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Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Industry, Commercials, Reality-Free
Advertisers are starting to bail on the controversial CBS drama Swingtown.
This is predictable, if a little confusing. What exactly did the advertisers think they were sponsoring? (In the case of Dannon Yogurt, actually no - they just bought rotating advertising on CBS and didn't know when their ads would appear.) When they were told the show was about swapping, did they think it was recipes? And isn't the show on at 10 PM and come with a warning at the beginning? Proctor & Gamble won't advertise on the show at all.
Continue reading Advertisers starting to bail on Swingtown
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Filed under: OpEd, Commercials, Reality-Free
Digg has noticed a case of really unfortunate ad placement for Hotels.com during an ABC news cast. Right after a commercial airs touting the hotel bargains at the site, a news report begins about how Hotels.com users are at risk for credit card fraud.Continue reading Ad placement gone wrong - VIDEO
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Filed under: Video, Commercials, Reality-Free
Let's do a little "Whatever happened to..."
Commercials can be a really strong jump start for memories and nostalgia. In fact, I think they can sometimes trigger a certain feeling in us even more than TV shows because they were repeated 700 times when we kids and we remember them strongly, even though we don't see them any longer.
After the jump we catch up with three classic commercial icons from the 80s. One famous for swinging a hammer, one famous for getting confronted by his dad, and one famous for fishing.
Continue reading Brought To You By ... - VIDEOS
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Filed under: Video, Commercials, Celebrities, Retro Squad, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Reality-Free
Our pals over at AOL have a fun new list up featuring their picks for the Top 25 ad icons of all time. As with any list, you can debate the results. I'll not spoil the list for you, but my pick was bumped all the way down to number nine. I bring it up here for two reasons. First, it's a fun trip down memory lane watching all of the old commercials. Seeing a young David Naughton singing and dancing about Dr. Pepper, or David Leisure pitching for Isuzu, is certainly a better use of your time than anything your boss had planned for today.
More importantly, given that this is Buffy week, a familiar face pops up on the list -- it's the one and only Anthony Stewart Head. If you're not of the Hanna Montana generation, you probably recall the series of spots for Nescafe from years gone by. They featured an ongoing story about a couple, Head and Sharon Maughan, tracing their relationship. It had all the classic bits. There was another woman, jobs getting in the way of their courtship, and even a Three's Company-style misunderstanding that gave him all the wrong ideas. In the end ... well, you can watch it all unfold, after the jump.
Continue reading Iconic ads ... and Giles - VIDEO
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Filed under: Industry, OpEd, House, Daytime, Family Guy, Commercials, Game Show, Talk Show, Upfronts, Reality-Free
TV syndication upfront ad sales are brisk, with syndicators expected to sell higher levels of ad inventory, similar to the broadcast networks. Continue reading Syndication Ads: Are we hooked on Big Macs, Cheetos and Drugs?
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Filed under: Commercials, Reality-Free
Have you ever noticed that men are often the butt of jokes on television? Whether it's the goofy, lazy husband on sitcoms or the incompetent, oversexed guy on TV commercials, men are often shown in a bad light (I know, I know, woman only make 70 cents for every $1.00 a man makes, but it's almost Father's Day so let's talk about this, OK?). AskMen.com has a list of the 10 worst male-bashing commercials on television.
Continue reading Ten commercials male-bashers will love
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Filed under: Commercials, Web, Reality-Free
TV viewers will remember the series of commercials that featured the animated law enforcement icon McGruff The Crime Dog, the ones that told us to "take a bite outta crime." He now has a blog.
Yup, the crime-solving (or crime-preventing) canine takes his paws and taps out blog entries for the kids to read, handing out advice about safety, health, and life in general. You can also read stories on how McGruff became a crime dog (he used to hang out at the local police station and listen to cop stories and asked cops how he could help - the cops said "what's a dog going to do to fight crime?" - I guess a talking dog was OK but a talking dog that fought crime was completely unrealistic) and play McGruff games.
Continue reading McGruff the Crime Dog has a blog (E-I-E-I-O)
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Filed under: Industry, Programming, Commercials, Reality-Free
Sure, we always talk about NBC, how they are usually fourth in the ratings and and they don't give shows a chance and they show Deal Or No Deal way too many times, but they are number one in one important area: selling ad time for this fall.
