Forever 21® lets their models be themselves.

The screenshot above is from Forever 21 - distributor of generally cool clothes.  Generally.

But, they also seem to be decent folk.  Or their Art Director is a lazy POS.

Ok - imagine you're a "Male Model" and you get the call - "Work!"

Immediately, visions of food - glorious food! - and gas and at last, a little cash for somethin' special like a toothbrush - spring to mind.  You don't think, you just GO!

The card says, "Forever 21," the people at the door seem friendly, the Assistant Art Director offers some coffee - glorious coffee! - and you're led into a dressing room with... "Sketched Floral Tank top."

Suddenly, you feel scammed.  "I gotta wear...THIS?!" And those skinny jeans feel just a little bit tight.  Paycheck's are overrated.

"NEXT!"

And POOF!  A few flashes, a few poofs of foundation and there you are, signing the freaking talent release.

WTH?!

Yep.  WTH, indeed.  Just look at that face - he's speakin' to the bro's back under the overpass - "Dude. I like...hate this gig.  But tonight, Micky D's on me!"

SALUTE mail model.  And DOUBLE salute to you lazy Art Director for letting the poor guy show us how he really feels about that gawd-awful tank top.

The rats have left Syria, leaving only the Amateurs.

The photo above came from the Syrian news agency, SANA.  It's part of a "story" on how Iran and Syria stand in solidarity bromance with each other in light of Syria's civil war.

On the right is Saeed Jalili, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

On the left is Bashar Assad, Syrian President.

In the middle is evidence that anyone with Art Direction skills have left the country.  The choice of furniture, background and strange, unarticulated poses are baffling - the scene is screaming, "Something awkward is going to happen any second!"


"Would you like a piece of pie?"

"Why yes!  I would like a piece of pie!"

or

"I am sorry."

"No problem!  We fart in our country, too!"

or

"I have an original Boba Fett action figure in mint packaging."

"Oh really now!..."

Would it have been that much trouble to stand out on a balcony and hold their clasped hands up high in celebration?   Or AT LEAST, put them in the back of a convertible and drive around the parking lot..

Instead, those that would NORMALLY be all Ga Ga about this glorious moment don't even get to the propaganda itself - they're stopped cold by the photo, cluck their tongues and smarm,  "Geez!  Look at those two dorks."

Say what you want about them Fascists - they sure knew how to cut a Photo Shoot.

Inside Kristen Stewart's mind - the echo is deafening.

The graphic above is a screen-shot from somewhere inside today's Foxnews.com site.  It's an article from the ironically named "Dr. Keith Ablow."

Aside from having an outrageously funny headline... I had this visual of walking alone in a vast desert, the crunch of dried, cracked dirt underfoot and nothing but endless vista before me.

Aside from being poorly written... Here's the rule, Doc; if you post a picture of yourself with a blue power tie, you can't do "stream of consciousness."  I can.  But I wear hipster glasses, know the best wine for less than $6 a bottle and listen to indie music.  You, good sir, are bald and old.  Ick.

Aside from being a horrifying waste of time...

This article IS a brilliant example of how our news and information is being delivered peddled to us in this fantastic digital era.

"If Kristen Stewart is like the hundred people who have shared their personal, intimate thoughts with me..."

Oh sweet jeebus on a stick - this whole thing is an ef-fing AD!  And a crappily-written one, too.  I can find a hundred people to share their personal, intimate thoughts at the local soup kitchen.  And the keyword-laced copy reeks of correspondence-course SEO.

So.  Doc.  If you want to build a brand, there are a hundred ways to do it better than riding the coat-tails of a young woman who just wants to sleep her way up the flagpole.

In the meantime:

Kristen Stewart Robert Pattinson Obama Romney duel against Martian Aliens in 2012 against Syrian Forces breaking up global warming with Doctor Oz and Nate Berkus riding Oprah Winfrey's Kristen Stewart mind at Chick-fil-A gay homosexual chicken restaurants with late airline arrivals at all time highs to be attacked by Great White Sharks and Miley Cyrus may be pregnant with lucifer's step child.

There.  That should get me a bajillion hits.

It's good. But the GREATEST?!?!

