TIVO Rules.

It does, but not for the obvious reasons of being able to control your T.V., make your own watching schedule and view an hour and a half of Saturday Night Live in 22 minutes. It turns out that TIVO has not become the death of the T.V. commercial. To the contrary, viewers at home are actually stopping their fast-forwarding to watch, what we in the Ad biz refer to, simply, as spots.

Check out this NYT article on TIVO as protector of the TV spot.

And all this time I thought it was just me and my kin in the biz checking out TIVOed spots while watching American Idol(my secret shame), 30 Rock(great writing), The Office(a shockingly good American version), Dirty Jobs(crap but watchable), Avatar(one of the best kids shows on the tube) The Daily Show(Jon Stewart is on my wife's "list") The Sarah Silverman Program(not quite sure about this one yet), and Top Chef(Padma, the host and Mrs. Salman Rushdie, is a T.V. personality specimen to behold). But I digress.

So to all my readers out there in the Ad biz, get ready for a new form of Focus Group testing. Will your spots of the future stand out in a "fast forward" test? Will your future spots cause the Focus Group FF soldiers to stop the zip ahead and watch your creative, hear your copy, absorb your edit? Or will your spots disappear in a flurry of FF frames?

Jon Has Changed.

Jon spent three days in L.A. last week. He was home for a day.
Then off to N.YC. he went for another three days in the Arctic cold.
Many a travelling headached was endured. He is a changed man.
You can see it on his face.


(photo credit to J. Cohen.)

Doug Cut This.

"Wow" Microsoft Vista.

McCann Erickson Worldgroup/SF
Creatives: John McNeil, Gerald Lewis, Greg Mills
Producers: Ed Galvez and Hannah Murray
Filmcore Crew: Christa and Jen.

Super Bowl Ads - '07

The consensus...underwhelming. Oh well.
Create low expectations so you can exceed them next year.

Some personal highlights:
GM Robot. Sad, sad robot.
Bud Light Fist Bump. Slapping is funny. Wanted a better payoff though.
Bud Light Rock, Paper, Scissors. Good, although it reminds me of
last year's Sprint spot.
Emerald Nuts. Cute. Goulet, at the end, crawling away on the ceiling- funny.
This made the spot for me.
Coke Video Game. Solid idea, smart. Damn song got stuck in my head, "La la la la la la la..." Stupid Idiot!
Taco Bell Lions. I felt like I've seen this before. Talking lions are funny. The detached vo(much like Aardman's "Creature Comforts") works. It's all brought home by Ricardo Montalbon's "r" rolling voiceover. (Full disclosure: cut by our very own Tiffany Burchard - FCNY.)
Flomax. Pitch perfect advertising.
All of America listens to the vo line: "decrease in semen".
Snickers. Not pitch perfect. Oops.

Till next year.

Spesh.

My good friend Spesh, freelance producer and noted DJ/Electronic music producer, has let me know that his record label, loöq records, has just gone live with a new website.
So now I'm letting y'all know.
His site is/should be/will be a good resource for electronic music
and for use in our world of spots and what not.
Check it out and take a notice of the use of construction paper in the site design. (Very digital grammar school style - nice touch.)

By the way, for you CSI fans, tracks from loöq records have been used quite a bit in the show.

A little (background) story: Once upon a time, in 1995, a fledgling editor, named Connor Thomas McDonald, needed some music for a spec spot he was cutting for the local women's soccer team The Nighthawks. Firing his young and raw editorial synapses, Connor put a Jondi and Spesh track to use in the cut. They went on to trick it out and make it just right for the spot. In fact, looking back on this now, remembering that young cut...the track was the best thing about it.

Ahhh...hindsight.