Child Neglect

Fine enough commercial, but why is that little boy doing in the backyard by himself while there is work going on? Cox Cable, we'll watch your kids for you.

This is a great commercial. Incredibly absurd, someone has been studying at the school of skittles.

Why I don't let bears in my house...

...they're all really bad at figuring out toilet paper.



Now I really wanted to put up the recent one where it takes mama bear with her TELESCOPE to figure out that one, she must be legally blind to not notice her son sitting in a tree directly in front of her and her telescope and two, her son (and all of her other relatives) put their toilet paper seemingly everywhere butt (sic) the place it needs to go. I did some informal polling (my two roommates) and 100 percent of respondents said that they have never had a problem with left behind pieces and having toilet paper all over parts of your body that you don't wipe toilet paper. Toilet paper really doesn't need to be advertised, we all need it and are going to buy and generally won't think about the brand or the tissues structural qualities. So in order to grab that precious butt-wiping market share Charmin has declared themselves king of taking a lot, but leaving little when it comes to your behind.
So, bears who should probably be more aware of what's on their butts since they don't wear clothes. Until you can get your acts together I'm not letting you inside.

Branding video games as art.

There is a typical formula for a video commercial/trailer. It looks like this.



We see here the fast paced mix of video scenes mixed in with game-play scenes set to heavy metal music, all targeted to that extremely large video game playing base of teenage/young adult males. You could practically change the title card to a made up name (like bullet force 2) and most people would probably fail to take notice. This goes way back too, this commercial for the SNES version of Super Mario Brothers basically does the same thing, quick cuts, shots of gameplay, explaining why this game is cooler than others and those previous. Granted the music weighs a bit less on the metal side but this is Nintendo, the pioneers of making music out of telephone dial tones.



As video games have gotten more and more visually stunning the case is being increasingly made that some of these games have stretched beyond mere entertainment and into the art world. Certainly some games have made the case, trying to create a world that is both epic and mythological in its scope. Certainly titles like the Final Fantasy series and Halo have begun to create their own mythologies within their own worlds. Creating a Middle Earth that one can actively participate and play in.

The advertising for some of these games has begun to reflect this. One of the more famous examples (and first I believe) is the Gears of War "Mad World" trailer.




Here the music is set as an ironic counterpoint to the visuals on the screen. You have a slow and somber song that is the back drop to something terrifying. The character is moving fast and dives out of danger only to be met with an even larger monster.

This new breed of video game trailer has also gotten a lot more depressing the previous video shows that. Heck, that might not even be the character you play, that's just some dude who died.

Halo 3 upped this ante by putting out this commercial that uses models of soldiers whose faces are full of fear, despair and retreat. The music fits in with this and notably, doesn't show you anything of the actual game. They making the bold assumption that its mere presence is enough to sell the game and not hoping to sell to you based on something that looks really cool.



This may be the beginning of a new approach and the real creation of an aesthetic in video game making. We're seeing people delineating between a sort of "high-art" and "low-art" dynamic. The games that try to stretch the boundaries in their commercials are also trying to push the limits of video game design and play and go beyond merely providing entertainment for teenage boys. And for a medium that is driven by constantly advancing technology means that until we reach some sort of technological singularity with video games we can hope that video game designers see their product as art and continue to produce it as such.

For a final example,

Tacos!

This really speaks for itself,



I had trouble believing if this was a real commercial or not. From the bad film quality to the two random dudes who claim to be gymnasts (hell if I know) arguing about taco construction to the writer who I want to believe is trolling the tv watching public because I want to know that no one could be that stupid through so many filters. Watch it again and watch your own taco be popped.

Let's just be friends

Let's start this one right off the bat.



I can completely empathize with this commercial. I love my car insurance deeply and even though we've grown apart I really don't want to see it hurt. We've spent a long time together and its hard to just throw that away.

It doesn't matter that if I wrecked my car they would drop me like a too-full-of-himself rapper drops mixtapes. I just can't stand that awkward phone call with the salesperson whom I've never met and probably hates his/her job as much as I would. Thank God All State is here to run interference for me like my best friends who always have my back and can give a shoulder to cry on. But only if I choose to pay them. All State, the "really nice best friend who you've always seen as a friend but never in 'that way' who sticks by you through all the other insurance companies only to freak out and declare love for you leaving you in the most awkward position imaginable" of the insurance world. Thanks All State, what would I do without you.

Butt Dialing

I've been gone for a while. I've been uh...busy. Anyway I figured I'd get this thing re-started by talking about a commercial I like. I decided that I would go with this one in particular because its a rather good commercial for what seems like, in many ways, a resoundingly stupid product. Here is the commercial in question.

EDIT: Video was removed, ah well. I'll try to find a new one.



Now the first strength I wish to highlight is that the man in the commercial is Dani Pudi who plays Abed the autistic, film-loving wunderkind from "Community". When you see someone from a tv show you like in something else (even if its just a commercial) you want to cheer them on and have them succeed like when you go see your friends play. Even if the play sucks you try and find ways to defend your friend ("Sally was great she just suffered from a poor script...") and when they do legitimately well you're convinced that zombie Orson Welles is going to consume their brains just becaues he's jealous ("OMG YOU'RE SO AMAZING! YOU SHOULD MOVE TO NEW YORK! YOU'D TOTALLY MAKE IT AND YOU'RE LIFE COULD BE LIKE 'MY FAIR LADY' BUT WITHOUT THE COCKNEY ACCENT!"). So yeah the feeling is kind of like that.

Wow, so yeah I like the show community. Anyway I picked this commercial because in many respects it does the opposite of everything else I've written about. It's a great commercial that advertises something rather stupid. I understand its annoying when you get a call and its an accident but I think we should recognize some fundamental things. The first is that if you keep your phone in your back pocket, then stop. Put your phone in a front pocket, you know, the part of the pants you don't sit on. The second is to think about the type of phone your buying. Apparently so many people didn't do this that blackberry went and designed a slightly more idiot-proof blackberry for people who don't realize that their problem with accidental dialing lies with them and not their phone. Buttons like to be pressed and when you press your bum against something else then those buttons get to do their jobs while you fail at your job to protect those buttons from being accidentally pressed. Please think of the buttons.

Regardless, this is a funny commercial that gets it point across clearly. It's a conversation between a husband and annoyed wife that is dealt with smartly and in a humorous way. The acting is just absurd enough to match smartly with the absurdity of the product itself. You go, blackberry flip phone.