Last week I joined a friend out for a few adult beverages at a local sports bar. It was a fun night, even as my friend channelled my grandfather in asking me just how long I was planning to go until I shaved my face again. One of the local sports talk radio station's street team was also there, running a promotion with Bacardi rum. They were giving away things like ski trips, mugs and t-shirts. (There are few things in life that are more of a let-down than a free promotional t-shirt. People are always really excited to get at them, willing to knock over children and the elderly to make sure they procure one, only to notice once they have it that the shirts only come in size 'Large' and fit more like a medium.) Having done more than my fair share of these during my time in radio, I was less than interested. About half an hour after we got there the promotions guy stepped to the microphone. Now, we were seated at the bar and couldn't hear him very well because the speakers were facing away from us, but he said a few muffled lines before concluding with, "The Bacardi Dancers!"
At this point six scantily-clad women came out of the adjacent room to do a quick dance routine. They were fairly attractive, but you just know these are the girls who make it to the third round of try-outs for both the Patriots and Celtics dance teams before getting cut. [Sidebar: I've been told that this assessment sounds kind of mean. Well, I'm just speaking the truth. After a decade of going to bars when promotions like this are going on I am absolutely sure of one thing: none of these girls are going home with me. They are only showing interest because they want me to buy something, which I'm not going to do, and therefore they will forget me as soon as they reach the next table. Knowing this, there is no need to pretend I'm even slightly interested in anything they are selling or make them think they are hotter than they really are. We can move the transaction along. The day a man comes to this reality is the day he is officially a grown-up.] Anyway, they break into their dance off to one side in a small space, with only half the bar half-watching. And when they were done they got a smattering of applause, mostly from the young drunk guys who have yet to learn the lesson I spoke about in the sidebar. Mostly, I just felt awkward for everyone involved.
This got me to thinking, and I have decided that having a dance team might be the worse way to sell a product ever. I'm sure it was an attempt to bring a beer commercial to life, but it doesn't really work on a cold February night in Massachusetts. Mostly I just found myself hoping the girls had jackets to put on before they left. Now, let's say each girl was given $50 for the night. You mean to tell me that was the best use of $300 by this company? There wasn't a magazine ad space to purchase or online viral video they could have shot with that money? Really, why not go old school and hire a plane to drag a banner behind it, because I feel like that would have been a better use of $300. (Think about it - when you see one of those banners in the sky, who doesn't stop what they are doing long enough to read the entire message?) So, I appreciate the attempt to be different Bacardi, but giving out $300 worth of free samples probably would have worked out better for you.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
The Only Oscar I Cared About
In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't watch one second of last night's Oscar telecast. Like every other awards ceremony, I preferred to simply read the recap. In this day and age if anything newsworthy happened it would have been on the Internet within the hour and I don't care what people were wearing, so reading the post-mortem this morning I got all the facts while still saving hours of my life. (We'll have forgotten who won by June anyway.) Besides, this year seemed to be one of the least-suspenseful programs in a few years. Other than Best Picture, which was still just a two-horse race, all the major acting awards appeared to be predetermined. The only thing left was to see how bad these actors are at improvisation as they tried to convince us they never thought they could possibly win this award, even though they have been cleaning up at award shows for the better part of two months.
However, there was one Oscar where I was truly interested in the outcome - Best Adapted Screenplay. And I was extremely pleased to see Aaron Sorkin win for "The Social Network". I had feared that, given the way it had been piling up trophies throughout award season, people would have gotten sick of it winning time after time and given the Oscar to someone else, just for a little variety. But, thankfully, that wasn't the case. I know that some people look down on the Adapted Screenplay category, thinking of it only as glorified editing. "The story is already written, all you have to do is add stage directions," they say. Those people are stupid. (Do you like how I both created and dismissed characters in two sentences?) There is a lot more that goes into it than that, but that is not why I wanted Sorkin to win. I admire writing that A. makes me care about something I normally wouldn't and B. is produced under pressure.