The network has already sold $1.9 billion (yes, that's with a B, as in Bionic Woman) of advance advertising sales for this fall's prime time schedule. And they did this even though they didn't do a regular upfront and didn't have pilots to show. That's $100 million more than they did last year.
Continue reading NBC is number one (in ad sales)
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Filed under: Industry, Family Guy, Commercials, Reality-Free
The relationship between the viewer and the network is one that requires a delicate balance. As the numbers for DVR penetration continue to climb, it's pretty clear that a great many of us are successfully dodging more and more commercial breaks. And the networks continue to push back, trying different things to get eyeballs on ads. Some are merely annoying. For instance, as much as I like both Kyra Sedgwick and The Closer, I'm annoyed every time Brenda walks out of the corner of my screen while I'm watching another show on TNT.
While that one is annoying, this latest adventure from TBS crosses a line. During an episode of Family Guy (video after the jump), Bill Engvall walks out on the screen, much like the Brenda spots for The Closer. The difference is that Bill holds up a remote and actually pauses the episode before heading into his pitch for his show. When he finishes, he unpauses the show, which runs for two more seconds before going to the regular commercial break. Please, if it's not too much trouble, strap on your sturdiest combat boots and join me in sending a theoretical kick to the crotch of anyone at TBS that didn't think this was the dumbest idea since starting everything at five minutes past the hour.
Continue reading TBS pauses a show for a commercial - VIDEO
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Filed under: OpEd, Commercials, Reality-Free
Sex and the...carpool lane? That's what TBS is going for with their new microseries, Commuter Confidential, debuting Monday, June 2, during the sanitized Sex and the City at 11 p.m. EST. Continue reading TBS: Sex and the Carpool Lane?
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Filed under: Video, Commercials, Retro Squad, Reality-Free
Back in 1987, the cast of M*A*S*H had a reunion featuring cast members from all eleven seasons of the show. Now, before you go searching the Internet for this show that you apparently missed, the reunion wasn't part of any television special. In reality, the reunion of eight of the shows ten main cast members was on a series of commercials for the new IBM PS/2.
You remember the PS/2, don't you? It was IBM's answer to take back the PC market from companies like Apple and Commodore. In order to get the word out about this breakthrough in personal computer technology, IBM scrapped the "Little Tramp" character they had been using since 1981 in favor of putting the M*A*S*H actors into a white-collar, corporate setting. About a half-dozen commercials were produced featuring Harry Morgan, Gary Burghoff, Loretta Swit, Wayne Rogers, Larry Linville, William Christopher, and Jamie Farr. Like in M*A*S*H, Harry Morgan was the boss, Burghoff was the assistant, and Linville was the guy no one really liked. Eventually, Alan Alda, who was under contract with Atari around that time, joined the ad campaign as well.
After the jump you'll see four commercials that were made to promote the PS/2.
Continue reading The cast of M*A*S*H goes corporate - VIDEOS
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Filed under: Industry, Programming, Video, Commercials, Reality-Free
One of the many problems facing broadcasters as we move into the future is the proliferation of DVRs and their fantastic ability to allow people to blow right through all of those bill paying commercials. In the continuing effort to thwart quick fingered viewers, networks are turning to live commercials.
The idea being that the live commercial offers something different enough that it will be worth your time, while your 300th viewing of Cisco welcoming you to the human network no longer even registers. The New York Times has a good article on how this latest incarnation of what is a very old idea is being implemented. They talk about spots that Kimmel and Leno have done and also give a peak at Spike's plans for a live three-minute game show that would run during commercial breaks.
Continue reading Will live commercials slow your FFWD finger? - VIDEOS
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Filed under: Sports, Industry, Commercials, Reality-Free
Invented a new product that you'd like to pitch to millions of sports fans? Think you could pack all your thoughts into one second? Got a hundred thousand dollars kicking around?
Didn't think so.
According to Reuters, NBC (they're airing Super Bowl XLIII in Jan. '09) is expected to announce that the starting rate for a 30-second spot during the big game will be $3 million. Wow. That factors out to a hundred grand per second. Last year's going rate was a mere $2.7 million.
