Microsoft to abandon Gates/Seinfeld ads

It appears Microsoft has come to its senses and is abandoning the line of ads featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. Maybe this time around they can remember to actually make ads that tell you something about the product.

Some unforgettable advertisements

I create ads everyday, but nothing like this.  I suspect most of these ads were not in the US, which makes me wonder why that is.  Nonetheless, enjoy the ads.

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Do the "Men as Buffoons" ads really sell anything?

I posted a commentary late last year about how sick I am of seeing only ads that portray men as idiots and bad fathers. Inevitably, over and over, advertisers show men as the buffoon of the family, requiring the mother or child to come to his rescue when he partakes in some idiocy of the masculine kind. Every once in a while would not be a problem - we men certainly have our foibles - but it is by far the dominant paradigm in advertising nowadays.

But now, it appears advertisers are finally taking notice. Ad Age has up this article which calls for more positive portrayals of men in advertising.

While the advertising industry's negative depiction of fathers certainly isn't the cause of fatherlessness, it is part of the problem. In a TV culture like ours, the fact that the only fathers one can see on TV are buffoonish (at best) does influence young people's perceptions of fathers.

For young men, it makes it less likely they'll aspire to be fathers, see their own value as fathers or, as Mr. Pitts explains, want to do the "hard but crucial work of being Dad." For young women, it means they'll be more likely to be misled into thinking that their children's fathers aren't important, that divorce or separation from them is no big deal, or that they should, as is the increasing trend, simply dispense with dad altogether and have children on their own.

Here is hoping that this gains some momentum and we see more ads showing men as engaged, competent fathers. It can only help our society remember that fathers are important, and men should strive to be the best men and fathers they can be.

This is for CRChair and Ward

"Wanna dance? Maybe later?"

Let the mud slinging commence

The Log Cabin Republicans have decided that they don't like Mitt Romney. Why exactly is unclear other than he's for a marriage amendment, which would effectively end many in their organization's quest to get married. Nonetheless, they've decided that in order to get their point across - that Romney is a bad bad man and a flip flopper - they're going to start running a negative ad using his words from.... wait for it.... wait for it... 1994 as an indication of how bad a candidate he is.

I've stated before that I don't plan on voting for Mr. Romney, but I still think this is a bad move. I'd like to see the day when PACs aren't allowed to run advertisements on candidates because they generally end up being negative and destructive rather than helpful in any way - as this stunt shows along with anything MoveOn.org has done and the Swiftboaters from the last presidential election and numerous other examples. But on a completely different level, Romney has answered all these charges months ago. Why is it necessary to bring this up again? It just seems childish to me.

This one is for CRChair

The second half is MUCH funnier than the first half, in my ever-so-humble opinion.