Subject: Advertising

• Grab Your Grimmett

  January 31, 2007

• Happy 4/20!

  April 20, 2007

• 9.2 Ounces of Pigskin Pleasure

  August 27, 2007

• Tax Foes Stay Silent as Election Nears

  April 4, 2008

• Great Moments in Food Advertising History

  August 22, 2008

• Burger King ads: offensive or brilliant?

  It's been Burger King's Modus operandi the past five years to make commercials that are -- for lack of a better term -- weird. While this plan started off with a bang and one of the first viral videos of the Web, lately it's been leading to more and more forgettable commercials (and even a video game) featuring The King.Now, though, Burger King may have veered from the weird into the just-plain-wrong with Whopper Virgins. 

  December 3, 2008

• The mysteries of Grape Nuts

  There is no cereal more disappointing when you're a kid than Grape Nuts. The commercials show attractive young adults running, working, driving big cars and talking about how it keeps them going. Plus it has the words grape (yum) and nut (double-yum) in the name, so it has to be good. I should have known I was in for disappointment the first time I ever saw it at my grandparents' house. That should have been my first clue -- they couldn't run, didn't work and barely drove. I poured a big bowl of

  June 3, 2009

• Worst Local Commercial

  January 27, 2000

• Sayonara 2008. Take these with you.

  So 2008 you've been fun. We've had good times. But now you're leaving and there's some of the worst of 2008 to kick to the curb with you. The words "delish" and "foodie": I have a visceral nails-on-a-chalkboard reaction to these words. Delish is a cop-out. If something is truly delicious, show some proper gratitude and take the time to say the entire word. It's not fair for some chef to spend four hours making one dish but you can't be bothered to say the last syllable. Not going through the eff

  December 30, 2008

• Kansas City Strip

  September 21, 2000

• Best Local Commercial

  October 19, 2000

• Best Temper Tantrum

  October 18, 2001

• Miller to show one-second ads during the Superbowl

  Call it subliminal advertising that's not really meant to subliminal -- just cheap. Miller High Life and its lovable oaf of a spokesperson/beer-carrier Windell Middlebrooks will advertise in one-second bursts during the Super Bowl.A normal 30-second spot costs a cool $3 million during the Super Bowl, making the one-second ads a still-outrageous $100,000. The idea is not original. A band submitted a one-second Superbowl ad last year but was denied. Also, the ads will only be played in 25 markets

  January 22, 2009

• Domino's and Subway's fight turns nasty

  In the food hierarchy, Domino's and Subway's feud is like watching two Jerry Springer guests beat the living shit out of each other: You have no vested interest in who wins, you just want it to be entertaining.This feud just got more entertaining.

  January 23, 2009

• Best Ad Campaign

  October 17, 2002

• Eight best Super Bowl food and drink commercials

  I know everyone is making a list of favorite Super Bowl commercials this week, but being trained in the black arts of advertising I couldn't resist making my own. Culled from the dredges of YouTube and my memory, here are my eight best food and drink Super Bowl commercials of all time.Number 8: After losing the '96 election to Bill Clinton, Bob Dole showed he can shill product with the best of them. Here he is promoting his "little blue friend."

  January 30, 2009

• Pirate Paul Rudd burns The Weekender

  Paul Rudd, the pride of Shawnee Mission West and my favorite member of Judd Apatow's mafia, makes a pretty funny appearance in this spoof of New York Times commercials.

  February 10, 2009

• Best Group Show

  October 9, 2003

• Gatorade: a cure for what ails ya

  Flickr: DJ Linda LovelyGatorade has been promoting its new G line of low-calorie drinks with a team of athletes -- the Super Bowl ad featured 16 different stars. But athletes aren't Gatorade's real target audience. It's hungover people!Our sister blog The Snitch in San Francisco did some research among store clerks and estimates that 50 percent of all Gatorade sales are for hangovers; the percentage goes up on weekends. For most out-of-shape people, it's the only reason they have to drink Gatora

  February 20, 2009

• DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist

  July 8, 2004

• Best Unflagging TV Perkiness

  October 7, 2004

• Surprise! Beer commercials make kids want to drink beer

  Flickr: NiemsterHow many times have you seen an ad for a cold, refreshing beer immediately after an anti-drug or anti-smoking commercial? We tell children alcohol is a drug, but commercials show it as something fun and sexy with the power to rewind time.It's OK, though, because beer companies insist they're not advertising to minors (but if underage drinking stopped, conservative estimates say sales would plummet by 15 percent).Now comes research showing that beer commercials are indeed effectiv

  March 11, 2009

• Tropicana numbers just in, with a lesson on branding

  The amount of money spent to brand and advertise everyday items can be bewildering. The single largest advertiser in the world is Procter & Gamble (more than $5 billion a year) and it's tough not to think, "If P&G stopped running ads for a day, would its sales really fall?" Or how about some of the other largest advertisers?  Yes, sales would really fall and Pepsi has the Tropicana experience to prove it.

