newyorker:

Attack Dog

McCarthy’s detailed résumé, posted on the Web site of his advertising company, omits his most notorious creation—the Willie Horton ad. Paid for by a political group officially acting separately from the campaign of George H. W. Bush, it was the political equivalent of an improvised explosive device, demolishing the electoral hopes of Dukakis, then the governor of Massachusetts. Its key image was a mug shot of Horton—a scowling black man with a dishevelled Afro. Horton, a convicted murderer, had escaped while on a weekend pass issued by a Massachusetts furlough program. A decade earlier, Dukakis had vetoed a bill that would have forbidden furloughs for murderers. After escaping, Horton raped a white woman and stabbed her fiancé. McCarthy knew that showing Horton’s menacing face would make voters feel viscerally that Dukakis was soft on crime. Critics said that the ad stoked racial fears, presenting a little-known black man as an icon of American violence.

- In this week’s issue, Jane Mayer writes about Larry McCarthy - master of the negative TV ad. McCarthy was the brains behind the ad above and now heads the pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future: http://nyr.kr/x3O8Sb
fastcompany: Fast Company asked several of the most creative ad agencies in the world to rebrand baby girls. Their mock campaigns recast girls as the No. 1 choice for consumers from China to the U.S. Agency: Leo Burnett Target Demo: U.S. MEN AND WOMEN The Ad Folks: Chicago’s legendary agency currently handles Allstate, Fiat, McDonald’s—and many more. Their Campaign Strategy: The “Accidental Daughters” campaign would use humor and irreverence to upset stereotypes. First up would be Amy Poehler, followed by a series of other successful, iconoclastic women, like Lady Gaga. From The Case For Girls

fastcompany:

Fast Company asked several of the most creative ad agencies in the world to rebrand baby girls. Their mock campaigns recast girls as the No. 1 choice for consumers from China to the U.S.

Agency: Leo Burnett Target Demo: U.S. MEN AND WOMEN The Ad Folks: Chicago’s legendary agency currently handles Allstate, Fiat, McDonald’s—and many more. Their Campaign Strategy: The “Accidental Daughters” campaign would use humor and irreverence to upset stereotypes. First up would be Amy Poehler, followed by a series of other successful, iconoclastic women, like Lady Gaga.

From The Case For Girls

(via fastcompany)

“Google is not going to be Facebook. Likewise, Microsoft was not going to be Google. And it is partly because, contrary to the shibboleths of user-created blah-blah, people love content—and, mirabile dictu, it increases traffic. The problem is, advertisers don’t love it. Or they don’t love it enough. Or there is so much of it, they can be fickle lovers of it—hence the cost goes down (and down). This math has actually created an entire genre of online businesses that are all about being able to keep lowering the cost of content to keep up with the ever-lower price that can be charged for it.

And yet, there is content that works—that remains unique and that commands premium pricing. That’s television—or video.

Put another way, what still works, what advertisers and audiences still seek, is superexpensive content.

And there is a model in which mature non-content-producing businesses help themselves by becoming sophisticated content producers: the premium channel business, the HBO model. HBO was not a content creator; it was effectively just an aggregator and a redistributor. But faced with higher licensing fees and lower margins, and looking to solidify its own brand, it started to produce its own content.”

Is Content the Problem or the Solution? | Adweek

What Songs From Commercials I’m Loving: 8/12/11

daverosado:

Let’s take a look at TV ads today, shall we? They introduce you to new products which, that’s the point, but they can also introduce you to bands that you’d end up highly enjoying. Sometimes, they feature remakes of songs by bands you love, which only serve to enrage you (probably), but also burrow themselves into your brain. The effect of this ensures that you never forget the accompanying ad when you hear that song again. But we’ll get to that later.

I’ll be brief in talking about these songs, because Holy YouTube Batman! This post will take a lot of space on its own.

First, let’s watch this NFL kids program advertising, featuring The Go! Team’s The Power is On. This is a pretty perfect pairing of image and music: the rallying cry accompanies the images of NFL players - The Falcons, namely - on the bus, presumably on the way to another big game except no! They’re on their way to horse around with children for the NFL Play 60 program. Good stuff.

