Things We Like And Things We Don't

- We like the new Miller Lite commercial with Sopranos start Frank Vincent but, it seems, Italian cause groups are all a flutter (twitter?) over the supposedly stereotypical portrayal of Italians in the commercial.

- We don't like the "screaming" ad from Volkswagen. Not at all. Not one bit? Why? Because we know a little bit about being a dad and we've heard our fair share of screaming. We don't need a commercial to add to our stress level.

- We like Southwest's new commercial which, in effect, holds its middle finger up to the recession and says, "fuck off." Yea, we like that dark sort of optimism.

- We don't like Microsoft's new Bing commercial which, while it claims to reduce search result overload, piles on more overload than anyone should have to sit through inside of a minute. But that's typical Microsoft. Just like they're packaging on which every last conceivable speed, feed and spec visually assault you to the point you're like, "where's the Apple store?"

- We like the GM Reinvention commercial. It's optimistic, uplifting, patriotic, realistic, self referentially insightful, honest and it carries one of the best lines of copy we've ever seen: "Because the only chapter we're focused on is chapter one."

- We like this commercial from TimeOut Amsterdam. Why? Because it looks exactly like AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven doing one of his Week in Advertising videos.

- We like (and don't) like this nine minute video, Mad Ave Blues, in which the death of Madison Avenue is set to the tune of American Pie. Yes, "the year the media died." And, "Bye, bye those big upfront buys. Pitched my client who was pliant. But the pitch didn't fly. And old ad boys were drinking martinis dry. Singing "Tech has taken us for a ride." "Algorithms got me cross-eyed."Classic. Must watch!

- We like DIgg's new AdWords-like ad program in which lets people vote up or down ads. Ads that get a lot of Diggs will get a lower CPC. Ads that are not Dugg as much will pay a premium.