nasty bank-born financial spirochetes and similar Madoff toxins with a thick coat of Pepto.

You probably were not covered (financially), as the line promises. But at least Big Pink can protect your belly from the dozen tequilas you downed along with the oily nachos and quesadillas you stuffed your face with during the pink slip party at that skeezy little Mexican joint. These days, its easy to wake up feeling lousy about a lot of things, but maybe your stomach doesn’t have to be one of them. Cudos from Adiocracy to AD John Wagner, Writer Dan Cohen and Group CD Bertrand Garbassi, and the folks at P&G.

That’s our take. What’s yours?

We vowed not to weigh in on this year’s Superbowl ads, but… we can’t get this damn ad for Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast out of our skull. Play Nanner Puss 3X straight and you’ll see why this :15 spot for Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast is our choice for Most Memorable Superbowl Ad. You can call me Nanner Puss, Nanner Puss…  A simple idea for a ‘serious breakfast’ done up in a ridiculously fun, memorable spot that beats all the goofball one-liners and cheap slapstick jokes that lined the Superbowl field this year.

Nanner Puss, Nanner Puss… cooked perfectly for Denny’s by Goodby.

Of course! A single serve packet of water flavoring! Crystal Light promises to help on-the-go-women turn the water they need into ‘something beautiful’ (their words). A powder that will help a woman feel confident, playful, free and happy! We know of other powders that claim this sort of transformative power. But water flavoring? C’mon. This ad’s so filled with inauthentic blather we had to check to make sure it wasn’t written by Govenor Blagojevich himself.

That’s what we think. How about you?

Conan for Bud Light. Alec for Hulu. Spike and everyone else for Gatorade. Nothing inspired in these spokeschoices. 

But here’s a spokesperson you didn’t see on the Superbowl — and a choice we l-o-v-e! Dame Edna for MAC cosmetics. No, it’s not counterintuitively whacky, like Jack Black for Lean Cuisine. Dame Edna is about being spectacular. She’s a passionate make-up maven, always done up to the nines and, more importantly, never afraid to dazzle. Which is the  gist of this line of bright, bold colors with names like Kanga-Rouge, Gladiola, Spectacular and What a Dame! And why Dame Edna’s not just a bold choice, but an authentic brand and advertising choice for this line of very unsubtle colors.

For the very reason we find Spike’s celeb crammed Gatorade spots rehashed and dull as hell, we adore this ballsy (!) choice by MAC in an industry obsessed with obscenely high cheekbones and perfect-palette faces used to create ridiculously drop-dead gorgeous visages.  

P.S. We’d love to see the time lapse of Mr. Humphries becoming the Great Dame, a la Dove’s ‘Evolution’. That’d be something.

That’s our take. What’s yours?