The first of two Christmas adverts this week comes from Honda, accompanied by that lousy, infectious Vampire Weekend song Holiday. I don’t like Vampire Weekend in theory: I saw them perform on SNL and decided I’d never listen to them. Then I heard their music by accident, bobbing my head, wondering who it was by. When I looked it up and saw Vampire Weekend, I couldn’t help but chuckle, shake my head, and say “You magnificent bastards… you got me! I guess I kind of like you.”

In looking for a commercial featuring The Weepies, I stumbled upon this JC Penney commercial featuring Regina Spektor’s Music Box, which is a lightning quick, pleasant little piano ditty that I just had to add. The commercial’s a little bit trippy, as well.

And here’s that aforementioned commercial, the other Christmas-themed ad. The Weepies All That I Want soundtracks people getting gifts from perfect strangers on the street in a version of the world that would, let’s face it, be pretty awesome. “Hey, this subway ride kinda blows, but hey is that a pair of front row tickets to a Jets game on the seat next to me, with a bow on top?! AWESOME!”

The Ford Edge is a car that brings you wonder, I guess. Look through the sunroof at the surrounding urban buildings and realize that your life’s changed, or whatever. Forget that you’re in a car and think, for just a second, that you’re riding on a cloud. Sure, let’s pretend all that’s true. But the song, as depressing as it really is, works in this ad.

In looking for this commercial, I bumped into one that I forgot all about featuring Mustang and Band of Skulls’ Light of the Morning. I’m a big fan of this song so once again, here’s a late add.

Let’s face it: Los Campesinos wrote the perfect “commercial song.” You can pretty much apply the opening itself to just about any scene where the action is coming… wait for it… wait for it… and just like the song, any commercial featuring the track You! Me! Dancing! explodes with energy. Here, see what I mean:

This next commercial angers me. I hate it with the passion of at least 4,100 suns. That’s a lot of suns. Not really, but if I cared about such things, I’d be pretty mad, and here’s why. I love the fare of Outback steakhouse, and I make no bones about it. The Bloomin’ Onion alone is worth the trip. But when they make a commercial using a remake of a classic of Montreal song, that becomes so ubiquitous in their other advertising that most people will only think of steak, much like Pavlov’s dog or something whenever they hear Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games, well… there’s something wrong with that. Kevin Barnes once said in an interview that he did it because he thought it’d be funny. What I heard in my head when I read that was “Hey money money money money CASH money money money.” Granted, that’s totally his prerogative, and God knows that I love Coke Classic. Buy a Coke Classic today, and enjoy that smooth flavor. Still, when you hear the of Montreal song, please don’t say “Hey, it’s that Outback song!” It grinds the gears of insufferable snobs like myself. Damnitall, now I want a Bloomin’ Onion. For the love of everything that is good in this world, one of the “related videos” at the end is “The Outback Song!” which is literally just a picture of the Outback Steakhouse logo with Wraith playing over it. The RAGE!

Moving on… this last one is just so much fun. I don’t know much about The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, but I do know that I enjoy the hell out of The Golden Age. This Heineken commercial isn’t so bad either, and makes me a little thirsty for the mediocre, near-flavorless beer.

I will ensure that I learn the moves of the badass who makes the grand entrance to the party that doesn’t deserve him, and use them at every future party that I attend. Look out everybody.

To listen to these songs (and yes, the actual of Montreal song) on Spotify, click here. The Weepies’ song is not on there, so the playlist is minus that one, and the Band of Skulls song is a live version, because their studio album is also not available on the usually awesome streaming service.

And just below is the usual Grooveshark widget, with all the songs intact. Enjoy.

Next week: It’s looking like I’ll be scrapping my Outsourced Playlist idea because it isn’t working the way I’d hoped. That’s OK, because my backup plan is to do something a little weird. Hopefully it’s not too weird, and hopefully I don’t chicken out of doing it.

Great idea for a post, Dave. A recent fav of mine is a Kingsford Match Light ad. The song is an acoustic version of a 80s hit by The Human League - “(Keep Feeling) Fascination.”  Watch/listen here. I’d purchase it but I don’t think it’s available.