The video is put online and it becomes a sensation, a la that Star Wars kid on the "Lazy Sunday" video. Kids are watching it, the entire population of China is watching it, it's even broadcast on the big screen in Times Square.
First of all, I don't think any viral video has gotten that kind of attention.

Second, the video seems to be perfect and flawless, on every screen it is shown on. And the way the ad is edited it seems like it's going over the web live, straight from cell phone to the web.
You've seen the commercials: a guy puts on some body spray and/or body wash and he goes from being a nebbish to being mobbed in a way somewhere between the way that the Beatles were mobbed by women in the 60s and a Caligula-era orgy. I was wondering: does this really work?

Is there some ingredient in Axe that makes the ladies go crazy?
Short answer: no. Long answer: no.

I used the stuff last week for three days in a row. I used the body wash and also sprayed the stuff on, and in three different situations I was completely ignored by females. Unless you count the clerk at the supermarket asking me "Do you have your Shaw's card?

" as foreplay. Same thing at Border's Books and Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
I always get a little bummed out after the holidays. I really love Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's, and it's always sort of a letdown when Jan 2 comes around and we're back to the same old grind and same old "feeling" to the year.

I don't mind if there are holiday specials after January 2 or if people have their lights up after New Year's Day.
But I think that January 22 and beyond is a little too much.
There's a new commercial for Special K cereal that shows a mom dressed in red and white, next to her family's Christmas tree, and her daughter calls her "Santa!

" She then realizes she's too fat and needs to lose weight so she goes to the cupboard to eat Special K (is that how dieting works, you're overweight so you go to the kitchen to get something to eat?). "Joy to the World" plays in the background, the family is under the tree, and the dad helps the kid with her toys.

The truth can finally be told: McDonald's is inserting single-frame subliminal ads into . If you don't believe me, just watch the video below. Soon we'll all be kneeling at the foot of a bronze Grimace statue while confusedly scratching at the horseshoe-shaped sutures on our shaved heads.

Take heed!
Then again, maybe it was just a glitch, and maybe, just maybe, it was proved half a century ago that subliminal advertising . However, the obvious answer is rarely as entertaining, so I like to imagine that somewhere in an underground bunker Ronald McDonald is ranting and raving like Dr.

Strangelove and demanding more images of McDonald's be planted on television so he can build an army of mind slaves and take over the world. I shall lay down my life for my new bichrome overlord.
Posted Jan 19th 2007 4:00PM by
Filed under: , , ,

It's bad when, on a Sunday surrounded by my family, friends and a whole bunch of good food while watching the Bears game, I was just as interested in the ads as the game itself. During Sunday's broadcast I saw spots run for , and .

One of the guys I was watching with remarked that he hadn't seen anything about 300 before, which struck me as odd until I remembered that I probably have very different media consumption habits than he does. Where I read RSS constantly, he probably is primarily getting his media from TV. 300 has been getting tons of online coverage and that's where a good deal of the marketing has been done to date.

I've seen a few TV spots but - and here's the interesting thing - not on TV. I've watched them on YouTube or something but haven't actually seen the commercials on the media they were created for.

But that raises an interesting question: What media were they created for?

Yeah, they are called "TV spots" but considering how specialized TV viewing has become, what platform will more people see those elements via? I'd speculate it's online where most viewing will happen simply because they can be sought out and essentially viewed on demand. On TV you have to be in the right place at the right time in order to see the spot.

And right there I think you have the problem with TV advertising. It relies on a combination of timing, broad targeting and pure luck.

Dove is moving away from the "Real Beauty" campaign that has brought it such great press in the last year or so and instead is focusing on glitzy award shows. The brand is heavily sponsoring the awards season coverage sections of Moviefone (which, like AdJab, is owned by AOL).

continuing with the awards ceremony theme, they've also asked their audience of "real women" to that will be aired during the Academy Awards broadcast. The winner will announced next week by "Grey's Anatomy" star Sara Ramirez. Dove is obviously hoping that this connection with celebrity glamour will pay off for it as much as their featuring of real women with non-model bodies.

Now I've noticed that has a new campaign, though I'd have to say it's a bit creepier than a button. In the new ads, the ones that feature the song "Whooooooa, Office Depot, Whoooooa!", employees and customers use a hand that pops out of a box to direct them to products around the store.

Sort of like Thing from The Addams Family.
My question is, does every store get their own hand? Whose hands are they?

Can the hands think and feel and dream about a life outside of the box?
I'm a tennis and baseball fan (my brief affair with basketball stopped when the Celtics stopped being good, too long ago to remember), but I never miss the Super Bowl even though on most days I'd rather watch a Sex and the City marathon than watch football. I get involved in the of the commercials, , who is going to advertise when, , and even the post-game analysis the next day, usually in USA Today, where they have people watch the ads with meters and pick their favorites and least favorites (Budweiser wins many years, and I've never understood that).

So I'm looking forward to the game in a few weeks, and we'll have full coverage of the ads here at Adjab.