Sean Connery's Bourbon

Martinis are for sissies. They should run this ad now. It still works.

Women on "The View" Have Clarity on Guns and a Woman's Self-Defense

Take a look at this ad. Then read the rest of this post below the jump. Lots to unpack here.

Done? Ok, go below the jump.

Powerful Ad Warning Drivers to Slow Down

It's really well done, with an outside the box kind of premise.

GOP Candidate for Iowa Senate Seat Makes An Interesting Ad

Here's an ad from Joni Ernst, who is one of the GOP candidates for Iowa's Senate Seat. It's kind of in the same vein as all the Sarah Palin-esqe stuff. She cruises in on a motorcycle, and then...well, just watch.

Thoughts? It kind of reminds me of (now Sentator) Joe Manchin's campaign ad where he shot a hole in the Obamacare bill with a rifle.

I guess we'll see how this plays out with Iowa voters. How does it play out with you?

Best Ad for a Sewing Machine Ever

It's a Singer 4525 Deluxe sewing machine. What makes it deluxe? Hell if I know.

Goodell: NFL Might Get Rid of PATs

While I was busy working yesterday, the NFL Commissioner was busy coming up with weird ideas. Specifically, he floated the idea of eliminating the PAT.

“You want to add excitement with every play,” Goodell said. “So there have been some proposals. Some are still going through the process of creativity, but there’s one proposal in particular that I’ve heard about (where) it’s automatic that you get seven points when you score a touchdown, but you could potentially go for an eighth point, either by running or passing the ball. But if you fail, you’d go back to six.”

So we're talking about scoring a touchdown, getting seven points for that, and then having the ability to gain an extra point by going for the two point conversion, with the idea being that if you fail, you go back to six.

This is a silly idea. First, it's not going to motivate any coaches to go for two (or should we call it one?) with the conversion "bet", unless they otherwise would due to the score being odd. If you didn't know, there's actually a chart that you can use to determine when to go for the two-point conversion. I'm told there was math involved.

Anyway, my point is that eliminating the PAT kick won't really change the game at all, other than to have the effect of going directly from TD to kickoff most of the time. Does that really make the game "more exciting"? Not really.

It does move the game along a little, but the PAT only takes a few seconds. The big delay is really a feature of the TV timeouts they take between the TD, the PAT, the kickoff, and then the first offensive possession of the other team. In that span of time, you can get a TV timeout (a commercial) between all of those, resulting in about 4-5 minutes before more actual football occurs.

So, it's really the commercials. Also, do you know anyone who complains about PATs? Hey bro! You know, the thing I hate most about the NFL is those darn PATs. They're soooo boring! I wish they would get rid of them!

No, you don't know anyone who says that, because no one says that. You know what I would like to see? I would like to see the NFL tell advertisers that they can only show a certain commercial a limited number of times during each game.

Think about it. How many times have you watched a football game and seen the same commercial for three hours, over, and over, and over? Being overexposed to the same commercial makes you start to loathe the product. Case in point: Before he saw this commercial, my friend Will probably didn't have any strong feelings about the Nissan Rogue. Now I bet you a nickel he would never buy one, because he's had that stupid commercial force-fed to him about a billion times in the span of a few football games. If you bought one, he would probably make fun of you.

Keep the PAT, drop the repetitive commercials.

Health Insurance Company Makes Ads Mocking Obamacare

My health insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield, is a beneficiary of Obamacare, since the law requires people to buy health insurance.

However, that hasn't stopped Blue Cross Blue Shield from making some ads goofing on the abject failure of the healthcare.gov website. It's actually a good ad, as it takes a soft shot at Obamacare not being able to deliver insurance, then reminding the viewer that they can just go to Blue Cross Blue Shield directly and buy some insurance.

It's actually a series of three ads, and you can see them all here.

You know it's getting bad when health insurance companies are starting to turn on Obamacare because I'm pretty sure that big companies focus-group their ads to make sure the ads aren't offending anyone.

I guess public opinion is fine with making fun of Obamacare now that it's been revealed to be such a train-wreck.

Need 10MB of Storage Space?

I've got just the thing for you:

 

It's amazing how far we've come with technology since 1980, which is when this ad ran. Think about what you can store now on your iPhone, which costs far less. I wonder what the world is going to look like in another 30 years. Will people look back at our iPhones and laugh?

Thoughts on the College Football Playoff Logos

It's been awhile since we've discussed the most important topic of all - college football. As I'm sure y'all are aware, the NCAA has decided to allow a four team playoff. The fact that it will end up being chock-full of SEC teams is something that will be fun to watch. The Big 10 (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) will be the hardest hit.

Almost as important as the playoff system itself is the logo that goes along with it. First, the name "College Football Playoff" isn't that great, so we're going to need an awesome logo to make people forget about how bland the name is.

