You Mean People Don't Get Off on Sarcasm and Malice?

Advertising Age says snide advertising is bad for business and society. (They also define "snide" in case you're teetering on uncertainty. Isn't that sweet?)

Having been victimized to emotional tatters by the online efforts of Jawbone, we believe it.

You Don't Need an Actor. You Need a Wizard.

Looking for a spokesperson? Alex Perez isn't just a spokesguy; he's an ad wizard. He's also brazenly unafraid of making those "Sex me with your eyes" poses that midlife-crisis-driven creative directors love inflicting on innocent bystanders.

Self-produced ad work includes Double A-OK for Duracell and Pepto Star for Pepto Bismol. Please watch them. Please.

Guitar Hero Helps Marketers Understand Product Relevancy

Swivel Media's Erik Hauser explores the interest in previously unknown music Guitar Hero can spawn as an analogy for marketers and agencies working together to create product relevancy for audiences who no longer know a particular product or to create interest in a new product.

It seems to be the mother of all challenges. It's the one that prospective clients call ad agency offices with daily - sometimes hourly when things are brisk. "How do we increase relevancy within a particular market segment, and more importantly convert that new found relevancy into sales," they often say. "How can we drive purchase and purchase consideration by our intended audience - an audience that currently doesn't even know that we exist?" Both, by the way, are very good questions that brand managers are faced with on an hourly basis.

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Stanford 20/20 Tries Drumming Up Cricket Love in the US

See all those colorful words at left? It's not just a hodgepodge of nonsense. It's a manifesto. Its job is to encourage you to visit YouGottaSeeThis2020 with the express intention of cultivating your new passion: cricket.

And then, and then, you'll have to turn on your TV from January 26-February 24 and follow cricket. (Oops. You only have three days left.)

The campaign, which aspired to educate the fine people of Fort Collins, CO about cricket while channeling the Caribbean party atmosphere of Stanford 20/20 (eh?), was put together by PUSH. The reaction was described thus:

Crowds are attending the viewing parties, concerts and events in large numbers. Home viewers are sharing their thoughts online at the Stanford 20/20 U.S. message board. Teachers are adding cricket to their physical education programs, and the kids of Ft. Collins are even playing makeshift cricket matches in their neighborhoods.

Simply stated, the people of Ft. Collins have caught Stanford 20/20 Cricket fever.

The question of the hour is, "But will Colorado Cricket Fever become pandemic?" (And if it does, where can we get our shots?)

Maybe We Need More Chest Hair.

"Crack One Open" is a Cenergy Communications-developed campaign for Steinlager. It involves rugby and broken bones. We don't really get it.

To help us get it, the PR guy was all, "If fart jokes say 'beer,' why not bandages, rx pads, x-rays?"

And then we were like, "Fart jokes say beer? Oh right. If Budweiser says so, it must be true."

Barney-Like Characters Shill Bottled Water for Kids

Conjuring the oddity of Barney, this new campaign for kids fortified water, bot Beverages, might be the final nail in tap water's coffin. After all, tap water? That's just gross! No one drinks tap water anymore. Why would we when we have thousands of bottled water choices along with an equal amount of flavored chemicals in a bottle? Who needs the real thing when you can pay money for fake water?

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Toronto's Fake Drug Campaign Revealed to Be College Advocacy Ad

The Torontoist has been following a a local teaser campiagn which, for a couple of weeks, appeared to be a campaign from a pharmaceutical company for a fake drug called Obay. After much sleuthing, the campiagn turned out to be for Colleges Ontario, a pre-college group representing area colleges in Ontario.

A teaser campaign using a fake drug is a daring move but it appears no one got lawsuit happy. The campiagn itself is funny. It promotes a drug that makes kids think more like their parents, sort of like mind control in a bottle.

The ad copy is great. It reads, "My son used to have his own hopes and aspirations. Now he has mine. Thanks, Obay!"

Geeks Get Game on With Intel's 'Robo Brawl'

Even IT (information technology) geeks need their advergames. So Godfrey Q and Partners were kind enough to create Robo Brawl. Oh yes. A smack down in which robot parts fight against each other in the ring. to gain Xeon points. Xeon being Intel's kick ass chip for workstations.

As it's explained to us, "You have to weigh the pros and cons of various robot parts (transportation, armor & weapon) to get the best performance possible in the ring. You're also able to use "Xeon points" to boost your robot in ways that are related to energy efficiency, virtualization and performance - the Xeon attributes Intel wanted to promote. Through-out the game, the players see signs and video that reinforce our Xeon message. So the longer you play, the more the message sinks in."

those who place in the top three slots will win Xeon-powered workstations.

'Jesse Fewer Watts' Rounds Up 'Incan Derek' For Vermont Efficiency

We're assuming these three Kelliher Samets Volk-created commercials for Efficiency Vermont, an organization which encourages people to use compact fluorescent bulbs, were purposefully created to be bad. If not, we have no other explanation for why the they are so goofy. See one of the spots here. The other two are nearly identical.

Along with the three spots, the campaign includes local newspapers, online ads and a website on which "Jesse Fewer Watts" (get it?) and his Western buddies ride into town to collect "Incan Derek" (that's stretching it) for his crimes against light bulb efficiency.

OK, OK. It's for a good cause. We'll stop complaining.

Kraft Preys on Office Angst to Promote TASSIMO Hot Beverage System

Say hello to Who Hired Bob, a go-to hub for contrived office-centric web drama, created by Ogilvy Entertainment for Kraft's TASSIMO.

It's not funny. But Who Hired Bob does two interesting things:

1) It offers a $20 rebate on a TASSIMO hot beverage machine in exchange for your email address, and
2) It does that "choose your own adventure" thing at the end of each webisode, which we've already professed to like a lot.

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