Why, Y?

If you haven't already heard, the YMCA has officially embraced its nickname The Y (note the web address though). Maybe it's just me, but I don't love that idea as much as I think I should. It becomes less personable when it's the real name and not a generally accepted nickname. They could have just made it an official nickname or slogan or something and kept the official name. I mean future generations eventually won't know what the song YMCA is referring to! (kidding)
 

The naming aside, the Y also updated their logo. Interestingly enough, their new logo actually has YMCA in it (as well as a tacked on 'the') where the old logo was just a Y, which is partly how it got its nickname. So now that YMCA is no longer the official name, it's suddenly important enough to include in the logo? It's a little odd, don't you think?

Parts of the new logo are okay. Parts of it are not. As Brand New stated in their review,

The evolution is clear: From a hard-angled, tough-looking logo to a round-edged, soft-looking logo that plays well with the rest of the identities of the twenty-first century in pretty much all capacities. It is bubblier, it is lowercase, it has gradients, and it comes in various flavors. Unfortunately, all of the changes feel a tad gratuitous in the final execution.

In other words, it has a genericized early 21st century look to it. Notice the soft pillow gradients that were rather needlessly applied? They complement the rounded corners so well. (gag) Nothing against rounded corners, but that combo appears in 90% of all web icons and is far too generic and over-used to actually be used in a logo. Yuck. I do like the logo better when it's presented in one color. Then it just a modification of the shape, which works much better I think. 

Even without the cliche pillow gradients, the color choices are very questionable. We have lots of options. It kind of reminds me of the 2012 London Olympics logo in that way—although the designers of this logo clearly didn't remember all the bad press the London logo got for it's 80's neon color schemes. They may vary, but they're all pretty bright, and very trendy, colors. Not the best idea for long term branding. I suppose they're trying to make the logo young and hip, but 5-10 years from now those colors will be anything but hip. The 2012 logo can kind of get away with it simply because it's meant to be trendy to the times and after the Olympics it'll be outdated anyway—a keepsake to the time and place of the event. But that's not the the same for a brand, so the trendiness reflects poor long term judgment. Especially for a brand that's been as iconic as the original Y logo. Yes, it needed some updating—it screamed retro 60's, but still, those new colors are quite the leap.

Moulin Rouge Embraces the Windmill

The Moulin Rouge, Paris's famous cabaret, has a new identity and I must say I'm a fan. If you're familar with the Moulin Rouge, you know its visually distinctive feature is the giant red windmill that's stood since the cabaret's inception in 1889. The name actually means 'Red Mill' in french so it seems wholly appropriate for the logo to reflect that.

The difference between the old and new logos is pretty drastic. The old one has a kind of haphazard feel to it and the lipstick marks seems to play up the cabaret's can-can and striptease origins, whereas the new logo has a much more sophisticated look to it. The new logo plays up the windmill landmark but gives the overall feel of a higher end establishment. Both fit since the Moulin Rouge is a large tourist attraction and at around 100€ a ticket with dress code rules, it needs that classier outward appearance. I actually went to the Moulin Rouge a few years ago and saw the show. It's really mostly dance numbers with elaborate costumes and staging and sometimes the dancers are topless. It's still a classy show, so the new logo feels more appropriate.

What do you think?

via (Brand New)

United and Contintenal Airlines: Name vs. Logo

On Monday, United and Continental Airlines merged. You probably read about it in the news and maybe you even saw the 'new' logo. The way they've handled the naming and visual aspects of the new company is a little too simple. Essentially they kept the name United, but with the Continental logo. A fair trade off? A good way to merge two companies with brand equity and keep a bit of both? Maybe from a PR standpoint, but not from a brand perspective.