Here's the thing about this movie: I hate Facebook and I still loved it. I don't have a Facebook page and loathe the people who look at me like I have three heads when I tell them I don't. But, the writing for this was so amazing I was willing to overlook all that. Whether you like it or not, that website is changing the world and this script managed to capture that fact. But the main reason I thought it was the best screenplay of the year is because I think people sometimes forget just how hard it is to write about something that is world-altering while it is still going on. It is easy to write a meaningful and thought-provoking piece about a subject when you have the perspective that comes with the passage of time. But to capture the importance of an event as it is happening and turn it into a good, well-written story is damned impressive.
When studios try to rush a script into production to capitalise on something in the news, it is like trying to catch a wave before it crashes; it's a delicate balancing act. Move too quickly and the script is going to be bad. (See: Almost every Lifetime television movie ever made). But wait too long and it doesn't matter how well-written the script is, people will have moved to the next news cycle. (See: "Fair Game". It was a good story, but by the time it came out Bush II was out of office. At that point the way this country works it may as well have been about Lincoln.) If you can do it, you would rather be ahead of the wave than after it. Think about it like this: what made the movie "Rounders" so great was that it was a good, carefully-crafted movie that just happened to be about Texas Hold 'em. Therefore, when the Texas Hold 'em craze hit a couple years later the movie had a second life because it was a good movie and not just because of its subject matter. On the other hand, all the movies that were rushed into production at the time specifically to cash in on the Texas Hold 'em craze were God-awful because they were hastily-written. Big difference.
With the screenplay for "The Social Network" Sorkin managed to do both. He put out a great script and did it in a timely fashion. All writing projects have some kind of deadline, be they self or client-imposed, but I imagine that writing this particular screenplay was like having a giant clock hanging over his head. If he took too long then Facebook could be just another footnote in history. (How many MySpace movie scripts do you think have been scrapped in the past two years? Something tells me the people adapting "Winter's Bone" didn't have that kind of pressure on them.) So, it needed to be done quickly but it also couldn't suck. And, oh yeah, it's not an action movie so there was going to be more dialog than 90% of the screenplays out there. Again, a lot to do and not a ton of time to do it in. Deadline writing can really only go one of two ways: either you carve a masterpiece under the pressure or it's eh (and eh = complete shit to most writers). If you saw "The Social Network" (and if anyone asks, I totally saw it in a theatre) then you know which way Sorkin went. I'm just glad the Oscar people agreed with me.
However, there was one Oscar where I was truly interested in the outcome - Best Adapted Screenplay. And I was extremely pleased to see Aaron Sorkin win for "The Social Network". I had feared that, given the way it had been piling up trophies throughout award season, people would have gotten sick of it winning time after time and given the Oscar to someone else, just for a little variety. But, thankfully, that wasn't the case. I know that some people look down on the Adapted Screenplay category, thinking of it only as glorified editing. "The story is already written, all you have to do is add stage directions," they say. Those people are stupid. (Do you like how I both created and dismissed characters in two sentences?) There is a lot more that goes into it than that, but that is not why I wanted Sorkin to win. I admire writing that A. makes me care about something I normally wouldn't and B. is produced under pressure.
Here's the thing about this movie: I hate Facebook and I still loved it. I don't have a Facebook page and loathe the people who look at me like I have three heads when I tell them I don't. But, the writing for this was so amazing I was willing to overlook all that. Whether you like it or not, that website is changing the world and this script managed to capture that fact. But the main reason I thought it was the best screenplay of the year is because I think people sometimes forget just how hard it is to write about something that is world-altering while it is still going on. It is easy to write a meaningful and thought-provoking piece about a subject when you have the perspective that comes with the passage of time. But to capture the importance of an event as it is happening and turn it into a good, well-written story is damned impressive.