The graphic above is a web-ad for AccuQuote.  They sell life insurance.  Apparently.

It's not a bad ad in terms of layout and design.  It's not great, though.  But that's not the point.  The point here is the Reach of the headline,  "The greatest gift I can ever give my family is life insurance."

Really?  I think the greatest gift the family can give the woman in-question is a trip to an Intervention as she's obviously about to do something stupid.  As in "terminal."  Why else would someone say such  hollow thing?

"Mom, can you play?"

"No honey."

"Teach me about life and stuff?"

"No honey."

"Help me with my coloring?"

"No honey.  I'm preparing to do something even better.   How about $500,000 payable on death?"

"Yay!"

Who are AccuQuote trying to reach?!  Clearly their market are the shallow, vacuous and totally-removed from reality.

I can see the train of mourners walking past the casket, all-smiles... each pauses, smiles and whispers, "Thank you."

Weird.

You know what's UN-FAIR?!?

The ad above is from the "Un-fair" campaign running in Duluth, Minnesota.

Near as I can tell - besides generating a ton of publicity of the city of Duluth, Minnesota - it's supposed to make White people feel guilty because they're better than Black, Yellow, Brown or Green people.

I'm really trying to wrap my brain around this one - but I just...can't...quite...reason... bah!  I give up.  This must be how it feels to sniff glue.

Look.  I hate being a whitey of European descent.  I got no blues, my language is impossible to master, I like Buicks and my idea of egg rolls get baked in an oven.  And they're pizza flavor to boot.

Sometimes, the self-loathing is so bad, all I eat is Wonderbread, Swiss Cheese and Mayo.  Washed down with Chablis.

Plus, Fonzie was white.  And he was short!  (I hate tall people, btw.  They can reach stuff I can only dream about).  UN-FAIR.

Bah.

Dumb, dumb ad.  The equivalent of crying Fire in a crowded room then trying to rationalize the discontent by explaining, "Aren't you glad it wasn't real?!"

In the meantime, I just watched the clip below...RUN!  RUN!  To Canada!  Or Sweden!

A brand so powerful, it's not even necessary.

The picture above is stuff  "Thing Three" swishes around in her mouth before spitting it out on floor, wall, mirror and sink.

Does it have a name?  Well, it does but apparently, the product name is not that important.  What IS important are these four things:

A.  The color blue
B.  Spongebob®
C. The words: Anticavity Kids
D. Saving 55 cents

Back in my day, Brands were developed to align a particular product to a particular customer.  For example, "Choosey mothers choose JiF Peanut Butter."  Only careful, fussy and quality-focused moms would buy JiF.

I remember looking up from my plate of burnt meatloaf and randomized place setting (I didn't see a two identical milk glasses until I left for Reform School) and having the epiphany,  "Ahhh!  That's why we buy Skippy peanut butter!  Mom just isn't the choosey type!"

Today?  I guess all that work on product naming, brand development and advertising isn't needed.  People will figure it out on their own.

But I have to say this - if my wife called me up to "...pick up some Blue Spongebob Anticavity Kids with a coupon" I know exactly what she wants.   But if she said, "...pick up some Act*." I'd probably reply, "What's wrong with the act I'got?!"

Anyway, it's summer - time to plan my:

A. Blue
B. William Shatner
C. Fighting
D. Cheap

But the Fam calls it "Vacation."

*I confess.  I peeled the coupon and discovered ACT® Anti-cavity rinse.  But I stuck the coupon back on so no one would confuse it with Windex®.

Sweet JIMMINY!

Gawd, I live in a box.  And I'm so grateful.

Two days ago, sitting in the MSP Westin, my TV-deprived kids found this.

"Daddy?!  Is this why we're home schooled?!"

"Partly."

I'm happy to say, I once was blissfully unaware of "Sweet Genius" from The Food Network.

Now?  I'm scarred for life.  Bald gay guys with undeterminable accents freaked "The Fam" totally out... my 6 year old remains attached to the headliner of our minivan, held against gravity by the clenched grip of her little fingers...

Look.

I don't care if he's bald.

I don't care if he's gay.

I don't care if he can't speak in proper Minnesotan.