The new logo itself feels wrong. It's enough that the ditched the better of the two logos (and the one still using its original Saul Bass design), but just swapping out the name Continental for United without any other visual change makes the logo feel more like a gag design than a new, merged company logo. I get that both Continental and United are major airline brands and want to keep that equity through the merger, this wasn't quite the way to do it. As much as I'm not a fan of the new MillerCoors logo, at least it had the right idea. I'd rather have a United Contintental Airlines with a new logo that this weird little mash up. Brand New makes an interesting point about how this logo doesn't work mostly because it has brand equity.

What’s funny is that if this were a new airline, and we didn’t have the accumulated associations of both brands we would just say it’s boring and move on, but it’s impossible to see the new logo and not feel that there is something inherently wrong with this equation. In all likelihood we will see a new logo in the next year or two, unless they have started painting planes—in which case we are screwed.

Applebee's Jumps On Calorie Bandwagon

In light of the new national law requiring restaurant chains with 20 or more locations to post the calorie content of their food, Applebee's has an interesting new marketing angle for their menu—the under 550 Calorie menu. While this not a new law for California and New York, or even a new direction for Applebee's, I like what they're doing and they're the first ones I've seen advertising a calorie specific menu.

Applebee's had (and maybe still has) a Weight Watcher's menu that also provided healthier choices, but if you weren't in Weight Watcher's it meant little. You basically assumed you were getting something healthier that what was on the rest of the menu. A calorie specific menu, however, is something everyone can relate to whether you're dieting or not. The menu items look pretty good too, even if the commercials don't.





I'm sure more marketing campaigns like this one will start appearing as we get closer to when the law goes into affect, but Applebee's is a full year ahead of the game. Unfortunately, as much as I like the marketing idea for a calorie specific menu, the actual campaign and creative leaves much to be desired. I expect chain restaurant commercials to have that all-too-familar uber-friendly, cheesy vibe the concepts behind these two commercials were just lame.

Regardless of the mediocre creative, I think Applebee's is on to something.

The Taco Bell Diet?

While it seems a bit like an oxymoron to me, it is, in fact Taco Bell's new ad campaign. I remember seeing one of the ads a few weeks ago and thinking the fast food company was almost making fun of itself and by parading a woman, Christine Dougherty, around as this Subway's Jared-like success case in losing weight on the Taco Bell diet. There's nothing wrong with this, it's awesome that Christine lost the weight, and I can understand why Taco Bell would want to showcase her the way Subway showcased Jared, but it doesn't quite fit.

Initially your intuition and the years of learning that fast food is pretty much bad for you. Yes, Taco Bell has healthier menu options, like all the fast food chains do now, but still, how much healthier are they really? In this article from one of my favorite recipe websites, where the recipes from Cooking Light are housed, they discuss the healthfulness of the items on Taco Bell's Fresco menu and sum up that a consistent diet from them will probably leave you lacking calcium and fiber. Plus all of these items are high in sodium like much processed food, and while that's not necessarily going to keep you from slimming down, it may push your blood pressure up.

My bigger issue with spot is it's tone though. Whether Taco Bell's Fresco menu or not doesn't make a shred of difference in when the creative's bad. The commercial doesn't even seem to take itself seriously. It has a cheesy, goofy, infomercial style which I'm sure was intentional, they even have an infomercial for it. It makes it a little hard to tell if Taco Bell is really pushing this as a diet. Of course they have disclaimers like crazy about how Christine's story is not typical, but the treatment in the ad seems to walk that fine line where most people laugh it off as stupid, while a few gullible others think this might actually work. The issue I see here is Taco Bell has managed to partially lump it's brand in with the questionable diet pill companies of the world. Maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but I see this ad targeting the same kind of customers, especially when they're even marketing it as a Drive-thru diet—no exercise necessary. Sound familiar?

What do you think?

Levi's And Whitman Pair Up For Campaign

A friend suggested that I blog about this commercial a few months ago, and I realize I'm a bit late in the game for commentary on this Walt Whitman Wieden + Kennedy Levi's campaign, but it's a really great commercial.