When studios try to rush a script into production to capitalise on something in the news, it is like trying to catch a wave before it crashes; it's a delicate balancing act. Move too quickly and the script is going to be bad. (See: Almost every Lifetime television movie ever made). But wait too long and it doesn't matter how well-written the script is, people will have moved to the next news cycle. (See: "Fair Game". It was a good story, but by the time it came out Bush II was out of office. At that point the way this country works it may as well have been about Lincoln.) If you can do it, you would rather be ahead of the wave than after it. Think about it like this: what made the movie "Rounders" so great was that it was a good, carefully-crafted movie that just happened to be about Texas Hold 'em. Therefore, when the Texas Hold 'em craze hit a couple years later the movie had a second life because it was a good movie and not just because of its subject matter. On the other hand, all the movies that were rushed into production at the time specifically to cash in on the Texas Hold 'em craze were God-awful because they were hastily-written. Big difference.
With the screenplay for "The Social Network" Sorkin managed to do both. He put out a great script and did it in a timely fashion. All writing projects have some kind of deadline, be they self or client-imposed, but I imagine that writing this particular screenplay was like having a giant clock hanging over his head. If he took too long then Facebook could be just another footnote in history. (How many MySpace movie scripts do you think have been scrapped in the past two years? Something tells me the people adapting "Winter's Bone" didn't have that kind of pressure on them.) So, it needed to be done quickly but it also couldn't suck. And, oh yeah, it's not an action movie so there was going to be more dialog than 90% of the screenplays out there. Again, a lot to do and not a ton of time to do it in. Deadline writing can really only go one of two ways: either you carve a masterpiece under the pressure or it's eh (and eh = complete shit to most writers). If you saw "The Social Network" (and if anyone asks, I totally saw it in a theatre) then you know which way Sorkin went. I'm just glad the Oscar people agreed with me.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
A Moving Interlude
This week was all about making moves. The NBA trading deadline was Wednesday, during which a bunch of trades were made, and many NHL teams made a trade this week in anticipation of that sport's trading deadline, which is tomorrow. Basically, it was either make a move or watch as someone you are in competition with did. If that's the case, then you know what to do...
Saturday, February 26, 2011
A PSA PSA
Because college radio stations get their broadcasting signals and licences free from the FCC, they aren't allowed to play any commercials to make money. Instead, they are required to play a few minutes of public service announcements an hour. Back when I was in college, every couple of months a fresh CD of PSAs would arrive in the mail containing various celebrities talking about things like preventing wildfires and making sure you recycle. The problem was that some of these people really pushed the limits of the word 'celebrity.' It was never a pop star with a hit song or an actor with a new movie coming out. A lot of the time it was a former TV actor desperate to find an addition minute of fame or an aging rocker who still had a few hours of community service to fulfill.
Since the average age of the people doing these PSAs was pushing 90, on more than one occasion upper 'management' (another word I use very loosely) had to meet and decide what we would do with the PSAs of someone who had passed on. This became quite the pressing issue when a new CD arrived featuring five different PSAs by John Denver, who had passed away a year earlier. Normally it wouldn't have been an issue, but I remember reading the listing and he was the most recognizable name on the CD. Essentially, it came down to an issue of famous dead versus unknown living. Ultimately, it was decided that we wouldn't play PSAs of anyone who was dead because it was A. disrespectful B. creepy and C. very distracting. We figured that anyone listening would spend the entire 30 seconds saying to people around them, "Isn't that person dead?" instead of thinking about saving polar bears.
The thing is, if a group of idiot 19 year-olds who weren't even getting course credit could figure that out, I have to question the wisdom of the people in charge of the charity I came across the other night. It was about 1 AM when I looked up from whatever murder mystery show I was watching and saw the smiling face of former Designing Women star, Dixie Carter. Before I could even utter, "Isn't she dead?" a graphic showing 1939-2010 appeared on the small side of the screen. Now, you might think the acknowledgement would stop my mind from wandering and concentrating on the disease she was trying to raise money for, but it didn't. Instead, now I couldn't stop wondering why this charity needed to keep running this ad. Did they make it right before she died and therefore couldn't afford to not run it? Did she die of this disease? Is the charity doing so poorly they couldn't afford to produce another PSA?
