Undermining character

Warning–this is a political commentary.
We are in full swing into the political campaign season and for sure we will be seeing many ads tagged as “I am (fill in candidate’s name) and I approved this message.” In the past few days I have seen many anti- Obama ads approved by John McCain. About a month [...]

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Online reputations

A few months back I wrote about companies that check on what is being said about them online. I had written a post about Comcast and their lack of customer service and I myself got a comment from Comcast. I theorized that this was a new outreach program for them, and today’s New York TImes [...]

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Truth in advertising

Yeah, it’s Comcastic! If you are a Comcast subscriber you have seen these commercials, extolling the wonders of cable versus the slow DSL service of the phone company. You’ve seen the Slowskys, a family of turtles who much prefer DSL. Funny, yes. Accurate, not really. Apparently, one of the problems with “Comcastic” service is the [...]

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Identifying (with) the competition

Alltelll is competing with all other cell phone providers, but particularly with Verizon. I know this from the commercial that Alltel is currently running, featuring a family in an RV discussing cell phone plans with representatives of all other wireless networks, prominent among which is the Verizon “rep” with the company name inscribed on his [...]

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And the Emmy goes to…this gread ad!

I did not know, until today, that there is an Emmy for Outstanding Commercial. Now I will have to investigate this further. Although the ad industry gives out Clios and Addys, I think an Emmy is well deserved. After all, a good commercial is entertaining, and it is competing with the (supposedly) very entertaining TV [...]

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Marketing doesn’t operate in a vacuum

Literally! You may remember a few months back I bought a Bissell vacuum, basically because price being equal, I believed its tagline: Bissell means clean. Well, my experience has proven otherwise. The vacuum is hard to handle and seems to have lost suction power already. Based on this experience, I’d be hard pressed to recommend [...]

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Ads on board

A couple months back I wrote about the in-flight advertising I encountered, and apparently it is a growing trend. Here’s an article from the New York times about it. In a nutshell, the airlines are trying to raise revenue in whatever way they can, so we can expect to see more and more ads [...]

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Making insurance interesting

It’s no easy feat. After all, insurance is one of those burdens in life, something we need but don’t necessarily want. Lately I have seen some funny commercials for Nationwide, but the humorous trend goes back to Geico. Geico has had great ads for a long time and their tag line “15 minutes or less [...]

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When perception can be dangerous

According to an article in the New York Times, people perceive diabetes as a disease that is not as serious as heart disease or cancer. Apparently this perception is wrong and can be deadly. Diabetes is very serious and has many ill effects on the body.
The story illustrates just how important communication can be in [...]

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