At first view, I noted the exceptional execution and artistry of the ad, completely aside from content. It's gritty, moving and a bit nostalgic. It becomes that much cooler when you learn that the voice recording is supposedly an actual recording of Walt Whitman reading his poem.

If you visit the commercial on YouTube, however, dozens of comments blast the spot as trying to be too deep for a spot that just sells jeans. If this were a commercial for a new denim brand like 7 for All Mankind I would agree, but this is Levi's. They have an iconic and historical significance to America. Did you know Levi Strauss and his partner, Jacob Davis, patented the use of copper rivets to strengthen stressed seams creating the rivet style that is an essential part of being jeans today? Traditionally, jeans were the working man's attire and eventually became a symbol of rebellion in the 1950s and then an American wardrobe staple. Levi's as a brand was a large part of that progression in American fashion history and culture, so I don't think the tone of this ad is out of place for the Levi's brand.

Actually, I think this new direction for W+K is much more fitting to Levi's than their last campaign, Live Unbuttoned. Slate offers the opinion that the shift in tone is due to the economic downturn and I'm sure that's party true, but I'd also like to think that maybe Levi's realized a generic pop ad, however upbeat it may be, doesn't help differentiate them much. Levi's has a lot more to draw on than many jeans companies and while its desirability in the fashion world may oscillate over the years, it's managed to hold strong long term.

What do you think?

What is Drinkability?

Bud Light's Drinkability campaign has been out for awhile now and I find it one of the most irksome campaigns around. I know I'm not the only one. It's been around about a year now and I'm just kind of trying to patiently wait it out until an actually interesting campaign replaces it.

Drinkability. What is that? Since it's a made up word, I have to assume that it means 'easy to drink.' Cool. Okay. That'd be a great direction for a new flavor of cough syrup, but for a beer, all it says to me is 'I taste like water.' And I'm reminded that, yes, Bud Light tastes a lot like water. Carbonated alcoholic water, but water nonetheless. Now maybe that's because I'm the type of girl that actually likes beer—real beer—like microbrews, IPAs and belgian whites. Don't get me wrong though, I went to college in Budweiser's hometown and definitely had my fair share of Bud Light during that time, but since those college years, I guess my taste (and budget) have matured a bit.

I can only think of a few of instances where you might prefer a watery beer—when you're drinking it after a physical activity, when you're drinking for quantity or if you really don't like beer very much and you want something pretty bland. Are those the audiences Budweiser is after in this campaign?



The commercials are also pretty bad. Budweiser has a historic reputation for some truly great advertising, but I'm sorry to say everything I've seem come out of this campaign strikes me as trying too hard and not really very entertaining or likable. The commercial posted here—which was one of the spots used to introduce the campaign—seems to be poking fun at a beer drinker who dares to assume all light beers taste the same. Well, um, they kinda do. I mean Miller Light has a bit more flavor than Bud Light and Coors Light and Natural Light have a bit less, but when you really get down to it, they're all pretty similar. Especially if you're comparing them to a non-light beer.

Drinkability? More like Stupidability. Let's move on Budweiser and launch a new campaign already. Please.

When Photoshop Gets Ugly

Photoshop is awesome. It does some truly amazing things to photos and give us creatives the freedom and ability to create all kinds of cool stuff. But overly photoshopping something can ruin something just as easily as it can make it work.

Retouching photography is one of the most prolific uses of Photoshop. It's done every day in the world of design and advertising, it's just part of the business. But when are you over-retouching? It's a fine line that, as an art director, I have to think about every time I'm using a photograph. On the one hand, you want the product to look perfect, but not unnatural.

When it comes to fashion adveritising however, things take a different turn. I was intrigued by a recent acticle criticizing Ralph Lauren for a print ad of a model who'd been retouched so drastically "her head's bigger than her pelvis." Well, Ralph Lauren tried to quiet the blogger, a combination of BoingBoing and Photoshop Disasters, by claiming copyright ingringement which really just backfired and the ad is now plastered with even more criticism in various areas of the web.