Well, thanks to Wikipedia I managed to get some answers. Carter shot the ad in 2003 and the charity started to re-air it following her death. I actually think that may be worse. Frankly, I'd rather the charity be broke then trying to stir up interest in their fundraising by using a celebrity's recent death. However, I also hope that it serves as a warning to any celebrity who films a PSA thinking it will run for a couple of months and then disappear: choose your charity wisely, because that commercial just might end up lasting a lot longer than you will.
Since the average age of the people doing these PSAs was pushing 90, on more than one occasion upper 'management' (another word I use very loosely) had to meet and decide what we would do with the PSAs of someone who had passed on. This became quite the pressing issue when a new CD arrived featuring five different PSAs by John Denver, who had passed away a year earlier. Normally it wouldn't have been an issue, but I remember reading the listing and he was the most recognizable name on the CD. Essentially, it came down to an issue of famous dead versus unknown living. Ultimately, it was decided that we wouldn't play PSAs of anyone who was dead because it was A. disrespectful B. creepy and C. very distracting. We figured that anyone listening would spend the entire 30 seconds saying to people around them, "Isn't that person dead?" instead of thinking about saving polar bears.
The thing is, if a group of idiot 19 year-olds who weren't even getting course credit could figure that out, I have to question the wisdom of the people in charge of the charity I came across the other night. It was about 1 AM when I looked up from whatever murder mystery show I was watching and saw the smiling face of former Designing Women star, Dixie Carter. Before I could even utter, "Isn't she dead?" a graphic showing 1939-2010 appeared on the small side of the screen. Now, you might think the acknowledgement would stop my mind from wandering and concentrating on the disease she was trying to raise money for, but it didn't. Instead, now I couldn't stop wondering why this charity needed to keep running this ad. Did they make it right before she died and therefore couldn't afford to not run it? Did she die of this disease? Is the charity doing so poorly they couldn't afford to produce another PSA?
Well, thanks to Wikipedia I managed to get some answers. Carter shot the ad in 2003 and the charity started to re-air it following her death. I actually think that may be worse. Frankly, I'd rather the charity be broke then trying to stir up interest in their fundraising by using a celebrity's recent death. However, I also hope that it serves as a warning to any celebrity who films a PSA thinking it will run for a couple of months and then disappear: choose your charity wisely, because that commercial just might end up lasting a lot longer than you will.
Friday, February 25, 2011
I Hope He Has A Plan
As a person who doesn't like change, I am never a fan when my teams make moves at the trading deadlines, regardless of the sport. There are a lot of moving parts and since the deadline comes during the middle of the season, by this point I have usually come to like the players involved. Therefore, when the Celtics made a flurry of moves before 3 o'clock yesterday, my initial instinct was to be unhappy. To recap: first they traded Nate Robinson and Kendrick Perkins to Oklahoma City for Jeff Green, Nenad Kristic and a draft pick. Then they shipped Luke Harangody and Semih Erden to Cleveland for a second round draft pick (meaning they gave them away) and ended the day by shipping Marquis Daniels to Sacramento for straight cash. When they were first announced I was not happy, but I decided to wait a few hours, take a step back and think the moves through. After doing all that... I still hate the trades.
To be fair, it is just one move I really, deeply hate. The Marquis Daniels move doesn't effect the team, because he wasn't playing again this season with an injury. And the shipping out of Semih and Luke only bothers me as a Notre Dame man, not for any basketball reasoning (and no, the potential signing of Troy Murphy does not soften the blow). Even if they had simply let Nate Robinson go I would have been ok, but the trading of Kendrick bothers the hell out of me. For the entire offseason, the mantra was that "Had Perk not blown out his knee, we would have won game 7. This group deserves the chance to see what they can do when everyone is healthy." I was totally on board with that logic, which is why getting rid of him makes no sense. This team won its Championship on the strength of rebounding and tough defense and trading Kendrick makes the Celtics weaker in both those areas. And I'm not alone in thinking this. Reports are members of the Bulls and Heat were thrilled to hear Perkins is now in the Western Conference, which should tell you all you need to know about how smart this deal is.