While I'm sure this comes as no surprise (I mean, c'mon - the rates jump every year, don't they?) to the big companies known for their Super Bowl commercials (think Budweiser, Coke, Pepsi, Fed Ex, etc.), it still makes you wonder how some of these smaller random companies can afford it. Every year there's some new Internet start-up you've never heard of and they'll end up having one of the most talked about commercials - like GoDaddy.com from a few years ago. It just seems like a real gamble. Rather than put all of your footballs in one field (eggs in a basket, get it?), I would think that spreading your money over numerous smaller ad campaigns would make more sense.
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Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Saturday Night Live, Video, Commercials, Web, Reality-Free
TV commercials are fairly easy to satirize. If you think about it, advertising is sort of ridiculous in the first place (a TV show is interrupted to ask you to buy toilet paper and gum?), so they're a natural for parody. There have been a lot of great parodies over the years, from shows such as Saturday Night Live and SCTV, and now Nerve has picked the 50 that they consider to be the best.
There are a lot of great choices, from SNL's "Colon Blow," "Schmitt's Gay Beer," and "Compulsion by Calvin Klein" to the Zoloft ad from Mad TV. One of my favorites is SNL's "Happy Fun Ball" spot, which was written by Jack Handey and included in his new book of essays What I'd Say To The Martians. It's a good list all around, though it's also one that I feel is missing a bunch of good ones, only I can't put my finger on which ones are missing at the moment.
The one they pick as number one is undoubtedly a classic, though I think it's overrated. I've always loved the one after the jump.
Continue reading Nerve picks the best TV commercial parodies - VIDEO
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Filed under: Industry, Commercials, Retro Squad, Reality-Free
Television ads aren't fun anymore. There's a sameness to them: the fast edits, the young bodies, the deep-voiced announcers who all sound alike. And, with the advent of TiVo and the DVR, most of them are just a blur to us as we fast-forward from the end of one scene to the beginning of another. You would have to go all the way back to the days just around the advent of the personal VCR to find entertaining commercials that featured characters and slogans that would stick in your brain.
Rebbecca Brown just went back to the '70s. By culling the parents' garage known as the Internet, Brown was able to put together 10 memorable ads from the decade of Watergate, leisure suits and the 8-track cassette. If you were around during that decade you will remember most, if not all, of the ads that Brown picked.
Continue reading Ten memorable ads of the '70s
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Filed under: Video, Commercials, Reality-Free
Ahhh, the weekend. A glorious time when the prospect of burning some daylight watching sit-com stars from the 80s rap seems perfectly reasonable. Especially if it's so frickin' cold it's snowing outside. Seriously, why am I getting snowed on in April?
Anyway, one of my friends sent along a link to a post by Benner on a blog called Touch. It features videos of a bunch of old commercials that use rap to try and sell you on one thing or another. You have the classic: D.J. Fred and M.C. Barney for Fruity Pebbles, the strange: Jennifer Love Hewitt in a commercial for bread, and the cringe-worthy: Larry Bird raps for Converse. Finally, there's the awesome: a promo for ABC Wednesday featuring the casts of Perfect Strangers and Head Of The Class. That one is embedded after the jump. Follow the read link for Benner's post and the rest of the videos.
Continue reading Weekend Time Sink - Vintage rap from Balki - VIDEO
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Filed under: Industry, Programming, Commercials, Reality-Free
Advertising is everywhere on TV and online, and not merely in the form of traditional commercials. Most of us are used to viewing ads before watching online videos, and product placement can even be humorous if done properly (30 Rock does it particularly well). Can the partnership between advertising and entertainment go too far, though?
NBC Universal is joining forces with an advertising agency on a new venture: product-centered programming. The network's Digital Studio will work with the Omnicom Group to create several series that focus on the products of participating sponsors. These programs will air on NBC's "digital properties" (websites, for example.).
Continue reading NBC Universal to collaborate with ad agency
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Filed under: OpEd, Video, Commercials, Reality-Free
Let's talk about cereal commercials (again).
