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Blogcritics
A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously.

• Yo Quiero ... Bad Product Placement
  The Boston Red Sox apparently added Royce Clayton to their post-season roster to be a billboard, not a backup. It's been a while for this series, what with the busy weekends that exist during football season. Not to fear, there's more to come (including the buffoons at Campbell's Soup and Valtrex), but there's something else more pressing going down.Taco Bell has had a long run of respectable advertising, going way back ... can you believe...
• Verizon Ads - On A Magic Bucket Ride
  Verizon high-speed Internet is magical - either that or the ad writers are smoking something magical. This series takes a candid look at the advertising being crammed onto your television screens and into your heads. Is it really good advertising, or just wasting a commercial break? Reader suggestions are always welcome.Verizon is part of the Big Boy's Club (AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Alltel) when it comes to the venue of wireless...
• Nationwide Is On Fire - Ad Goes Down In Flames
  A great track record is nice, but it still burns me up when they think they can slip one past you. This series takes a candid look at the advertising being crammed onto your television screens and into your heads. Is it really good advertising, or just wasting a commercial break? Reader suggestions are always welcome. Nationwide Insurance has really been one of a small number of companies that have been able to pull off "smart clever"...
• What Can Bran Do For You?
  Post cereal redefines "regular" advertising by shoving it down our throats, quite literally. This series takes a candid look at the advertising being crammed onto your television screens and into your heads. Is it really good advertising, or just wasting a commercial break? Reader suggestions are always welcome.In writing this series, and participating in the discussions it has created, I've learned to explain myself a little better. I...
• Announcement: Short-content feeds
  Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.
• VISA Is Mocking You, George Washington
  This series takes a candid look at the advertising being crammed onto your television screens and into your heads. Is it really good advertising, or just wasting a commercial break? Reader suggestions are always welcome.VISA has been around for quite some time. They don't have a ton of competition - as we all know, your options are pretty much VISA, MasterCard, and American Express in the world of the credit card. One would think that such a large, and relatively competition-free, company wouldn't need to bombard with advertising, but here they are, keeping themselves in our consciousness with their latest spin.VISA has had a number of very well done ad campaigns. We all remember "it's everywhere you want to be." Yao Ming was bearable for a while. They even did a good job with their initial iteration of "Life takes VISA," a rather clever double meaning that included some interesting footage (I couldn't find the video, but I personally remember the Asian guy shoving a ginormous burger down his gullet). However, their latest attempt is just a little elitist for my taste.Surely you've seen the ads. One takes place in a gardening/flower shop, another in a food court, and one at a big city newsstand, but the general idea follows as such: the world is functioning as the well-oiled machine that it is. Everybody and their mother are using their VISAs to just stroll through the line, swipe their card, and be on their merry way. It doesn't actually work that way, but we'll come back to that.Then all of a sudden, you, Joe Schmoe, whip out your wallet and begin pulling out your dollar bills to pay for those items you're buying. Immediately, everything grinds to a halt. Plates go crashing, plants wither and die, chefs forget to flip their burgers, and chaos ensues - all because you weren't smart enough to have a debit card.First, I think it's a bit much for VISA to basically provide the concept of "you are a meddling loser who will mess up everyone else's day if you still carry cash instead of a card." I know I personally carry a debit card instead of cash, but it certainly isn't due to any concerns over my social status, or anyone else's well-being.More importantly, as I said before, the ad is actually wrong. Paying with cash means you hand the cashier your money, she opens the drawer, gives you change and a receipt, and you're gone. Using a card means swiping, then either entering your PIN or signing your name (assuming the card reader is working properly), waiting for it to process, then getting your receipt and being gone.So VISA is doubly wrong, in that a card isn't any faster than cash, let alone so much faster that it'll speed up everyday life and make a pedestrian cash-user look foolish. They made another slick-looking set of ads, but maybe next time they'll try some less condescending subtexts.Nice try, VISA, but I don't buy it.Geeves is mainly a critic of the sports and entertainment arena, publishing his works at pirateguy.blogspot.com and inglewoodjack.blogspot.com (during their respective seasons). He tends to lean towards the sarcastic, but often bears down and takes the world seriously.
• Subway Scrabble Spells L-A-M-E
  This series takes a candid look at the advertising being crammed onto your television screens and into your heads. Is it really good advertising, or just wasting a commercial break? Reader suggestions are always welcome.We all love a good contest, and giveaways are even better. What more could a consumer want than to be given stuff for free, especially when the list of free stuff to get includes money? No better way to get folks excited than to throw big numbers around.Enter Subway, who apparently decided that the best way to combat Quizno's knocking their product was not to improve their product, but to have a giveaway. Enter Subway Scrabble, where they give away a bunch of free food, and even $100,000 to anybody who is patient and persistent enough to try. The contest is one thing, but their attempts to get the public interested are something else entirely.We see our cute couple headed to Subway for lunch, but their entrance is interrupted by a guy who is so drenched, he needs to give a little wet-dog shake before he can comfortably take another sip from his soda. Puzzled, they continue inside, only to cross paths with yet another soaked-but-happy patron. As we the audience also begin to wonder, we learn about the contest, where you could win up to $100,000.Cue another Subway customer, who is so ecstatic over his instant-win piece, he launches his uncovered cup of soda all over the little girl next to him. She, of course, continues to smile, since soda baths are her thing. Sure it's clever, people so excited they don't mind an afternoon smelling like Coke, but could we get some logic in here?If you actually *gasp* listen to the contest, you'll notice that the only way you can win the money is to collect game pieces and enter yourself in an online drawing. The only thing you can get instantly is food and drinks. Now, this is no surprise, since that is standard practice with fast-food giveaways, as anyone who has taken their friends and game pieces to McDonalds for half a dozen free small Cokes can attest.Subway, on the other hand, has chosen to insult what little intelligence we have left by telling us that we'll spill our soda in excitement over the opportunity to win a free six-inch sub sandwich. I appreciate the need for creativity, but I'm sorry, I don't buy it.Geeves is mainly a critic of the sports and entertainment arena, publishing his works at pirateguy.blogspot.com and inglewoodjack.blogspot.com (during their respective seasons). He tends to lean towards the sarcastic, but often bears down and takes the world seriously.