What I DO CARE about is the way he dismisses his minions to create "Sweet Genius!" food items via  ridiculous props (a conveyor belt and a big-red button?) and stupifying commands.  "Darkness!"

"You will use...mahshmallooos...und.... bacon fat!  And yo'ah eensparayshun?!  Eet iss... A HAMMER!"

I call BS.  For the past ten years, my wife has been blowing this poor goofball AWAY by making dinner out of stuff like American cheese, used green tea bags, 85% hamburger and saltines.

Her "eensparashun?!"   The fifteen minutes between finished-with-homework and dance-class-and-cub-scouts.

Reality TV sucks.

HyVee Hexagons. Cutting...corners??

The picture above is from HyVee, a regional grocery powerhouse.  It's their house brand of Geometric gobbles - "Crispy Hexagons."

Back in the day, when companies were fat & rich,  "Marketing" and Intellectual Property (IP) attorneys lived large.  Names like Cheerios®, Kix® and Post Toasties® melded mouth and market-share.

Today however, money is tight.  Brand building takes time.  And everyone knows, all the really GOOD names (like music) were minted in the '60s.  Except Boo Berry®.

Anyway, I'm not holding my breath that anyone anywhere is saying, "Ya know what's just as good as Crispix® but fifty cents cheaper?  Hexagons.  The crispy ones..."

Or in my house, "Mah-oOOm, Kelsey ate all the HEXAGONS!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"I hate Hexagons!"

"That's why you're stupid in Math!"

"Mah-oOOM! Paul's being mean!"

Oh - note to Art Director...you used an OCTAGONAL bowl!  Psssh.

I'm sooo looking forward for corporate profits again.

I want my money back, Chevy.

The spot above is from a Chevy campaign.  It's designed to be a take-off of the once-popular show, "The Office."  It's a well produced, well acted, well directed bit of video.

But it sucks as a television commercial for a car company.

Why do ad-people do this crap?  And by "this crap" I mean this kind of oblique creative that has nothing to do with the product or the customer virtues...but instead, placates a Director's "vision"???

Catch a clue - American car companies have been RUN OVER by the Japanese, the Germans, the Koreans...and now FIAT, (Fix It Again Tony) is trying to come back to the U.S. car market.

And why are these OTHER nations' car companies so successful?  Because our car companies SUCK.  So much so that the fat cat 1%'ers had to show up in Washington D.C. a couple years ago and ask for a loan.  From you & me.

And them furriners make better cars, too.

Instead, we get high-concept barf like this - making dealers look ridiculous, not talking about the product and comparing themselves to a show that casts a cynical pal across the typical workplace.

Grrr.

We're not teaching (I mean ad schools, mentors, etcs) the Craft any more.  Instead, I get the impression that the next crop of Ad People are simply frustrated Lucas's who realize they'll never make Star Wars.  Instead, commercials will do.

Ok, Chevy.  Gimme $15K and I'll make you a kick ass commercial.

You're not listening.

And that's why I drive Mazdas, Porsches and Hondas.

"Where we goin' honey?"

The spot above is for Nissan.  They're launching "5 All-New Models."

And they're driving blind.

Yeah, I get the subtleties - Nissan is proud of their new models but can't quite release the details so they build the buzz by showing busy Americans sparked by the promise of New.

"Gary?  I got it!  This is what we do.  We keep our Media up by showing the cars we can't show...draped...by...a cloth!  And we'll show the good Folk seeing them drive by...reassured by the promise of all-things-Nissan!"


"Approved.  Now, getting back to your request for time-off next Tuesday...!"

Except.

If you & me (good Folk that we are) saw a car driving down the block draped in white cloth we'd call 911.  The imaginative among us might shout, "THE DEAD!  THEY DRIVE!"  But for the most part, we'd freak out - not smirk approvingly like the Talent did.

Look.  Driving cars that are wholly draped through neighborhoods is not exactly cheap.  I bet it cost Nissan at least $900 in extra animation time...at least I think so.  Gawd-forbid they did that for real.

But the lame creative tells me two things.  1.  Nissan didn't bring their A-team in on the 5-new-car-Creative.  2.  Nissan didn't ask their legal team the ramifications of showing their cars riding through suburbia cloaked in white sheets.

So.

Did you see the Mazda spot?