I understand minor retouching in any ad—to get rid of a flyaway hair that distracts or an odd shadow etc. but why are we retouching outragously thin models to be even thinner? It goes hand in hand with the recent debate in the fashion industry about models being too thin. There's an interesting story about the editor of Vogue accusing designers of providing sample sizes for photoshoots that are too small to fit healthy models thereby forcing the magazines to hire bony, too-thin talent. She goes so far as to say her art department retouches in some meat on those models. The designers came back saying it was the modeling agencies only sending them tiny girls for the runway. It's probably an all around blame game—especcially if you read this article about the editor of SELF magazine. Wow, what a warped way of looking at photography for magazine covers.

The odd thing is, there's been so much good press for having healthy models that it's confusing why it's taking so long for the fashion world to catch on that emancipated models aren't popular anymore. Why is Ralph Lauren taking an already very thin model and making her thinner? She actually looks kind of freakish in the photo. Personally knowing far too many women who have suffered or are suffering from eating disorders, manipulated photos like this make me feel sick. It's even worse when you see what some companies do to already beautiful celebrities like the Campari ads featuring Jessica Alba.

On the flip side, this Glamour article about a real size underwear model in their magazine is what women would rather see in their literature. It's a huge step forward for the fashion industry and I hope other magazines follow.

(Also see our follow up post: Ralph Lauren's Overly Thin Ad—Continued...)

Violent Fairytales For A Violent Subject

In contrast to our last post, let's look at a Public Service Announcement (PSA) campaign from South America that's a little shocking, but also good advertising. The two posters here are from Amnesty International (Amnistía Internacional) in Chile.

The art direction on these two posters is fantastic and the concept is solid as well. Most fairytales are pretty violent when you think about it, and tend to get more so the further back in their history you go, so linking fairytales to a campaign against domestic violence and violence against women is an interesting connection. The visuals are very dark, but with enough key fairy tale pop culture visual cues that we easily identify the tales being referenced. The Little Red Riding Hood concept works the best due to the tale's very violent beginnings. Little Red Riding Hood goes back long before the versions most of us know to an oral tale that was told to warn young girls about predator men. I won't go into the gruesome details here—you can get the historical versions synopses on Wikipedia or in a good book of classic fairytales—but essentially, even the modern version has ties to violence against women.Unfortunately, the Snow White poster doesn't have quite the same fairytale connection. Another story, like Bluebeard, might have been a better tie though much less visually recognizable. Either way, it's a great example of some good PSR work that can be shocking but still a good piece of advertising.

(via The Inspiration Room)

DDB's Offensive 9/11 Ad Ushers In Some Much Needed Award Show Rules

I was apparently living under a rock last Tuesday when AdFreak first broke the news about DDB Brasil's tasteless 9/11 ad (above) which has continued to blow up throughout the blogosphere and has DDB Brasil and the client, WWF, backpedaling like crazy to escape the international bad PR. You can check out the day-by-day updates on the original AdFreak post.

Essentially, the print ad shows hundreds of planes flying into lower Manhattan and the copy compares the death toll between 9/11 and the 2004 Tsunami. The copy reads, ‘The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it.’

Wow.

I get that our planet is powerful and can be very destructive, and I do believe we need to take some drastic action to curb climate change, but seriously? How do you possibly compare a natural disaster to a terrorist attack? The oddest thing is that this concept actually won a One Show Merit Award for public service work. Yeah. I would think the One Show would know better. It's not just that it's an offensive ad, but it's just a bad concept too.

As AdWeek's Barbara Lippert said, “Aside from being offensive and cringe-worthy, it's also just an ugly and dumb piece of creative, scoring high on the 'gratuitous use of tragedy to make a nonsensical argument' meter.”

It's shock value only, so how did it win a One Show Merit Award? Beats me.

