Food for Thought While You Wait for Your Food

While having lunch in Union Square a few days ago, my eyes suddenly focussed in on an ad on the back of a Halal food cart.
...
I had to adjust my brain a bit to comprehend this.
An ad, for a major brand, on the back of a Halal cart; the type of cart where we get a deliciously cheap, greasy, steaming pile of fragrant mush heaped into a styrofoam container. Right under the blurry stock photos of food there is a fashion model showing off the latest in bargain leg fashion. Actually, I'd say this juxtaposition represents our city pretty well. We buy 5 dollar halal plates while sipping a Starbucks latte, digging through our designer (or overpriced Chinatown knockoff) wallets and carefully trying to avoid pigeon poop, dog pee puddles, and half extinguished cigarettes.
Kudos to you, Old Navy, for finding an interesting and less pricey place to put a print ad. And to you, as well, Halal cart man, for utilizing your only bit of free space on the crowded cart to maximize your profit. Unfortunately, the man working inside the cart at the time wasn't able to answer any of my questions about the ad because his boss had done it and was not present at the time. "No," I was told, he also did not have an e-mail. Or a phone number. And no, he wouldn't be there any time soon.
:( I sulked away, wondering how the Old Navy/ad agency reps had persuaded this mysterious owner.

Anyway, here is a group that specializes in just this sort of thing. It is called Roaming Hunger.

Exxon Didn't Say 'Hydrofracking' for a Reason

THIS
IS
ABOUT
HYDROFRACKING
... Don't let the fancy graphics, warm music, and inspirational copy fool you.

New Trend Among Car Commercials

If you've ever watched an episode of Mad Men, you know that one of the main tenets of building a successful campaign is to draw on people's positive emotions. So, when I started seeing car commercials featuring the latest accident protection technology by actually showing the accident/moments leading up to/after it, I was shocked. No longer are they just showing happy, absurdly attractive actors cruising down a car-less and pedestrain-less, utopian road. A lot of them have taken a chance that viewers will appreciate seeing the newest technology in action. It makes sense: what better way would there be to showcase the new accident-prevention features than showing them as they actually work? This recent Hyundai commercial, Innocean, USA, is a great example of how to execute that potentially upsetting storyline well.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have this commercial:

While I can appreciate the beauty and depth of this commercial (words not commonly associated with TV ads), it's just a tad too depressing for my taste. I don't need to be thinking about near death car accidents while I'm sitting at home with my own family, eating dinner and watching 'New Girl.' I need feel-good, interesting ads that make me go '... huh' and smile. It's all about association. What do you want your brand to be associated with? Nostalgia, or highway collisions? 

CARS KILL! But buy ours because it might not sometimes. 

*Subaru*

Adam Levine for Proactiv

When A-list celebrities endorse a brand, the general assumption is that they have some sort of connection to it. This assumption holds especially true for Adam Levine's work for Proactiv. Here is the extended version of the commercial:

Good commercial, positive message. Simple and to the point. He used to have confidence issues because of his acne, but Proactiv cleared that problem right up (pun intended). The issue is that a few months later (while the commercial was still airing), Levine was quoted about his high school days: 

Now, I'm a lot less confident. I was delusionally, unreasonably confident. I was a little jerk. I was really into myself. I'm not the same way that I was. I had this weird confidence that was bizarre - Fishwrapper

Now, I understand that not nearly as many people will see this quote as have the commercial, but it's out there: in print and in cyberspace. That kind of discrepancy is confusing and inconsistent. Wonder if he got any sort of slap on the wrist from his pals over at Proactive?