Larceny X 2

Sportscentric isn’t the only marketing entity to appreciate the genius behind the Miller delivery guy. The good folks at Alpo dog food and Fallon liked the Miller campaign so much, they pretty much ripped it off sideways.



I like the piece. It’s a clever little film. It should be. It’s a dog version of the Miller guy, just slightly in reverse. The Miller guy takes away the beer from a bunch of corporate wonks at a skybox and says “I need to smell me a hot dog to know I’m alive.” The Alpo hander-outers visit doggy spas and says “These dogs have lost their dogness.” They run around promising “ Meat!”

The Miller guy gives real beer to real folks who appreciate the real high life. The Alpo hander-outers give out Alpo to real dogs who need some real meat.

Problem is, the product doesn’t deliver. It’s barely meat. It’s mostly made from tons of fillers that are bad for dogs. It even makes their poops up to 60% bigger.

So an ad promising Real Meat is pissing people off. Click on the link to Youtube and read some of the comments, which range from “Very stupid and misleading advertising” to “I can't believe they didn't disable comments, like they think people don't know that Alpo is shit.”

Youtubers aren’t the only ones to take Alpo and Fallon to task, as evidenced by this article from sfgate.

And as if ripping off a great campaign to sell a crappy product wasn’t enough, for good measure, they ripped off Chipotle’s font as well.

Maybe they could have Tom Bodett do some radio spots and make it a perfectly larcenous 3 for 3 .

Another one for the HAYAE

Another candidate for the HAYAE (Heinously Annoying Yet Amazingly Effective) advertising Hall of Fame.

First there was The Clapper, then there was Head On. Saved By Zero carried the torch for a bit, but I’m not sure any of them can hold a candle to our friend Vince and his Shamwow!!!!



You follow me, camera guy? You bet I do! And I don’t even have a camera! I love this spot. I could watch it over and over. It’s cheap, it’s human. Vince is the three-card-Monty guy and Monte Hall charmingly rolled into one. But that’s not even the best part.

Vince knows Spanish! (Warning: This one’s longer)



I don’t know if they sang Saved by Zero en Espanol, but this dude’s the real deal, slinging the lingo as if he were born south of the border.

And of course, you know it’s entered popular culture when people start making parodies. (WARNING: expletives galore)

Well done, Shamwow. I dare anyone out there to tell me it’s not a horribly brilliant ad.

Time out for some joy

Enough about the Gatorade ads already. Nobody knows who they're for, but they’re cool. Gatorade is gone. It’s now G. It was a sad day for me when they changed Sugar Smacks to Honey Smacks but I got over it and they still taste pretty good. In a couple of years Lil Wayne will be shilling George Foreman grills. We move on.

For now, let’s just be entertained. Here’s a commercial that, kind of like “G,” has nothing to do with sports; it barely has any words, isn’t even in English, but is so clear and to the point and does such a wonderful job of selling the product that it just makes me smile and I want to watch it over and over.



Let’s hear it for pure, unadulterated joy.

Plus, Dutch just sounds cool.

Hey Pepsi: You forgot something

Yay, Pepsi! They’re full of happy, joy and love! Despite the economic woes, the renewed fighting in the Middle East, and the moon-crater-size potholes springing up across our fair land, Pepsi is debuting their happy-or-bust act in Times Square to bring their new marketing platform of no-holds-barred optimism to the world.

Seems right, right? Obama is coming, and it’s the perfect time to change to the good side. They just forgot one thing:

They forgot the humanity. The part where we’re human beings and we don’t like being TOLD to feel a certain way. Especially being SCREAMED at to embrace the optimistic side of life.

We far prefer to be told a story that makes us feel something. The Coke Macy’s day parade commercial immediately springs to mind.



Not humans, but endless humanity. Makes you feel good.

Yesterday, I went to see a restored 70 MM print of West Side Story at the Music Box Theatre, a slightly run down but still wonderfully gemlike anachronism of a movie palace in the times of 18-theatre megaplexes.

For all of you showtune dissers, I will acknowledge that a bunch of pirouetting, knife wielding gang members is a bit silly, especially in our times of special effects violence. But c’mon, this is West Side Story. Best Picture, 1961. A ridiculous number of smile-inducing showstoppers. How could you not beam for 5 minutes watching this:



With the new print, the sound was massive, and the colors were spectacular. But most important: the movie was huge! It’s over forty years old, so I’ve never seen it in a theatre. On the big screen, the story was so much more powerful. You couldn’t help but feel the love and frustration and grief from these trapped kids. Powerful stuff.

Everyone in the Music Box yesterday felt it.

So when you go on Pepsi’s related site and are told to be happy, you probably just move on. Because you can’t tell someone how to feel. You can tell them a story that might make them feel something. You can appeal to their human being-ness. Pepsi's new campaign is admirably eager to make us feel the happy, but in their eagerness, they forgot to tell us why.