That brings us to the next uproar. Aside from the fact that the One Show bestowed its honor on such a bad, tasteless ad, there is the question of whether the ad is even legit for entry. Once the corporate backpedaling started, WWF immediately claimed that they never approved such an ad to run. Sound familiar? Well, once the finger pointing began, it turns out that someone in the local Brazil WWF office actually did approve the ad and it ran at least once.

Well, okay, it ran once in a newspaper somewhere, but sometimes there's still the question of whether that really makes it award eligible. It's part of the larger issue of award chasing: Agencies like awards. They look pretty on display and they give that little ego boost and assurance to creatives that they actually are pretty good at what they do. But award chasing gets a little out of hand sometimes with people submitting fake ads, ads that were never approved, ads that never ran or sometimes ads that the agency footed the bill to run once, just so they'd be eligible for awards. Wow, that makes us ad industry folk sound like a bunch of cheats, doesn't it? The sad thing is this happens rather often on all levels of ad competitions from the local level to the international level.

In Barbara Lippert's AdWeek article on the recent DDB Brasil fiasco she quotes David Baldwin, former chairman of the One Club as saying that somehow the award shows always get blamed for giving awards to fake ads. True, I can't imagine the daunting task of trying to fact check every ad submission to some of these competitions, but at the same time, as far as I know, the award shows have never really penalized anyone for these fake entries. You might lose your award, but that's it. I remember once stumbling across a little note in Communication Arts retracting one of the campaigns I loved from their ad annual because it had never run, but it was a tiny little footnote that I just accidentally happened to see. There was also the Cannes Bronze Lion awarded to the agency that produced the fake J.C. Penney spot last year. I believe they lost their Lion, but that's about it. And did that really matter compared to the huge recognition they got for that fake ad?

The truth is, at the moment there's little to no incentive not to cheat in most of these shows. Sure, most ad agencies will figure out a way to make it technically legit (i.e., it ran once in this tiny little publication) but are those really any more legit than a totally fake ad?

In response to the uproar around DDB Brasil's controversial ad, the One Show has enacted new rules to deter fake entries. Basically, if you enter a fake ad and get found out, the agency and everyone credited is banned from entering the One Show for five years. If you enter an ad that 'ran once,' or the agency paid to run, etc., but isn't really legit, under The One Show's discretion the agency is banned for three years.

Personally, I applaud the One Show for finally taking some much needed steps to deter this ever-growing practice. I think the banning will help enormously, assuming it's enforced.

* On another note, check out the even worse TV spot from DDB Brasil that surfaced this past week. They apparently tried to enter it in the Cannes Film Festival, but thankfully, it didn't get shortlisted.

Steer Clear of the First Children in Advertising

There's a big ad controversy going on in DC at the moment revolving around some posters in the DC Metro that mention Obama's daughters. The posters are indeed politically motivated—they lobby for healthier school lunches and were placed in the Metro to target commuters going to the Hill just a month before a congressional vote on the Child Nutrition Act. The White House has requested the removal of the posters, but the group responsible for them, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), has declined to do so, stating they think it's only President Obama's handlers and not the President himself who have a problem with this.

There are more than a few problems here. First off, the ad itself is bad. It's just plain bad advertising. The concept is boring, the photography and design are bland and typography is just plain awful. What is that speech bubble font? Some even worse spin off of Papyrus? The concept of the ad seems to be calling out that the children of the rich and privileged (aka the Obama girls) eat better than those in public school lunch programs. Well no kidding! They go to a private school that costs $30K per year—they eat better than I do! And guess what, children in a $30K per year school are always going to eat better than those eating on the public dime.

If the PCRM's agenda was really just healthier school lunches, I think their campaign would have done better to compare public school lunches—especially since there are some out there worth noting. Appleton, Wisconsin's public school system seems to have it figured out and they have a great, healthy school lunch program in place. It is not only more realistic comparison, but it shows it can be done economically. Unfortunately, in researching for this post, I learned quite clearly that just healthier school lunches isn't all the PCRM is all about.

