Guest Critic

The Holy Grail is still out there. Nobody found it this month. In other words, there was nothing startlingly new. Watching the reel was pretty much like watching TV with my TiVo turned off. Some good and some not-so-good spots. Also, a couple that made me want my TiVo on again. Overall, it was a smattering of styles and genres we know. First up: People in bear suits. Overused? Yes. Fresh? Well ... yes, actually. The Three Bears return to their über-modern Hollywood Hills spread to find that someone has been sitting in their chairs, eating their porridge and sleeping in their beds. After a moment of panic they run out to their garage where Mama and Papa's Hummers are still in their berths, but Baby's Hummer—the new baby Hummer—is missing. Nice touch with the "road kill" sign on the wall. Cut to smirking blonde driving stolen Hummer. Proof that "funny" when done right can fit within and even add a new, appealing dimension to a brand personality. Wit is a great humanizer. Seeing Hummer not take itself too seriously makes me like them and forget, for a nanosecond, that they get about 3 miles a gallon. A big bear hug to the client who didn't say, "… but a baby bear? That isn't consistent with the tough-ass positioning of our product … could it be a teenager bear?"Next: Real bears. A hiker stumbles upon a big, scary grizzly and freezes. The hiker and the spot are saved when the bear ambles over, embraces and licks the terrified guy, because, we learn, he supports nature by buying Minnesota State Lottery tickets. This spot is a welcome change from the usual crass I'm-gonna-win-money-and-buy-cars-mansions-andget-hot-babes lottery advertising. The message allows the lottery-ticket buyer to feel like he's doing something nice for the world, of course, while he's out there trying to win money for cars, mansions and boatloads of hot babes.Black Guy Jive Talk That White Guy Doesn't Understand. Mr. Iacocca, with all due respect, maybe you should re-retire. Rousing Sports Tribute. Nike's well-executed paean to passion for sport—in this case soccer—is another in its ongoing series of sometimes more inventive tributes. The spot springboards off a simple unused truth, which is America's on-again-off-again relationship with soccer. The commercial succeeds at capturing that notion and would definitely make me feel charged up about playing soccer if I was already into it or if I was just starting. Through nice crafting, it achieves another result: chills, which, after all, is the high we all want from sports. Animation. We now depart from the emotional high ground and get trivial. A simple animated series from Yahoo! promotes music downloads for $5. In one, a spaceship keeps appearing over musicians playing different styles of music. Using a ray, the ship sucks them up and takes them away. Finally, we see a lederhosen-clad accordion player. The ship hovers over him and then blasts him. It's cliché and predictable, but seeing Germans or Swiss or whatever disintegrated is still kind of funny. For a pool-out, how about a Frenchman?Lastly, a fresh approach comes from the producer of cotton and, usually, of pretty ordinary advertising fare. A woman in her 20s walks past a series of stores with names like Clothes for Work, Clothes for Play and Clothes That Get You Hired. Finally, she pauses in front of Clothes That Get You Fired, and goes in. Smart strategy. All of Cotton's previous work has been pretty sappy and fluffy. Fashion isn't fluffy. It has hard edges. It's naughty. Not just nice. Bad girl. Good commercial.

Brand Marketing

Guest Critic

Arthur Bijur

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Arthur Bijur