I thought of all of the cereal commercials we've had over the years after seeing the latest ads for Fiber One. Yes, to answer your question, that is Kate and Allie's Fred Koehler playing the store clerk who calls the manager over after the customer has a question about the lack of twigs in his cereal (that's Koehler with Johnathon Schaech). At first I thought to myself, "why is he doing cereal commercials instead of TV shows and movies?," but then I figured, hey, we all have to pay the bills, and Fiber One cereal is good! I just saw a sequel to the ad that features new Fiber One/Yoplait Yogurt and in it you see Kathryn Joosten, a great actress who played Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing and Mrs. McCluskey on Desperate Housewives and...well, a million other roles. So it's actually very cool to see them doing this stuff along with their many other roles.
Continue reading Brought To You By ... - VIDEOS
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Filed under: Sports, Daytime, Video, Commercials, Reality-Free
Did you know that baseball players are big-time soap opera fans? It's true. All that time they spend hanging out in the clubhouse during the day, they have the soaps playing in the background. Not all, but a lot. That said, it'll be interesting to see if the same things that sell soaps -- the drama, the relationships, the never-ending stories -- work for ESPN in selling their Fantasy Baseball League. They're calling the series of commercials "Endless Drama."Continue reading ESPN turns to the soaps to sell fantasy baseball - VIDEO
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Filed under: Industry, Animation, Commercials, Cancellations
Two items of interest this week...
Warner Brothers Animation is confirming that this will be the last season for the Legion of Super Heroes, as production has halted for the Kids WB! series. There will be three more episodes of the series, with two of them being part of the series finale that will air sometime later this year. Replacing this series, on someplace other than Kids WB!, which ends its run this season, will be a new program entitled Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Whether this show will replace the current The Batman series, or where this show will air, has yet to be determined.
Continue reading Animation Update: Legion of Super Heroes, Ben 10
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Filed under: Video, Commercials
I don't understand why certain commercials get to become "banned." I've seen a few since the latest multitude of Super Bowl commercials, and most of those have been funnier that anything shown on TV! Who the heck decided these commercials weren't fit for television? There were even a couple of questionable ones shown during the game this year, ones that offended quite a few people. Who cleared those monstrosities?Continue reading I can has hot Wendy's burger? - VIDEO
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Filed under: OpEd, Video, Commercials
A new column here at TV Squad, where we talk about all of the things you're missing when you hit fast forward on your DVRs.
This week, I'd like to talk to you about Cheerios.
Specifically, I'd like to talk to you about the Cheerios commercial that has been running for several months. You know it. It's the one where the dad is going to eat Cheerios for six weeks to lower his cholesterol and his son has six weeks to do a report on Shakespeare. I have a question about this particular ad, which seems to be on 33 times a day right now.
Does the dad hate his son?
Continue reading Brought To You By ... - VIDEOS
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Filed under: OpEd, Commercials
A new column here at TV Squad, where we talk about all of the things you're missing when you hit fast forward on your DVRs.
I thought I'd kick off the very first Brought To You By...column by talking about yesterday's Super Bowl ads (apparently there was also a game of some sort played...). USA Today did their annual ranking of the best and worst of the ads, having a bunch of viewers watch the ads with meters and give an opinion on the good and the bad, and for some reason Bud got the top spot, the way they do every single year. It must be that the people who vote on these things like horses, wacky comedy, or they're all drunk (on Budweiser). The company got three of the top ten slots, and number one went to the spot where the dog trained the horse, accompanied by the Rocky theme. It's bad enough that Bud seems to win over viewers every year, but this dog/horse ad wasn't even the best of the Bud ads yesterday!
Anyway, I have my own thoughts on the best and worst, and I'll list them after the jump.
Continue reading Brought To You By ...
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Filed under: Sports, Industry, TV on DVD, OpEd, TV Sports, Commercials, TV Squad Polls
Super Bowl XLII is all done except for the cleanup and the hangovers. And, you are probably doing one of two things right now. Either you are joyously celebrating the win of the Wild Card New York Giants over the undefeated (until Sunday) New England Patriots, or your are cursing out that f@#&ing Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick for screwing up a perfect season and, most likely, starting a new sports curse in New England.
