In the Simplest of Terms

Lots of people are talking about the Google Super Bowl ad. And what's one more sounding brass in the orchestra? Here's my take on this ad. I loved it. I thought it was genius and simple and effective and all around awesome. Google is a monument to simplicity. And this commercial holds a mirror to the Google philosophy of less is more.

The story telling is what makes my hair stand on end. Google gives the audience a simple love story told through a Google search box. A soft piano back track builds as the story progresses, but never overwhelms the emotional impact of the words being typed. The audience is given just enough information and allowed to fill in the blanks with their imagination. Thus projecting their own emotions and experiences into this story. A beautiful thing. (Side note: When he begins to spell the Louver as the Loove. That made me smile).

This ad cut through the clutter like a scalpel. I was still thinking about it when the Saints intercepted Manning in the fourth quarter. I thought about it again when my wife was making fun of me for having hot wing sauce all over my face. And two days later I'm still thinking about this ad. That's the power of a story. That's why I don't tell people I write advertisements—I tell stories that happen to have a product as the protagonist.

The Big Dream

Ext. Miniature Forest—Day
Action Force Rolling Thunder Attack Tank Alpha toy bursts through a miniature treeline being pushed by a boy and his friend. It comes skidding to a stop as the boy slides the turret over 90 degrees preparing to fire.

Super (VO)
Prepare for the fight of your life with Action Force Rolling Thunder Attack Tank Alpha.

Boy 1
Rolling Thunder Attack Tank Alpha ready to fire.

Boy 2
Roger that. You are cleared hot.

Ext. Miniature Forest—Day
The tank fires it's projectile and smashes through an enemy enclosure. The boys celebrate with high fives and fist pumps.

Boy 1
Direct hit!

Boy 2
Alright!

Super (VO)
Action Force Rolling Thunder Attack Tank Alpha comes with real combat sounds and firing cannon. Feel the land tremble with heavy-duty real rubber tank treads. With the Action Force Rolling Thunder Attack Tank Alpha, fun keeps on roll'n.

Remember that scene in the movie "Big" where Tom Hanks is playing in his office with a bunch of toys? As a kid, I dreamed that my job would be cool like that. And it is, for the most part. But how cool would it be to write toy commercials?

I'm sure those involved in producing toy commercials are still caught up in the minutia of the details. Casting, managing the talent, finding a location, setting up, taking down. But you can't tell me that crews don't have fun making these things. Here are a few fun commercials for your viewing pleasure.

(These actors are better than the cast of G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. By far.)

Dino Power!

You can't get much more bad ass than riding a dinosaur mounted with lazers! I used to play with Dino-Riders all the time. My friend had the entire set and we would rain destruction upon our faux-Jurassic landscapes. Such an awesome rediscovery.



Doing commercials for toys in the late 80s would have been off the chain cool (more to come on this). Feast your eyes upon these celluloid jewels.

Lamezilla

I look forward to the Winter X-Games. And this year was definitely worth watching. But some times the sponsors of the games can be a little off key. Take this Jeep commercial. Jeep and snowboarding seems like a logical combination. More so than Taco Bell and its sure to give you diarrhea five dollar box. But this Jeep commercial is anything but logical.

First off, who drives their Jeep to the top of a snow covered 14,000 foot mountain with the top off and the windows down? And when this mystery Eskimo Jeep driver gets to the top, he sends it off a cliff to shred some wicked pow. So how does he intend to get back to the top? Or does every Jeep driver own two Wranglers to substitute for a chairlift?

My final issue with this commercial is Jeep's new tag line. "i live. i ride. i am. Jeep." So lame I want to vomit out of my tear ducts. The lowercase "i" prefix needs to be retired. Unless your name is Apple, don't use it. The tag line doesn't even make sense. It's just a bunch of wanna-be self-actualization nonsense. Totally lame.

This commercial makes Jeep look disconnected from its audience at best and like an idiot at least.

Show and Tell—But More Show than Tell

Product demonstration spots are generally reserved for the Oxi-clean crowd. With a loud coke-addicted (sorry Billy) pitchman doing his best Glen Beck impression. Although some companies (Apple being the only one off the top of my head) have pulled of decent product demos.

Craftsman tools isn't usually a company associated with popular interest. I mean, a hammer is a hammer after all. But I have to admit Craftsman's new demonstration ads are pretty entertaining. They play the man card pretty heavily, but when your product is power tools you can throw down the testosterone royal flush. Here are two spots for your enjoyment. (P.S. It's my secret dream to find an old abandoned warehouse somewhere and turn it into a mans play house. It's the simple things in life.)

When I Grow Up, I Wanna Write like this Guy.

I spend a lot of time gushing about things and stuff on this blog. Commercials, technology, the paradoxical notion of ideas. But yesterday I found some true inspiration. It's an article written for Outside Magazine about freezing to death.

I've never heard of the author, never read anything from him before or since—to my knowledge. But he is a true master of the language. He hooks you with a story and you are reeled to the surface having learned about the physiology of freezing to death.

We talk a lot about telling stories in advertising. And I make a real effort to be a story teller and not just a literate huckster. This author knows how to tell stories and communicate complex information while doing it. That's tough stuff.

Click the link and prepare to have your mind blown.

Cumulus Computing

I bought a laptop from my office recently. It's an old G4 Powerbook, and I love it. But it didn't come loaded with a word processor and I have lost my Microsoft suite for Mac. Not having a word processor was a real problem, I am a writer by profession. So I weighed my options. Buying another Microsoft suite for Mac didn't sit well, and pirating a copy didn't seem like a good idea either. What was I to do?

Reading through Digg one morning I came across an article about updates to Google Docs. I had heard of Google Docs but never looked into it. I read further. Then the thunder bolt hit me. I can use Google Docs' word processor for free, and from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. It was a big moment for me.

People talk about cloud computing all the time. I hadn't taken the time to really look into the possibilities of the service. Google Docs, Flickr, Vimeo, and even Facebook (to some extent) are all part of my personal cloud. Now I float my information and heavy media in the cloud instead of on my hard drive.

Having maxed out and burned up a hard drive or two in my days, I can appreciate the need for more digital elbow room. Computing from the cloud changes a lot of things for me. I'm not constantly transferring information between USB drives, or storing things on my iPod. My email inbox was a graveyard of old versions and single word subject lines. "Stuff." "Project." "Mine." I'm still sorting through pages of unopened email I sent to myself.

The cloud has set me and my stuff free. Now I don't need to worry so much about the size of my hard drive. I can start focusing on the size of my imagination. Cloud computing is definitely filed under "cool stuff."