True, the Obama daughter's school lunch menu includes a vegetarian option for each meal which, if you read this Washington Post article is what this whole debate is about for PCRM. Not surprising either since a little reading on the PCRM's website for their school lunch initiative, healthyschoollunches.org, says that they are for healthier lunches, but via vegetarianism and veganism. They actually suggest schools stop buying meats, cheeses and butter if you read their recommended changes to the National School Lunch Program. Yikes! A little googling about the organization shows their really not so subtle about their activism and are clearly advocates for vegan diets. Umm... Somehow I don't think the Obama's will want their daughters mixed up in any such political activist group.

Perhaps that little hidden agenda is why they ignored seemingly logical and interesting directions, like referencing Appleton, in favor of a trite concept that would get them some press. Well, that and actually being transparent about ridding schools of meat probably won't win them too many votes. I'm all for healthier school lunches and I love what's going on in Appleton, Wisconsin, but you'll never find me in favor of veganism. Thank you, but I am a proud omnivore and manage eat a pretty healthy and low fat diet, meat and all.

In any case, if you're going to ruffle the feathers of the White House and seek attention from the press, at least do it with a decent piece of advertising!

Magical Tweets

I'll admit it, I'm a Harry Potter fan. I read the books, saw the movies, bought the movies and then reread some of the books again. I love the stories and even as over-commercialized as the franchise has become, I still love it all.

Even if you're not as enamored with all things Harry Potter as I am, you have to give them credit for their recent Twitter application to promote the latest movie. Marketers everywhere are trying to figure out the best way to use social media to promote, but since Twitter and social media are driven by the consumer, it's a tricky beast. This current Harry Potter Twitter application, however, is a great blend of entertaining and promotional.

Essentially, you visit HarryPotterTweet.com and select one of four spells featured in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince to direct message (DM) to your twitter friends. If they click on the link in the DM, they'll see a fake version of their Twitter homepage followed by an animation of the spell being cast and a message from you. Unfortunately the messages are pre-written, but they have a variety of amusing and appropriate messages. Check out the thumbnails on the left to see the spell cast on me last week.

The only glitches with this clever application, are the inability to customize your DM and making the default "Check this out, it's simply magical. [URL]" so vague it's a little too close to spam. The application's been a bit slow to load at times too, causing spell victims to leave the page before the spell's animation has occured. Beyond those issues though, the idea and execution of this Twitter application is fantastic—the marketer's ideal blend of promotional and fun.

AT&T GPS Is the New Bread Crumb

This little Hansel and Gretel ad for AT&T's GPS feature is adorable. No, it's not mind blowing creative, but it's simple, clear and memorable. Very cute!

Chipotle Does Logo Redesign Right

Chipotle recently rolled out a new logo and while it didn't get the greatest review from
Brand New, I'm digging it. I do agree with their comments, mainly critiques on the new font and pepper illustration, but think the new logo is a big success anyway.

One of Brand New's comments is that the new font doesn't represent industrial feel of the Chipotle restaurant interior as well as the old, Bank Gothic font. The new font is friendlier, and I do like it in the horizontal versions of the logo, but on the medallion, Bank Gothic was working well and didn't really need the change.

On the other hand, the pepper illustration is a vast improvement. Brand New commented that it's too close to clip art to work well, I disagree. It's basic design is a little cliche, but the design itself is both aesthetically pleasing, quickly and easily to read and understand even small or at a distance. The old illustration, while closer to a real pepper's shape, looks far too blob-like to function well in a logo. There are few other illustrations that go with the new pepper that are very nice as well.

The color swap is also a nice touch. While subtle, softening up the black to a dark red and swapping the dark and medium tones in the logo really work. The dark red behind the pepper makes it pop even more.

What do you think?

Sir Mix-A-Lot Is Mixing Things Up At Burger King

"Oh my God, Becky look at her...phonebook?"