There were reports the team doubted they would be able to re-sign Perkins following this season, but frankly I think an 18th Championship would trump those concerns. Also, who knows how the NBA financial picture is going to look following the lockout (which is coming). Besides, Kendrick took a below-market deal last time and there are no indications he was going to demand a ludicrous deal, just closer to fair market value which, honestly, the team owed him. To trade him because of what might happen feels short-sighted. The Celtics biggest advantage going into the season was a glut of big men and in one day the Celtics shipped out their starting center, third center and third forward. There goes that advantage. Now they have to actively hope Shaquille and Jermaine O'Neal can come up big in June, two players who haven't been healthy at the same time yet this year. Awesome.
I'm also concerned about what this is going to do to team chemistry, which is crucial in basketball. It doesn't matter if two guys on a football team don't like each other, because that is two in a group of sixty. But, the small roster size makes it incredibly important in basketball and by all accounts this Celtics team really liked each other. Reports out of the locker room yesterday said Perk spent the day crying, the veterans were furious at the trade and Rajon Rondo (Perks best friend) was walking around in a zombie-like state all day. As such, it was no wonder they came out in a daze for last night's game in Denver, which they eventually lost. For a guy like Danny Ainge, who played a very long time in the league and should know how important chemistry is, to ignore something like that has me really concerned.
And that, I think, is the heart of why I don't like these moves: even though he put together a team that won a title, I still don't fully trust that Danny Ainge knows what he is doing. If you take a moment to think back through his tenure, it is a litany of bad drafts (Marcus Banks) and missed player signings. (Stephon Marbury, anyone?) Even the announcement that Ainge was taking over as President of the team was poorly-timed as he did it right before a critical playoff game where he announced major roster changes were coming (the Celtics lost that night). Basically, he's had the Allen trade (where he gave up the rights to Jeff Green) and the Garnett trade (which people still doubt he could have pulled off if a former teammate wasn't on the other end), and after those he was able to sit back and let the free agents come to him. I'll give him credit for acquiring all the young pieces needed to make those moves but much like I question how good Doc Rivers would be coaching a group of young players, I question if Danny would still be in the job without McHale to basically hand him KG.
Now, I'm not jumping ship and I'm sure the first time Green scores 25 point I'll be thrilled, but that doesn't mean I won't miss Perk as a player and a person. And if Dwight Howard scores 50 points on us after Shaq fouls out in 20 minutes during a big playoff game, Danny should expect to be flooded with 'I told you so' emails.
To be fair, it is just one move I really, deeply hate. The Marquis Daniels move doesn't effect the team, because he wasn't playing again this season with an injury. And the shipping out of Semih and Luke only bothers me as a Notre Dame man, not for any basketball reasoning (and no, the potential signing of Troy Murphy does not soften the blow). Even if they had simply let Nate Robinson go I would have been ok, but the trading of Kendrick bothers the hell out of me. For the entire offseason, the mantra was that "Had Perk not blown out his knee, we would have won game 7. This group deserves the chance to see what they can do when everyone is healthy." I was totally on board with that logic, which is why getting rid of him makes no sense. This team won its Championship on the strength of rebounding and tough defense and trading Kendrick makes the Celtics weaker in both those areas. And I'm not alone in thinking this. Reports are members of the Bulls and Heat were thrilled to hear Perkins is now in the Western Conference, which should tell you all you need to know about how smart this deal is.
There were reports the team doubted they would be able to re-sign Perkins following this season, but frankly I think an 18th Championship would trump those concerns. Also, who knows how the NBA financial picture is going to look following the lockout (which is coming). Besides, Kendrick took a below-market deal last time and there are no indications he was going to demand a ludicrous deal, just closer to fair market value which, honestly, the team owed him. To trade him because of what might happen feels short-sighted. The Celtics biggest advantage going into the season was a glut of big men and in one day the Celtics shipped out their starting center, third center and third forward. There goes that advantage. Now they have to actively hope Shaquille and Jermaine O'Neal can come up big in June, two players who haven't been healthy at the same time yet this year. Awesome.
