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I would just like to say that I love that “Leave nothing” Nike football commercial, especially the music.

Also, I don’t know how Steven Jackson is going to get 2500 yards this season when St. Louis is 0-2 so far.

The Canada National Post has an article today talking about the phenomenon of stealth marketing—where, e.g., companies or advertising firms will set up fake blogs (flogs, for short) or upload “amateur” videos to YouTube for the purposes of marketing a product—and how it’s breeding cynism among the general public.

With typical big-media alarmism—especially, in recent years, toward anything relating to blogs—this article sensationalizes something that’s, really, no big deal:

But in the short term, he says, online deceptions of the “wig-out” video variety have the potential to erode trust in events or moments that seem to be free of artifice or marketing interests.

“If one is always skeptical, then goes to cynicism, you end up feeling pretty negative about the world,” Mr. Federman [a researcher at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education whose work examines the effects of media on society] says. “You end up with a very sour disposition. You tend to look at people and interactions as everyone trying to manipulate you, and tend to have a miserable existence, quite frankly.

“It’s not pleasant. You can’t enjoy yourself. You always have to be on your guard.”

Oh, please. As long as there have been ways to communicate with many people at once, whether they’re newspapers, TV or the internet, there have been people looking to use those ways to make a buck. You can’t make me believe that having knowledge of that fact is going to make me untrusting and miserable. And you can’t make me believe that viral marketing is so new a practice as all that.

Call me cynical, but this whole “longing for a more innocent time” idea is bunk. There was never a more innocent time. If anything, this time, now, is the most innocent time in human history. But that’s another blog post. (Via Slashdot)

new advertising campaign is an exercise in simplicity. But brilliant, just brilliant. (Via What do I know)

If you haven’t seen this Orbit gum commercial featuring Snoop Dogg, go do it forthwith. I don’t know what you’re waiting around here for.

as many when I saw the Gillette Fusion razor ad during the SuperBowl: to wit, “five razors? Oh, come on. This is just a gimmick.” And: “Does anybody really believe that adding another razor will actually help?” And, in my defense, the ad was stupid. I mean, really. Helicopters? Someone should fire that ad agency.

But since then, I’ve seen a few objective reviews of the razor, for the most part positive, to the effect that, yes, the extra blade does indeed make for a smoother shave. Now, according to Shaverama, I learn that bloggers are the only ones who actually tried the product and reviewed it objectively. The MSM, apparently, saw it as easy target practice and wrote mostly snarky articles about the thing—not that I can really blame them in this case. And it is a powerful temptation, but taken along with the press’ (generally) extraordinarily poor execution of its duties within the past few years, their giving into the temptation is a symptom of a larger problem. But I digress.

My razor of choice is the Gillette Mach 3^*. If it weren’t for that exorbitant $10 price tag, I would go try the Fusion myself. And maybe someday I will. (Via InstaPundit)

^* Not, mind you, the Venus, the razor “specially designed” for women. I find that the Mach 3 does a better job; the Venus is poorly suited for frequent shaving. What’s that about?

awesome animated TV ad directed by Sylvain Chomet of Triplets of Belleville^* fame. (Via Drawn!)

^* Have I mentioned how much I love this movie? Oh. I haven’t. 5 stars, baby. If you haven’t seen it, you should. It is a masterpiece.

I forgot to post about this. I love football, but the Superbowl is not my favorite sports event just for that reason. The other reason I love the Superbowl is—you guessed it—the commercials. You’ve seen my post about the United “Dragon” commercial already, but it wasn’t my favorite one that day. That honor goes to the super-duper, crescent fresh, just plain awesome MacGyver MasterCard priceless commercial. Man, I miss that show. (Via FreshArrival)

blog about United’s It’s Time to Fly ad campaign for a while, but I’ve never been able to find online movies of the North American TV spots. In fact, I still can’t find most of them. But I was able to find some links, and I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with that.

So. If you haven’t heard of the campaign, it’s a series of animated ads (debuting late last year) that “allude[...] to the obstacles business travelers face and United’s commitment to helping in the pursuit of personal and work-life success”. More importantly, each ad is beautifully done, and they all use United’s signature Rhapsody in Blue* as the soundtrack.

During the Superbowl, they released the best ad yet, a stunning piece of cut-paper stop-motion animation called “Dragon”. What’s more, they’ve made a mini making-of documentary available. Both are supercool, and I highly encourage you to watch them.

Related links:

• The campaign homepage.
• A press release about the global campaign. Go about 3/4 of the way down the page and follow the link to the international TV spots.
• The latest North American TV spots.

* This is one of my very favorite pieces of classical music, and I love that they use it.

but apparently this Apple ad I linked yesterday is a blatant ripoff of the music video for The Postal Service’s Such Great Heights*. Will Apple get in trouble for this? Or did they do this on purpose as sort of an inside joke? Hmmm…

* I’ve had the album for a couple of years now, but had never seen the video for this song; pretty cool.

here’s the first of a series of ads Apple will be using to promote Intel chips on Macs. (Via What Do I know)