Oh well, at least you have the commercials to take your mind off of it all if you were a Patriots fan. This year's crop was pretty diverse with a mix of serious and humorous ads. Plus, a little star power thrown in just for taste. Thanks to Jason Hughes, Jen Creer, JJ Hawkins, and yours truly, TV Squad has postings about every new commercial that aired, from the E-Trade baby to the guy who attached jumper cables to his nipples.
If you're scratching your head on what the hell I mean then jump over to the next page, where you'll see a list of links to all of our commercial reviews.
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Continue reading The commercials of Super Bowl XLII: A summary
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Filed under: OpEd, Commercials, Web
Cracked.com has a put together a list of five commercials that companies would really like you to forget. The commercials, mostly from the 1960s, speak to a much different time in American history. They show just how unevolved mainstream America's views of race and gender were.
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Filed under: Sports, Commercials
Like last year, we'll be reviewing all of the commercials during the Super Bowl today, complete with embedded videos of each one. Check back to the site often for the latest additions, or check back later for a summary of links to all of the commercials we covered.
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Filed under: Sports, Programming, Commercials
Advertisers still spend a ton of money on the Super Bowl. They use it to launch new products, advertise new movies, and convince guys that only one special beer will make us irresistible to scantily clad models. We'll have full coverage of the Super Bowl ads again this year, but maybe we can go one step further. The New York Times reports that there's still one ad slot left for the game, and FOX is only asking for $2.7 million for the 30 second ad.
So how about we all pool all of our money and buy the spot for TV Squad?
Continue reading Hey, let's buy a Super Bowl ad!
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Filed under: Industry, Video, Commercials, Festivus
So, we've already discussed the AT&T GoPhone commercial featuring Norm Macdonald and Steve Buscemi as gingerbread men. Now, let's talk about another one of my favorite holiday-themed cell phone commercials that I enjoy it so much because it sends a simple message to all of the little girls out in the world: never ask for a pony for Christmas.
In this ad for Verizon, which you will see after the jump, three teens (?) are talking about what they got for Christmas. Two of them received some stylish cell phones, and the third received a very angry, and hungry, pony (actually, according to some, it is a miniature horse) that seems to like to bite its owner. The reason this commercial tickles my fancy is that it the humor is so subtle. It moves in a conversational and natural manner that makes you want to see it every time it appears. Plus, it's one of those ads that makes you focus on the actors' faces because of the reactions they have to a pony eating the roof of a dog house.
Continue reading First gingerbread men, now ponies (actually, miniature horses) - VIDEO
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Filed under: Industry, Video, Commercials, Festivus, Celebrities
When you see the names Norm Macdonald and Steve Buscemi, what comes to mind? Perhaps funny or edgy or, in the case of Buscemi, a bit scary looking? I would tend to agree. How about gingerbread men? When you see those names does it elicit a vision of Macdonald and Buscemi as a father-son gingerbread duo? No, I didn't think so.
And yet here they are, in all of their gingerbreadiness, in a holiday commercial for AT&T's GoPhone. In the ad, Macdonald's character wants a cell phone, but all that Buscemi's gingerbread father wants to do is make sure that no one eats anymore of his house this season. In a touching moment the son gets the phone he wants.
Unfortunately, tragedy strikes as we see a human hand breaking off a piece of the gingerbread man's roof, exposing the lovely gingerbread mother in the bathtub. It's probably one of the funnier holiday ads this season (although the Verizon 'Pony' commercial is pretty good) and you can see it after the jump.
Continue reading Two of the unlikeliest gingerbread men you ever did see - VIDEO
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Filed under: Video, Commercials, Web
I could spend hours looking for old TV commercials that feature celebrities that went on to bigger and better things. Yes, I have a terrible social life.
After the jump is the long forgotten commercial from 1983 for the Apple Lisa, the very expensive (I think it cost around $8-10,000) computer that launched just before the Mac. I'm not sure how many Lisas Apple sold, but it wasn't a success, though its place in computer history is legendary. The ad stars Kevin Costner, long before his big screen success in movies like The Untouchables, Bull Durham, and Field of Dreams.
Continue reading Kevin Costner rides a bike and works on an Apple computer - VIDEO
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Filed under: Video, Commercials,