Ok, so here are the four finalists. The final four. Sigh...It just kind of makes you realize all over again how stupid the name "College Football Playoff" is in comparison to March Madness, The Final Four, The SuperBowl, etc.... Where's Don Draper when you really need him? He'd be all over this.

Logo #1 Bastardized American Flag Football. Ok, so the first one (starting from the left) looks like a weird version of Captain America's shield with a football at the bottom. If we maybe had Captain Football America as a superhero to go with it, that could be promising. However, it just looks like a bastardized American flag with too few stripes and stars. And flags are supposed to be squared off and the bottom, not football curved. What are we looking at? Not really thrilled with this one.

Logo #2 Football Eye of Sauron. Sorry, I can't claim credit for coming up with that. It belongs to @edsbs, but not that I've started thinking about it being the Eye of Sauron, it's not going to look like anything else. Damn you Spencer Hall! Can't use this one - I'll have nightmares about it.

Logo #3 Insect Antenna. This looks like a weird type of insect's antenna that's been plucked off, or some kind of pincher from an ant. It kind of gives me the creeps. I know that it's supposed to be a silhouette of a football, but good god man, what kind of crazy pincher is that thing? (Warning: Do not click on that link if you are scared of bugs.)

Logo #4 Game of Thrones. Did someone take a bunch of swords and put them under a football? This one could be promising if you got some players and coaches to do commercials where they say "In college football, you either win, or you die". As I've pointed out, college football is already so much like the warring houses of Westeros anyway, this may not actually be a bad fit.

Overall, I'm not really amazed by any of these logos. Your thoughts?

This Day in History: New Coke Unveiled

On April 23, 1985, Coca-Cola committed one of the great blunders in marketing: New Coke. Interesting details of the story are here.

To hear some tell it, April 23, 1985, was a day that will live in marketing infamy.

On that day, The Coca-Cola Company took arguably the biggest risk in consumer goods history, announcing that it was changing the formula for the world's most popular soft drink, and spawning consumer angst the likes of which no business has ever seen.

Pretty much the same thing happened with Maker's Mark a few months ago. Apparently, people don't like it when you mess with their drinks. I wonder how a New Coke and re-formulated Maker's Mark bourbon would taste. (shudders)

If You Get Lonesome for Italy...

...go eat some spahgetti.

Monopoly Game To Lose a Token

Apparently, the guys in charge of Monopoly have been sitting around thinking of something to do. They have a classic board game, and they've decided that being classic and traditional sucks. I guess the marketing guys are trying to figure out a way to justify their salaries.

They're going to be new, edgy, and give up a traditional token in favor of a new token. And they want your vote! Swine. This is classic marketing/advertising crap.

Hasbro came up with a list of potential replacements, conducted an internal vote and narrowed the field to five finalists: a robot, diamond ring, cat, helicopter and guitar. The classic token with the fewest number of votes will be replaced by the new token with the highest number. The winner is to be announced on Wednesday.

A robot, a diamond ring, a cat, a helicopter, and a guitar? What the hell? Why not have a little iPad  token while you're at it? Maybe we could change all the tax rates while we're at it. Income tax of 15%? We should be so freaking lucky. One of the best parts of Monopoly is the fact that it hasn't changed. The same game that my parents played, is the same game that I played, but that's it. Now they're going to get rid of part of the original game. Awesome idea y'all. Find a great product that people want and then change it. Oh, and if you go to their website, part of the marketing is Buy a game now before we change it!

Morons.

Friday Happy Hour: Vodka

Enjoy the first Friday Happy Hour of 2013, y'all. Did you know that vodka is the world's number one selling spirit?

Merry Christmas Eve (Eve)

If you still haven't done all your Christmas shopping, I have a tip from 1962:

The days of getting a dictionary as a stand-alone item are probably gone forever.

Merry Christmas Eve (Eve), y'all.

Saturday Open Thread

Enjoy your day, and don't worry if you burn dinner. The beer still tastes great.

Oh 1950's sexism....bless your heart.

Columbia DUI Lawyer Markets With Wristbands

Targeted marketing.

Wristbands have been placed on wrists at New Brookland Tavern in West Columbia and Red Hot Tomatoes and Sharky’s in Five Points. “I thought it was a unique opportunity to get my name out there,” Cromer said. “I just thought it was innovative. There's nothing wrong with using a sense of humor if you can.”

It's probably going to work.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/07/13/2351505/on-the-scene-columbia-dui-lawyer.html#storylink=cpy

Consider Yourself Warned

This Is How You Sell A Car!

Advertising Genius.

Co-Sleeping With Your Baby

The Milwaukee Health Department runs an ad that says sleeping with your baby is like sleeping with a knife. Overdoing it a little?

This is clearly based on anecdotal evidence, but you can base anything on anecdotal evidence. I'm sure the Milwaukee Health Department has all their other problems solved, so they've moved on to the real problems of moms who sleep with their babies.

[Hat Tip: Mrs. Permanent Press]