men lose in superbowl spots

Odd that a televised extravaganza targetting men would be rife with advertisers belittling them. "Hey, guys, you're henpecked, emasculated and illiterate," many spots said, in essence, "but buying our stuff will make you feel virile!" Really? What guy falls for this? Don't brand shepherds realize we've come a long way since Walter Mitty. And why haven't they noticed that 39 million viewers are actually women?

In case you missed it, here's a sampling of commercials I'm talking about, and the hypothetical creative briefs they were based on:

It's not easy being a man. You have to recycle the garbage, put the seat down, listen to your wife and be nice to her mother. Whew! But a big car can make it all feel better. (Dodge)

Walking the dog and opening hard-to-open jars makes you a man. And, oh yes, so does buying our new brand extension. (Dove)

Looked down lately, guys? Something's missing. Reclaim masculinity. Put on our pants. (Dockers)

Any guy who goes shopping with a woman is a wuss wearing a skirt. But wusses can now tote a TV to the mall which will somehow make them feel less emasculated. (Flo TV) (Btw, what's up with menstrual product names? Couldn't iPad or FloTV find any women for focus groups?)

Real men don't read. They swill beer, leaving literature to the ladies. (Bud Light)

GoDaddy's entries? Predictably lame, the same sophomoric attempts at humor we've come to expect. In-house advertising at its sexist, tone-deaf worst. Not worth the trouble to embed em for you. Trust me.

Award for Most Inappropriate Commercial Placement

goes to Premium Plus crackers spot aired in Canada during Battlestar Galactica (warning to uncaught-up BSG fans: major spoiler) (Warning to squeamish viewers: major violence) (Warning to those in a hurry: action starts at 1:15, I haven't learned how to cut youtubes yet, sorreeee)

BBH's Axe creative team could save the planet

From today's NY Times:

Al Gore gave a big speech about global warming last week. He was thunderous and prophetic. He said “the survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk.” So here’s a question: If the job is so huge and urgent, why is the ad campaign so pedestrian?

Mr. Gore himself has done more than anybody to put global warming on center stage, with just a PowerPoint presentation that became an Oscar-winning movie. So it’s vexing that his new campaign — so far, anyway — seems unlikely to break out of the pack of “green” advertising that, as The Times reported last week, is making consumers bored and skeptical.

There are plenty of planetary opinion leaders who could help him out...[like] whoever handled the Axe body spray contract, the one that somehow got millions of men in their 20s to obsess about personal odor management. Then you might have something.

Al, if you're reading this, contact BBH here. Please!

PLEASE! 6 things to avoid when doing ads for boomers

1. No more peace signals with the two fingers. When was the last time you saw anybody make this gesture, except at a bar signalling for another round.

2. No more visuals of 60s VW buses decorated with daisies. According to adverts today, you'd think that's what everyone drove in the 60s when, actually, they were so rare that when one passed you on the highway, you rolled (!) down the window gave it the peace sign.

3. No more shots of boomers playing golf. Surprise! Not every boomer flush enough to buy your product wants to be out on the green. This also goes for boomers climbing mountains. Why can't art directors think of anything else for us to do?

4. Enough with lines like The Generation That Refuses to Get Old. Aside from those of us spending way too much in cosmetic surgeon's offices trying to fend off Time (which, alas, fools no one as the same youthifying procedures don't exist for hands and legs, those telltale signs of actual age)--we're OK with getting older, which after all is better than the alternative.


5. Why do all models in print ads for boomers seem to be laughing hysterically, when the headlines are all so painfully earnest? Better idea: make the ads funny (we've got a sense of humor, remember); and let the models relax.

6. Speaking of models, when looking for a spokeshead, you can give us someone younger than we are without us thinking "Gee, that person is in his forties, so obviously the target for that product can't be me." As John Barker pointed out recently in a post on this subject in Ad Age, it's best to aim younger, not older with Boomers, just like it's smart to aim older when targeting kids.

And that's my contribution today to the world of advertising.