Goldfish, Pier 1

I just saw Queer Eye's Carson Kressley do an ad for Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish cheese snack crackers.

At first I found Mr. Kressley a little... I dunno, queer. But he grew on me. I'm not sure how I feel about this ad, though.

Instinctively, I'm a sucker for celebrity TV ads. Moreover, I thoroughly enjoy Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Yet, stylish homosexuals do not necessarily have a touch of gold.

Pier 1, for example, now features interior design maven Thom Filicia as their prime pitchman. This is a good thing, since Kirsty Alley has been getting a little ripe over the last few years. Yet I've yet to be bowled over by any of the Filicia Pier 1 ads.

In any case, I must applaud both Kressley and Filicia for marketing themselves tastefully. Even if I'm not in stitches watching their TV ad appearances, they're infinitely more enjoyable and engaging than, say, Vanessa Williams' (Who, btw, is now hocking some sort of air purifier and massage line for Radio Shack. I'm so confused!).

Dell

I don't know why I so despise Dell ads.

It's not that they're painfully obnoxious. It's that they're banal and moderately obnoxious.

And there are so many of them.

Dell, along with Gateway, is one of the whores of personal computer sales. Since they're strictly build-to-order and thus have no store presence, Dell has to spend exorbitant amounts of money making sure the buying public knows who they are.

For a time, Dell ads weren't too terrible. That stoner fellow was kind of fun and the series of ads featuring the Dell Interns were close to amusing.

Now they seem to have given up any sort of cleverness and instead spend egregious amounts of commercial time rambling about how their sales representatives can help techno-morons buy the gear they think they need.

Quite boring.

As a side gripe, may I also lament the saccharine, repetitious, offensively common musical slag that adorns their ads. Music is so powerful. Why would Dell use it to make me change the channel?

Radio Shack

Sorry for the unannounced hiatus, blog friends. Spring Break called and I heeded.

So let's talk about Radio Shack.

Comcast cable subscribers are the most harassed by Radio Shack, but I think it safe to say that in the past few years we have all been exposed to the raw crappiness that is Radio Shack television ads. You've seen Howie Long and Vanessa Williams and a few other sell-outs sit around and say stupid things on their dime.

What I'd really like to know, though, is how Radio Shack is even in business. On paper, Radio Shack seems like a handy place. In the past it was filled with rack upon rack of electronic components. A haven for hobbyists. They stock hard-to-find batteries and cables.

As soon as you walk into Radio Shack, however, this picture breaks down. Sightlines are... confusing, at best. The eye is drawn to no particular product or display. Even if the eye wished to be drawn somewhere, the muddle of different, overpriced, generically-branded electronic rubbish would confuse it and encourage it to look elsewhere -- preferably somewhere outside of the Radio Shack.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what Radio Shack actually sells in its stores beyond the electronic components whose prices compel me to buy elsewhere. I always see a lot of televisions on one of the walls. They look like RCA. In any case, there's no way in hell I'm buying an eight month old TV from a rathole like Radio Shack.

Back to advertisements.

Now that we understand what a laughable enterprise Radio Shack runs, we can turn to their ads. The ads suck. Vanessa Williams has to be the most ineffective pitchlady I've had the misfortune of muting on TV. Worse than Rosie O'Donnell for K-Mart. Howie Long isn't much better. Even the football fans won't be swayed by this mental midget -- they're going to Best Buy to watch the game on Hi-Def plasma displays.

The ads are also subtly insulting. In one ad, Vanessa Williams, seated before her computer, does an audition (probably for a bodega or local video store ad) via high-speed video conference.

Now, for those of us unfamiliar with web video conferencing, it's ugly, the sound is terrible, and the camera is confined to a ridiculous position just above the forehead for maximum acne vision. Given the abysmal satus of Williams' career, I can accept that no studio would be willing to pay to fly her to an audition. Yet, I don't think that anyone would settle for an ugly video conference either.

If they'd made this funny, I'd give them a pass. But they didn't, so I won't.

To the tech savvy, insulting. To the unwashed masses, deceptive.

Radio Shack: Please get bent. Fire your ad agency, declare bankruptcy, close your stores and sell off all your assets. Only on clearance will I be able to afford your pack of three capacitors.

Super Target

Target has succeeded in a phenomenal branding effort. Over the last few years, people have come to love the place. Their ads are inspired and at one point even featured the undeniably charming bull terrier. I mean, look at that puppy. It's adorable.

So Target's good with image. And I must say, their Super Target is swell. All the goodies of Target, plus a supermarket. So how do we herald the arrival of this life-changing store?

I'll tell you how! Target's wrangled up the most popular, most beloved cartoon mascots of the last twenty years and casted them all in one ad!

We've got Tony the Tiger, we have the Keebler Elves, we've got Mr. Peanut.

You know who else shows up?

Kool-Ade Man, man! Kool-Ade Man! And you know what he says? Kool-Aid man actually SAYS "oh yeah!"

Oh yeah!

It's such a brilliant, such a perfectly executed ad I want to cry right now. This is worth more than a Cleo. Tony and Mr. Peanut, man, they're on a TRAIN. And the ad is all about how these guys, these awesome guys we know and love, they're all coming to Super Targer. All of them.

Even Kool-Ade man.

This new place is so welcoming that even that dude on the Gorton's fish boxes is coming to the party.

This works on every level. You get the kids, who instinctively love cartoons. You get people like me, who are older now, but who grew up during the heyday of the Keebler Elves and Kool-Aide man. This nabs the parents, who buy plenty from Target anyway and who now see that they can also nail their food shopping as well.

Bravo, Target. Bravo.

(btw, that puppy is... wow, there just aren't words. I want to watch movies with it and feed it scraps all weekend. Maybe we could go to the park, too. Throw the rubber ball around.)

Skittles

So what's with that?

It's been a very long time since I saw a Skittles ad that actually made sense. It's always bizarre drug-trip style stuff. Rainbow-colored things lurking around making trouble. Sometimes the colorful candies fall from the sky.

Now they're doing something with flying rainbow-colored fish.

Come on, man. Go the extra mile, M&M/Mars. Give me something clever. I mean, I like Skittles. But it isn't LSD.

I don't even want to bother ranting about this one. It's tantamount to marking territory with piss. Except more than just the yellow.