CP+B is in the news again with a new sexualized ad for Burger King that plays off Sir Mix-a-Lot's classic song Baby Got Back. The commercial has spawned a lot of controversy—is it funny or is it inappropriate? Everyone familiar with the song (in other words, my entire generation) knows the song centers around Sir Mix-a-Lot's admiration of large female butts. This isn't the first time Sir Mix-a-Lot's famous one hit wonder has hit the commercial waves, but this particular commercial is aimed at kids.

The BK spot features Sir Mix-a-Lot and Sponge Bob since BK is offering Sponge Bob toys in their kids meals. The controversy comes when the images of Sponge Bob are mixed in with music video like images of Sir Mix-a-Lot and women in tight mini dresses with phonebooks shoved up them. Sir Mix-a-Lot consequently sings about liking square butts.



I was very undecided on where I stood on this commercial. On the one hand, it's funny to an adult audience, but I can definitely understand concerned parents as well. Sponge Bob is one of those cartoons, beloved by children but also capable of being genuinely entertaining to adults as well. Believe it or not, Sponge Bob has some adult fans—I've even met a few that didn't have kids. The problem is that this commercial is clearly aimed at children. It's on at times when kids would be watching tv and advertises Sponge Bob toys.

I'm a bit delayed on this post, I know. There have been many news reports and blogs discussing the issue. I was very undecided on where I stood and felt ill equipped to say anything without being a parent myself, so I solicited opinions from friends and relatives who are young parents. Not completely surprisingly, I got responses on both sides. Mothers who were disgusted by the commercial and others who shrugged their shoulders and laughed at it. There were a few stuck in the middle though too, finding the commercial funny themselves, but not quite appropriate for their children. I suppose the main consensus, however, was that this spot is not really child appropriate.

But where did CP+B cross the line? The concept is funny and oddly appropriate. Who cares that it's about butts? I mean kids talk and laugh about butts all the time. But one of the responses I received nailed the problem I have with this commercial on the head:

... as the father of a young daughter, what I do find to be troubling are the sexual images of young women. (They should have been consistent and had a row of people dressed in SpongeBob mascot outfits, quite frankly.)

Exactly! Would the commercial have lost anything to have both men and women with phone book butts in slightly looser clothing? I really don't think it would. I realize the original song is very sexual, but it could be just as humorous to adults while staying appropriate for kids. After all they are marketing a kids meal. I think the real humor of the concept is playing off Sponge Bob's square butt. He has one. It's funny. They half mention the fact in the title of the show—Sponge Bob Square Pants.

Overall, I think the concept of the spot was brilliant, but the execution was off. A tamer version could have kept the integrity of the concept while quelling the concerns of parents, but then again maybe all the media attention was exactly what CP+B and Burger King were aiming for. What do you think? Would a tamer version be capable of walking the line between funny and child appropriate?

Is Liberty Mutual Doing The Right Thing?

Liberty Mutual has a new campaign running about doing the 'right thing.' The campaign follows a family faced with a number of difficult decisions. Should Grandpa go in a nursing home or move in with the family? Should the parents spy on their teenage daughter's online activity? How do you handle lay off in the family? Typical difficult decisions faced by a regular family. The first spot sets up the following two by outline the tough decisions the family has to make.

The trouble is, the following spots don't make much sense if you haven't seen the first one. I saw the parents spying on their daughter spot (below) first and was completely confused. As a stand alone it makes little sense, especially on how it relates to insurance. The text at the end is the only connection.

If you visit the corresponding site, ResponsibilityProject.com, you can see all five videos that follow the family through a variety of situations. They're almost like little mini homemade films shot by the hand held video camera of the youngest sibling and at the end you are asked to join the discussion. It doesn't seem like they have too many people discussing, although it's interesting to note they also have a section with articles of other controversial topics, from Rent as a high school musical to cloning puppies, and those articles are actually sparking some decent discussion on the site. More than the spots themselves it seems.