I'm also concerned about what this is going to do to team chemistry, which is crucial in basketball. It doesn't matter if two guys on a football team don't like each other, because that is two in a group of sixty. But, the small roster size makes it incredibly important in basketball and by all accounts this Celtics team really liked each other. Reports out of the locker room yesterday said Perk spent the day crying, the veterans were furious at the trade and Rajon Rondo (Perks best friend) was walking around in a zombie-like state all day. As such, it was no wonder they came out in a daze for last night's game in Denver, which they eventually lost. For a guy like Danny Ainge, who played a very long time in the league and should know how important chemistry is, to ignore something like that has me really concerned.
And that, I think, is the heart of why I don't like these moves: even though he put together a team that won a title, I still don't fully trust that Danny Ainge knows what he is doing. If you take a moment to think back through his tenure, it is a litany of bad drafts (Marcus Banks) and missed player signings. (Stephon Marbury, anyone?) Even the announcement that Ainge was taking over as President of the team was poorly-timed as he did it right before a critical playoff game where he announced major roster changes were coming (the Celtics lost that night). Basically, he's had the Allen trade (where he gave up the rights to Jeff Green) and the Garnett trade (which people still doubt he could have pulled off if a former teammate wasn't on the other end), and after those he was able to sit back and let the free agents come to him. I'll give him credit for acquiring all the young pieces needed to make those moves but much like I question how good Doc Rivers would be coaching a group of young players, I question if Danny would still be in the job without McHale to basically hand him KG.
Now, I'm not jumping ship and I'm sure the first time Green scores 25 point I'll be thrilled, but that doesn't mean I won't miss Perk as a player and a person. And if Dwight Howard scores 50 points on us after Shaq fouls out in 20 minutes during a big playoff game, Danny should expect to be flooded with 'I told you so' emails.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
You Use It? Then I Won't
Back in the day, it was very common to see companies use a big celebrity to hawk their product. The thinking was that ordinary people want to be famous actors and musicians, but also probably know that using the same skin care products is as close as they are going to get. And, for a while, this worked. However, as actors and musicians began to see being a spokesperson as an affront to their credibility, they became more and more reluctant to appear in commercials (at least in this country). Because no one wants to give an Oscar to the person who was selling detergent just a couple months back, being in commercials was seen as a career liability. As a result, the only people who were still willing to appear in commercials were less talented (because they had nothing to lose) and they were less credible. This is why today we have people like the Kardashians, whose only talent appears to be being themselves, selling products on infomercials.
The byproduct of actual celebrities being hesitant to appear in commercials lead to the evolution of product placement in movies. Sure, Tom Cruise the actor might not want to film a commercial for Mountain Dew, but Tom Cruise as Cole Trickle was more than happy to have his character drive a race car with a Mountain Dew logo on the front. To the company this was just as good as Tom Cruise filming the ad himself and they didn't even have to spend a day filming it. Everyone came out ahead. And, you know what? I was fine with that. I definitely preferred a movie character talking about how much they liked Pepsi to the new trend I see in commercials, which is to use un-named actors and make them the biggest jerks on TV.
There have always been jerks in commercials, but most of the time they are the antagonist, used only as a means to show how much better the people who used the specific product were. However, at some point it changed. The first one that springs to mind is this commercial for SoBe LifeWater which came out last year:
It appears the message of this commercial is that people who drink SoBe are douchebags. (And also big fans of LSD.) Um, I'm sorry, but who told you that would make anyone want to drink your water? I don't want anything in common with that guy.
Then, over the holidays, I saw this ad roughly 4,000 times:
It reminded me of an old Bill Cosby bit about people who smoked pot saying it enlarged their personalities. Cosby then wondered "Well, what would happen if you were an asshole? Wouldn't that just make you a bigger asshole?" That's what this commercial makes me think - people who have Sprint are rude, only through Sprint's network they can let people know just how rude they are faster than on Verizon. Not exactly a selling point, if you ask me.
