The World According To

BLOGS
Jason Zada
Jose Luis
What Do I Know
Kevin Byrd
Gelattometi
Robot Johnny
Enrico Casarosa
Ronnie Del Carmen
The Ward-O-Matic
Luxo
Scenestars
Torr
brownglasses
Neil Gaiman
Powazek
Binky

POLITICAL BLOGS
Furious George
Joshua Marshall
Daily Kos
Atrios
AmericaBlog
Crooks and Liars
The Daily Howler
The Left Coaster
BOP
Rising Hegemon
The New Donkey
Greg Palast

Posted 9:15pm pst, Sunday, February 6, 2005

Stupid Bowl Commercials

This year's Superbowl was perhaps the lamest year ever for commercials. Not a single laugh. Some of the work was so damn painful to watch. The worst were the spots that fall into "trying too hard" camp.

Careerbuilder.com
Chimps. Lots of chimps. Can you say cliché? I think eTrade did chimps five years ago. Enough with the chimps. The saddest thing was that Careerbuilder wasn't the only advertiser to use chimps. Verizon did the chimp thing too and almost pulled it off, but they had to go and put the "do you hear me now" guy at the end, which totally fucked it up. Even FedEx/Kinkos parodied the use of animals in their spot.

McDonald's Lincolnfry.com
This is McDonald's pathetic attempt to play catch-up with Burger King's Subservient Chicken site. Too little, too late, too lame.

Pepsi's Sean Combs ad and Guy Watcher spots
The BBDO school of celebrity overkill. The celebrities in the spots were not even relevant anymore. Sean Combs? Carson Daly? Cindy Crawford? The Queer Eye fashion guy? Proof that throwing money at a commercial will not make it a more memorable spot; you have to start with a decent idea.

Pepsi's iTunes promotion
"Scratching" with Pepsi caps... just plain annoying.

Other spots that sucked off the top of my head:
Verizon's miniaturization commercial with Kid Rock, Deion Sanders and Shaq. Horrible.
AmeriQuest's Surprise Dinner with the cat. Suckage.

I will finally get to my Top Ten films of the year in my next post, hopefully next weekend. I wasn't able to catch as many films as I had hoped, but I certainly saw enough to be comfortable with making a list.

RECENT READS
Floating Logos
Bush is the Devil!!!
Spider-man Reviews Crayons

ON MY IPOD
Josh Rouse's catalog
Squeeze catalog
Ed Harcourt - Strangers

2005
1.29.05
1.23.05
1.16.05
1.9.05
1.1.05

2004
12.26.04
12.12.04
11.28.04
11.3.04b
11.3.04a
11.1.04
10.31.04
10.10.04
10.8.04
10.7.04
9.30.04
9.14.04
9.5.04
8.13.04
8.6.04
8.5.04
7.26.04
7.18.04
7.12.04
7.4.04
6.29.04
5.13.04
5.9.04
5.4.04
4.24.04
4.18.04
4.11.04
3.29.04
3.22.04
3.17.04
3.14.04
3.1.04
2.16.04
1.23.04
1.1.04

2003
12.24.03
12.14.03
12.12.03
11.16.03
10.15.03
10.12.03
10.7.03
10.5.03
9.28.03
9.18.03
9.7.03
9.2.03
8.21.03
8.20.03
8.10.03
7.6.03
6.4.03
4.14.03
3.17.03
2/16/03
1/20/03

2002
12.24.02
12.10.02
11.16.02
10.30.02
10.13.02
10.4.02
9.18.02
9.14.02
9.11.02
9.4.02
8.27.02
8.25.02
8.13.02
8.8.02
8.7.02, 9pm
8.7.02, 8pm
8.6.02
7.25.02
7.22.02

OLDER
Pulp Fiction
9-11-01

KEYWORDS: Ron Lim, Ron W. Lim, blog, art direction, advertising, photographs, illustration, Spider-man, Amazing Fantasy #15, comics