  April 6, 2009

• The Absurdity of Being Jim

  September 25, 2008

• How a throwaway idea at the Barkley ad agency became the “Sonic guys”

  July 3, 2008

• Turn Left for Exposure

  Garmin points the way to Mercy Seat.

  July 5, 2007

• Well, Hello Again, Suckers

  March 15, 2007

• High Steaks

  February 15, 2007

• Kansas City in the Super Bowl

  In a Chiefs-less game, at least we had a Garmin monster and a Sprint penis joke.

  February 1, 2007

• Life Without Wal-Mart

  Kansas City advertising genius Bob Bernstein helped make Wal-Mart what it is today. Then the world's largest retailer dumped him.

  December 7, 2006

• Spilling Sonic’s Campaign

  That guy in front of you isn’t as dumb as you think.

  September 28, 2006

• Critical Fatwa

  August 18, 2005

• Prime Real Estate

  Kirkwood sells it on the Plaza — and buys it on the Star’s editorial page.

  April 21, 2005

• All Mixed Up

  Minors are in possession of concert tix -- legally.

  January 6, 2005

• Viewer Discretion Advised

  Beware of envelopes containing four free tickets to test new shows.

  July 15, 2004

• The Spammer Next Door

  Kansas City's Virtumundo tries to shed the reputation that made it a fortune.

  April 8, 2004

• Warriors Want a Piece

  Somebody's getting his ass beat on Friday night.

  April 1, 2004

• The Pain Train

  Two years later, a digital-video short film became an overnight ad sensation.

  February 6, 2003

• Screen Play

  Bruce Yonemoto's work produces some special effects.

  January 10, 2002

• Buzzbox

  Gooding

  April 12, 2001

• Tax Dodge

  Lawsuits defile H&R Block's credibility.

  April 12, 2001

• Off the Couch

  Radio waves fill with paper insults.

  April 5, 2001

• Mel Sells Out

  What Women Want makes history -- in advertising.

  December 14, 2000

• Smokes & Mirrors

  Show me a billboard, and I'll show you litter with a home.

  September 28, 2000

• Daily Briefs: Emm Oh Enn Ee Why

  Daily Briefs is now for sale: Let's say you're a rich guy, or a big rich corporation, and you keep all your cash overseas in offshore havens, safely protected from U.S. taxes, thereby freeing you up to collect Lipizzaner stallions and priceless chandeliers. Pretty sweet life you've got there, Thurston, now have your man bring the car around so you can drive to your Jew-restricted golf club and eat the sandwiches of rich people, club sandwiches. As regards your offshore tax haven, Pres. Barack

  May 6, 2009

• It's time to close food loopholes

  Even though I spend a good portion of my day writing, reading and talking about food, I'm still as confused as anyone at the grocery store. For every health claim that proves to be false -- vitamin flavored soda better for you than regular soda! -- another claim comes along to replace it.Having worked in bakeries, I've always been wary of grocery store wheat bread. I know what real wheat bread looks and tastes like, and not much supermarket wheat bread actually fits that description. My suspicio

  May 7, 2009

• Kansas Democrats are NOT advertising for U.S. Senatorial candidates on Craigslist

  Someone is recruiting Democrats to run for U.S.Sen. Sam Brownback's soon-to-be-vacant 2nd Congressional District seat on Craigslist with ads like this one.Are Kansas Democrats that hard up for candidates in 2010 that they had to take to an online classified ad? Nope. "We didn't [post it]," Andrea White, communications director for the Kansas Democratic Party, told me this morning. ""Somebody's being funny."The ads are written pretty straight (see here, here, here and here). The first ad appeared

  June 9, 2009

• Coffee commercials of yore

  Slashfood has a round-up of classic coffee commercials from a simpler time in America's history, when Folger's showed women how to make their men a decent cup of coffee and Muppets had guns held to their head and were executed for not liking coffee:For some reason coffee commercials seem to stay with the psyche more than other commercials and over the years I've put together a list of favorites that Slashfood somehow missed. 

  July 17, 2009

• Commercial tests taste limits

  ​We lost clever somewhere. Subtlety wasn't strapped in properly, either, and got left by the roadside. Innuendo comes and goes, but everybody is tired of its schtick. Respect gave up and humor got downsized -- it is a recession. That's the only way I can think to explain the latest advertisement for Bud Light Lime. Tied to the release of Bud Light Lime in aluminum cans, "Can Confessions" is a video series that Anheuser Busch hopes will go viral. The videos focuses on people who are either sham

  September 11, 2009

• Yoda was a really obnoxious child

  ​Tom Kane must have been a tough kid to sit next to in the sixth grade. Loud, boisterous, bouncing off the walls. Once, a teacher tied him to his desk chair with jump ropes. "Today if I was a kid in grade school, they'd have me on Ritalin up to my eyeballs," the 47-year-old Kane says.Luckily for Kane, no one tried to put him on mood stabilizers. More than 30 years later, he gets paid for the same things that drove his teachers crazy. Capital-P Paid. Just turn on your television and wait 10 m

  September 11, 2009