The new WNBA commercials are horrible. They all start with WNBA stars lambasting women's basketball before it ends with "SHE WOULDN'T SAY THAT. WOULD YOU?" Don't get me wrong -- that grabs your attention and makes a point. On the other hand, they seriously fail to evoke any actions from a viewer.
At best, they can get somebody who dislikes women's basketball to say "hey, it's not so bad". If you have a viewer that's neutral or already a fan, there's nothing for them to take away from the message. At the same time, the commercial opens with overwhelmingly negative comments about women's basketball. Nobody is going to seek the WNBA on TV or buy game tickets after seeing those spots. It's like the NFL coming out with a Michael Vick/Pacman Jones commercial preaching the virtues of thug life. Although that probably WOULD increase viewership and sell tickets.
Below are two of the videos that I've actually seen on TV (during NBA games). The Candace Parker spot on top is probably worse. She has some pretty harsh words while they show a montage of WNBA highlights. The second one... I don't even have to say anything here. Even the first WNBA ad campaign ("We Got Next") is better than this crap. You can watch them for yourself and decide how much of a sexist douchebag I am...
We have a lot of RFP's (requests for proposals) from a variety of clients. The main advertisers that care about what I do (college marketing) are usually video games, movie/DVD releases, and grooming products. This note came from one of our sales guys along with the RFP document. Our sales guy took it one step further by explaining a part of the plot we may have missed. This email is quite ridiculous (and yes, this is the entire email with nothing deleted).
Thanks again Stephen.
How do you think we could incorporate Just Cause 2 to Spring Break?
Again there’s this miniature, evil billionaire who hires 6 beautiful women (hopefully Playmates) as his ninja body guards. The guys lives on his own tropical island
I wish more girls would wear Old Navy. The new Old Navy commercial in the "Neon Nights" series runs on national television very often and resident nipple sleuth Alex pointed out that a nip makes a brief appearance. With his expert DVR skills, we were able to use slow-mo and find the exact instant that nipple is most evident. The pictures are below:
Most likely due to the fact that I have the television habits of a 13 year-old girl, I have seen that same Old Navy commercial about 20 times in the past week. If you haven't noticed, Old Navy has been re-positioning its products by creating commercials that try to convince teens that a young adult model may wear one of their garments to a hot night club. It definitely has that "The Hills" vibe. The new idea is low cost clothing but high fashion style. Not a bad idea if H&M, Zara, etc. weren't already doing it. It's at least better than the solid color background commercials that showed the piece and the price. Although my research for this post indicated that this new line got generally positive reviews. The other funny thing was my search brought me to a blog post asking how often its readers went bra-lass. Here's the actual commercial:
Nip happens at 1:36 but it's slightly different in the 30 second spot
Coincidentally, I got a picture message from my friend Cully today. He's in Istanbul on tour with The Gutter Twins. They just played in Lisbon and Athens... lucky bastard. He came across a wall postered for a brand called Snatch Street Fashion. This is probably one of the sweetest logos of all time. I usually don't wear my huge diamond ring when I plan on deploying the shocker. But maybe it's time to start.
My roommate is a model, so I've heard firsthand about the shit that they deal with. You're judged, poked, prodded, and sometimes worse -- and you have to eat that shit and smile. I guess that's the trade off for a $1000+ day rate and free, awesome clothes.
I pass the poster of the above image nearly every day before I enter the 53rd street E, F, V station. I always think to myself "if I get more cut and stop wearing a shirt, girls will be hanging off of me" ... that's the point, right? I noticed something that turned me off to this ad though. The guy and the girl have the EXACT same haircut. The question is: who had it first?
P.S. I will be that jacked before spring break... that's another post for another time (next week)