It's entirely possible that I saw the set up commercial before the daughter one, but glossed over it since it's pretty forgettable, and I remembered the daughter one only because it confused me. Overall, the campaign has a nice idea but it just seems to be trying to hard. I enjoyed Liberty Mutual's last campaign, which gave the same idea, but simplified it and managed to show you good deeds and responsible actions rather than tell you about them. Plus the execution of it was fantastic and I soon became a fan of the band from that soundtrack.

What do you think? Are these Liberty Mutual ads effective? Have you even noticed them?

Honda Gets Groovy

So this apparently went down back in October, but I just saw this commercial last night. Honda took a section of road in Lancaster, California and paved it with grooves so that when you drive over it, the William Tell Overture plays. The overall effect is quite cool. It reminds me a bit of the fantastic Machine and Acapella spots W+K London did for Honda a couple years ago. Though the project got some bad press with neighbors sick of hearing the noise from passing cars, most people driving over the piece of road thoroughly enjoy it. I almost think of it as environmental art in a way. Check out the commercial to see how they did it and hear the final product.

Have The Travel Bug? Cure It Here.

A friend posted this interesting promotional site, I Have The Bug, for the Travel Channel on Facebook. All I have to say is it's brilliant. Sure it's a little superfluous, but it's entertaining. The site moves you along a variety of amusing travel scenarios and choices with a soothing female narrator commenting on each decision. All of this is to decide your travel personality in order to recommend the proper shows on the travel channel to treat you. The animated game quiz is entertaining and fun and leads directly to a payoff involving the client. I love to travel, but I confess I've never really watched the Travel Channel. That may change now though as I'm seriously considering checking out some of the recommended shows.

The site is integrated with Facebook Connect too, which allows you to share your travel personality assessment with any Facebook friends who have taken the quiz.

I'm a Navigator, what are you? Find out at www.ihavethebug.com.

Shaming You To The Gym

A bus stop in Amsterdam has one of the most creative bus shelters I've seen in awhile. The shelter's bench serves as a scale, so when you sit it displays your weight for you, and everyone else on the street, to see. Ouch. I could see that making me reroute my journey home to include a stop at the gym...

(Via AdFreak. Photo from Direct Daily.)

Wisconsin Bombs Rebranding

Large corporations aren't the only ones capable of botching a rebranding job. The state of Wisconsin unveiled their new logo today and there is only one word to describe it: horrendous. I have nothing positive to say about it. The font has nothing particularly appealing about it and that little flag thing in the middle of the W just bothers me. I expect it to be there for a reason and there's no apparent reason to it's existence except to make the W particularly difficult to decipher at a glance. The wavy N is just as distracting. Then the whole word has the distinct shape of unnecessary use of Illustrator's bulge warp tool. At the risk of sounding preachy, Illustrator and photoshop filters can be godsends or train wrecks and it all depends on your discretion in using them. The epic fail is when they're unnecessarily used to try to beef up an otherwise poor design (e.g. the logo above). It never works. Use them with extreme caution.

Beyond the bad font choice, the logo fails again between that tag line and the completely random silhouette handstand that isn't remotely integrated into the design. Both the silhouette and tagline look completely tacked on. The handstand has no real reason to be there, except maybe to illustrate the painfully generic tagline, 'Live like you mean it,' which ironically comes straight from Bacardi. I mean Wisconsinites like their liquor, but if you were going to steal from such an ad, 'Please Drink Responsibly' would have at least been a little more true to some of the distinctive characteristics of the state.

Megan and I are both native Wisconsinites, and having lived out of state I'm very aware of the not-so-exciting reputation Wisconsin has in most of the rest of the country. That's exactly why it pains me to see that this is the 'new' face we're going to show to try to ramp up tourism? Ugh. Wisconsin is much better than that.

As much as I'm sure this botched logo is at least partly due to decision by committee, I can't believe the state paid $50,000 for that slapped together looking logo and a ripped off tagline.

What do you think of the new logo?