Super Bowl Preview: This Week's Ad List

No, I'm not going to make a bet on the Giants v. Pats game this Sunday. But I will be watching, cheering, drinking and eating -- and paying very close attention to what can be some of the best commercials of the year.

In case you were wondering just how much cash, money and problems goes into creating an ad for the big game, I'll break it down for you by the numbers:

$2.7 million: Average cost of a 30-second
ad to be shown during Sunday's Super Bowl

63: Number of 30-second spots scheduled. All are sold.

$275 million: Estimate of Fox's total ad revenue from the game and pre-and post-game shows.

So, on that note, you'd figure that the ad men would be on their GAME. These commercials should be nothing less than epic, right?

As we anxiously await what we hope are works of genius -- here's a sneak peek at one spot you'll be seeing in between beer bongs on Sunday. Pepsi has come out with a new commercial promoting "Pepsi stuff" featuring my man and your favorite -- Justin Timberlake.*

The last 5 seconds made me chuckle, and thus made it worthy for the ad of the week:







*Biggest regret of 2007: Not attending the FutureSexLove Concert at Madison Square Garden

Gchat: AIM for Adults?

Gchat: I love it. Life-saver at work, wayyyy cooler than AIM and a great way to have quick conversations with people over the course of the day. It's a sleek design -- no pop up boxes on your screen that get difficult to keep track of (or with scandalous messages that appear right when your boss approaches you at your desk.) There are no messy screen names with weird numbers and awkward capitalizations. Your name is pulled from your own gmail profile and usually appears as simply your first and last name, instead of something like: LiTtLeCutie95. (You know at least 5 people that had something like that in high school.) Not to mention the simple and clear, "boop!" that alerts you to a message.

When AIM was cool, we all had profiles. We had shout-outs to friends, quotes defining our existence and the anniversary date with whoever we were dating at the time. We had icons and images, links to photo albums or even a copied-and-pasted conversation with a friend that was, at the time, the "funniest shit since Jenny drove into a ditch."* I've noticed however, that the vast majority of my gchat list is not utilizing the "personalization" options that gmail provides, and I just don't get it.

First of all, you can upload a picture, so that when people mouse over your name on their chat list, an tiny thumbnail image pops up. Next, you can create "status messages," which again, pop up when a person mouses over your name and are even visible under your name in the chat column. In a generation obsessed with social networking and Facebook profiles, why wouldn't we want to also personalize our email accounts?

I've heard that gchat is the "adult AIM." It's a cooler and socially acceptable way to talk to friends, family and possible love interests. If this is the common consensus, I'm wondering if some guidelines about how to be a cool gchat user were created -- and I didn't get the memo. If they do exist, I would imagine that they would state that we're not supposed to have away messages describing our every move of the day or passive-aggressive quotes meant to demonstrate the mood we're in at any given time. And I guess we're not supposed to have pictures either -- it's not...adult?

Turns out, I don't wanna grow up. Not yet at least. I love putting up a photo next to my gchat name and I really love using my "status message" capabilities. I put up links to articles, YouTube videos and sometimes even cryptic quotes that I find entertaining or poignant. This could all be very college of me -- but is that really a bad thing?


*This quote was either in my profile or used as one of my away messages for 6 years. And yes, it's still funny.

This Week's Ad List

I'm a sucker for smart advertising. I work for a company that is famous for the PSAs it produces, so when I see the creative stuff out there, I just want to scream from the rooftops that I love great commercials. You wouldn't believe the effort, money and time that goes into making a :30 second or :15 second spot. Since I know what happens behind the scenes, I'm that guy that watches commercials and if they're any good, I want to know what ad agency was behind them, go to their office and give them a high five.

There have been two ads getting a fair amount of air time that I just need to highlight. One is just sweet, the other gives me goose bumps.

1. UPS Whiteboard: These spots were directed by Errol Morris, a documentarian who dabbled in the world of commercials. The man that mesmerizes us all by drawing insanely perfect lines on a white board is Andy Azula, and he's actually the creative director on the campaign. And I just think that's awesome. Azula went into UPS and storyboarded out the commercial -- and that's the actual ad you see on television. Andy, I salute you.

2. Nike's "Become Legendary": Bad. Ass. This ad comes from the very hip and talented agency, Wieden + Kennedy. If you don't want to strap on a pair of Air Jordans and follow your dreams after seeing this spot, you have no heart.

So Hot Right Now

You surf the web at work. Seriously, don't try to lie about it. You put random names and words into that little white search box, and bring up some trash on Perez Hilton or check the line on the game that night. While doing so, have you ever wondered, what is everyone else searching for?

Google, being the masterminds that they are, figured out a way to tell you. It's been up since May 2007, but if you haven't seen it yet, check out their Hot Trends feature that shares the "hottest" searches in real time. For each trend you click on, up comes news articles, blog posts and web links relevant to the topic.

Why is this useful? Well, first of all, who wants to be left out of the search party?! Come on now! And second, if you're a serious blogger or web master, it's smart to see what people want to read about, in case you can add that topic to your website and optimize the shit out of it.

Other uses:
- Cocktail party : Go onto Hot Trends, see what everyone is interested in and read up on it. You'll never have an awkward silence or find yourself giving a response like, "Oh, there's just so much I can say about that I don't know where to start." (Because you have no idea what you're talking about.)
- The Watercooler: Because of the writers strike, I literally have nothing to say to my coworkers anymore. This might help.
- Gchat: Because you might just be that bored.
- First Date: Because after telling you about stocks and derivatives and sleeping in a bed strewn with $100 bills, even investment bankers have time to surf the web.

Thanks, Elizabeth

I love quotes. There's something about profound statements made by people who aren't necessarily famous, but have some influence over culture or society in the slightest way that really get me thinking like a deep, introverted poetry major. I read an article on Gawker media recently on the the online journal, N+1, and it had this great quote from the former editor and writer of Gawker.com, Elizabeth Spiers . She said:

“I think it’s actually easier to write about Manhattan if you’re an outsider. The absurdities, in particular, are much more apparent. The darker Manhattan-centric themes—class warfare as a recreational sport; pathological status obsession; and the complete, total, and wholly unapologetic embrace of decadence—are much more fascinating to us.”

I re-read it a bunch of times. Made it my gchat status message, and thought about what it meant the rest of the morning. And that's when I started to write.