The Return of Stinky Ads!

Anyone who read a gaming magazine during the heydey of the SNES has (not so) fond memories of the print ads for Earthbound. The game was essentially a Japanese NES game that was ported to the SNES. Set in modern times, you ate hamburgers and drank sodas instead of taking health potions. Checking in barrels? Heck no. In the town of Onette you look in trash cans.

So, it was a wonderful game, but that ads for it literally stunk. Nasty, putrid smells. They're the stuff of legend on gaming message boards.

It seems that Microsoft has taken notice with their new print ads for Forza 2. Yes, these ads have a flap you can open, much like a perfume ad, and you get a smell. And not a pleasant one. I have no scanner, so I'm going to describe the ad here, and tell you to pick up an issue of EGM to experience it for yourself. Someone could send me a scan of it, and I'll post it here, but honestly, you've got to see (and smell) this for yourself. Honestly, having it sitting here on my desk is making me a little naseous.


We see a nice render of a sports car, with white lettering beneath it which reads 'There's only one thing tje game doesn't give you." And then you open the flap and see "The Smell. This is the scent produced by the Nissan Fairlady Z as it pulls away from the starting grid using 275/35-19 Toyo Proxes R888 racing tires inflated to 42 PSI"

I see complaints about the ad being in the letters section of just about every mag this ad runs in.

The funniest commercial I've seen all week.

It was for some local couch place, stating they were going out of business, so we should come in and take advantage of their deals because they were closing at 8pm.

The funny thing? It aired at 8:15pm.

You think the advertising guy at that place had something to do with their going out of business?

Mountain Dew... late to the party

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIgey9NLdhk

Have you seen this commercial?

I just saw it this evening, so it could be a little older, but I watch a fair bit of TV, so I think it's newish.

The set up has 2 kids watching a video they've made which has just recieved one million views. The video in question? An ostrich with a Chuck Norris head.

HOW FUNNY!

Wait... no... I meant:

HOW LATE!


Honestly, Chuck Norris jokes were at the peak popularity almost a year ago. Had this commercial come then it owuld have been timely and funny. I remember we were at a restuarant for a friend's birthday telling these jokes, and our waitress kicked in a few new ones from the list her supervisor had posted in the back.

I haven't made a Churck Norris joke in the longest time. This ad would have been better saved for the eventual resurgence that most fads have at one time or another.

Poor show Mountain Dew. Try and be a little more up on net culture. What's next, an "o rly" owl campaign?

Family Guy has revealed my pizza scam!

In the episode "Prick Up Your Ears" Mayor Adam West orders a pizza. When the pizza man comes, West opens the pizza box and goes "You brought me canadian bacon, and I wanted regular bacon!" and throws the pizza box down.


In college we would order two pizzas. One pepperoni and one canadian bacon. A few times the pizza place would send one with regular bacon. Then we would call them up, inform them of the mix up, and BAM! free pizza.

Well, Sony does ONE thing right.

And that is the ads for Ratchet and Klank. The commercials are all similar, just like the games. And also similar to the games, they're consistently good.


The current commercial is for the PSP version of the game. The kids are showing off the new shrink ray. It's a quasi-nightvision shot during a a camping trip. Four guys are gonna use the shrink ray so that the one guy can see the girls changing. They shrink him (a nice looking effect for a commercial) and as he makes a run for the girls' tent, an owl swoops down and steals him.


This is the clever advertising Sony needs. not the creepy anamatronic baby commercial from the PS3 launch.

Someone take an AXE to their marketing department!

I hate the current Axe commercial. Their commercials are pretty lowbrow, but this one is just... I'm suprised it's still on the air. I would have thought a feminist group would havescreamed to high heaven by now.

There are several versions of different length, but in general it's a mass of attractive women in bikini's swimming, running through a jungle, and hurdling over one another in an attempt to grap a man who is spraying two cans of Axe over himself. The camera zooms out to show the breathtaking scale of the stampeding women, and we're greeted with the new commercial's tag line "Spray more get more."

Spray more get more. Get more what? Women in general? Sex? I know it's purposely ambiguous, but come on, be a little more original in showing that this aerosol spray scent is going to get me more women.

LAME!
LAME!
LAME!

Can someone explain something to me about economics?

I'm an Accountant, so I have a better than average grasp of financial issues. One thing that continues to mystify me is how on one hand we are happy that consumer spending is up and then lament the negative savings rate.

If the savings rate has been negative for awhile now, wouldn't it seem that the only way consumer spending could go up is if savings continued to go negative.

We also wring our hands over the fact that the house-come-ATM market is going belly-up and the deplorable practices of Capital One, while depending on the money that comes from these sources.

We need to strike a balance between being able to make money as a business and protecting the individual (who is often too stupid to know better).