Then, there is this one:
I hate this ad. HATE IT. And, because I watch the Golf Channel a lot, I have to deal with it constantly. The obnoxious guy didn't even hit the drive, making him all that more annoying. I don't want to use your golf balls, in fact I don't want to use anything associated with this commercial, I just want to take that man and beat him to death with a 9-iron.
Advertisers of the world, I beg of you: stop doing this. I don't know who started this trend, but I assure you there is a better way to sell your various products. Look at beer advertisements, they haven't changed since the beginning of time: fun party, hot girl, beer, end with a joke. Done. And if you can't afford a real celebrity to be in your ad, there has to be some once-famous actor who needs the money. I would rather see a Hilton sister trying to sell me golf equipment than that guy.
The byproduct of actual celebrities being hesitant to appear in commercials lead to the evolution of product placement in movies. Sure, Tom Cruise the actor might not want to film a commercial for Mountain Dew, but Tom Cruise as Cole Trickle was more than happy to have his character drive a race car with a Mountain Dew logo on the front. To the company this was just as good as Tom Cruise filming the ad himself and they didn't even have to spend a day filming it. Everyone came out ahead. And, you know what? I was fine with that. I definitely preferred a movie character talking about how much they liked Pepsi to the new trend I see in commercials, which is to use un-named actors and make them the biggest jerks on TV.
There have always been jerks in commercials, but most of the time they are the antagonist, used only as a means to show how much better the people who used the specific product were. However, at some point it changed. The first one that springs to mind is this commercial for SoBe LifeWater which came out last year:
It appears the message of this commercial is that people who drink SoBe are douchebags. (And also big fans of LSD.) Um, I'm sorry, but who told you that would make anyone want to drink your water? I don't want anything in common with that guy.
Then, over the holidays, I saw this ad roughly 4,000 times:
It reminded me of an old Bill Cosby bit about people who smoked pot saying it enlarged their personalities. Cosby then wondered "Well, what would happen if you were an asshole? Wouldn't that just make you a bigger asshole?" That's what this commercial makes me think - people who have Sprint are rude, only through Sprint's network they can let people know just how rude they are faster than on Verizon. Not exactly a selling point, if you ask me.
Then, there is this one:
I hate this ad. HATE IT. And, because I watch the Golf Channel a lot, I have to deal with it constantly. The obnoxious guy didn't even hit the drive, making him all that more annoying. I don't want to use your golf balls, in fact I don't want to use anything associated with this commercial, I just want to take that man and beat him to death with a 9-iron.
Advertisers of the world, I beg of you: stop doing this. I don't know who started this trend, but I assure you there is a better way to sell your various products. Look at beer advertisements, they haven't changed since the beginning of time: fun party, hot girl, beer, end with a joke. Done. And if you can't afford a real celebrity to be in your ad, there has to be some once-famous actor who needs the money. I would rather see a Hilton sister trying to sell me golf equipment than that guy.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
More Mid-Week Sporties
-Just one day after I used this space to complain about the New York Knicks taking 8 months to finalise a deal we all knew was coming, their cross-river neighbors, the New Jersey Nets, pulled off a huge deal with almost no warning or fanfare. They traded their starting point guard and power forward along with a couple of first-round draft picks to Utah for point guard Deron Williams. (Gut-reaction analysis: New Jersey gave up too much. I know Williams is a great point guard, but he's only effective when he has people who can score to pass to and the Nets don't have anybody that fits that description. It would be like me using all my savings to put a home theatre down at the beach house.) So, while I don't love the deal, I do love that they got it done in a day.
-What makes this deal extra interesting is that just a couple weeks ago longtime Utah coach Jerry Sloan quit the Jazz, reportedly over a power struggle with Williams. At the time both parties tried to downplay the fight, but if Sloan suddenly decides to come out of retirement it will go a long way to letting us know just how bad that fight really was. At the very least it tells me that Utah had decided Williams was not going to re-sign when his deal expired after next season. If that is the case you have to respect their decision to cut ties now, rather than go through what the Nuggets just went through with Carmelo Anthony.
-There are reports that the Sacramento Kings are threatening to relocate to Anaheim. This is too bad, because the Kings are one of those teams I root for as long as they aren't playing the Celtics. I pull for those teams in NBA-only cities. Plus, I don't think Southern California really needs three NBA teams, so I'd rather they stay put. However, if the Kings are absolutely going to move I would like to see them either go back to the city they left (Kansas City) or one of the other places that previously had NBA teams but couldn't sustain them because of ownership (Seattle or Vancouver). Sure, the TV markets are nearly as big, but at least they wouldn't be the smallest fish in an increasingly crowded pond.
-Speaking of Kansas City, Royals reliever Joakim Soria would like people to stop referring to him as 'The Mexicutioner' because he thinks the name is in bad taste considering the sweeping violence in his native Mexico. Well, I have good news for Soria: the name should be pretty easy to shake, because I have heard exactly zero people ever call him that. Also, the Royals have a pretty small fanbase and it's not a short nickname, so something tells they will only have to convince 10-15 people to call him something else.
-Last night the Caltech basketball team won their first conference game in 311 tries or, if you're the kind of person who prefers dates for perspective, 26 years. 310 straight conference losses is an amazing number, so here's my question: Every day dozens of collegiate sports teams (most of them better than this one) are cancelled in a move to save the school some money, so how has this team survived? I'm sure that no one expects Caltech to make a deep NCAA tournament run every year, but it's not like they are in the ACC either. They should have been able to steal a win at some point in the past two decades. I know basketball costs less than most sports, but you have to think the money used to send the Beavers to play other nerd-centric institutions would have been better spent on a particle accelerator or extra slide-rules.
-What makes this deal extra interesting is that just a couple weeks ago longtime Utah coach Jerry Sloan quit the Jazz, reportedly over a power struggle with Williams. At the time both parties tried to downplay the fight, but if Sloan suddenly decides to come out of retirement it will go a long way to letting us know just how bad that fight really was. At the very least it tells me that Utah had decided Williams was not going to re-sign when his deal expired after next season. If that is the case you have to respect their decision to cut ties now, rather than go through what the Nuggets just went through with Carmelo Anthony.
-There are reports that the Sacramento Kings are threatening to relocate to Anaheim. This is too bad, because the Kings are one of those teams I root for as long as they aren't playing the Celtics. I pull for those teams in NBA-only cities. Plus, I don't think Southern California really needs three NBA teams, so I'd rather they stay put. However, if the Kings are absolutely going to move I would like to see them either go back to the city they left (Kansas City) or one of the other places that previously had NBA teams but couldn't sustain them because of ownership (Seattle or Vancouver). Sure, the TV markets are nearly as big, but at least they wouldn't be the smallest fish in an increasingly crowded pond.
-Speaking of Kansas City, Royals reliever Joakim Soria would like people to stop referring to him as 'The Mexicutioner' because he thinks the name is in bad taste considering the sweeping violence in his native Mexico. Well, I have good news for Soria: the name should be pretty easy to shake, because I have heard exactly zero people ever call him that. Also, the Royals have a pretty small fanbase and it's not a short nickname, so something tells they will only have to convince 10-15 people to call him something else.
-Last night the Caltech basketball team won their first conference game in 311 tries or, if you're the kind of person who prefers dates for perspective, 26 years. 310 straight conference losses is an amazing number, so here's my question: Every day dozens of collegiate sports teams (most of them better than this one) are cancelled in a move to save the school some money, so how has this team survived? I'm sure that no one expects Caltech to make a deep NCAA tournament run every year, but it's not like they are in the ACC either. They should have been able to steal a win at some point in the past two decades. I know basketball costs less than most sports, but you have to think the money used to send the Beavers to play other nerd-centric institutions would have been better spent on a particle accelerator or extra slide-rules.
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