Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

If it's Sunday it must be Big Double-A-Scribble Time:

1. We shouldn't mock any effort to win Afghan hearts and minds when what passes for civilization is at stake, but there is something off-putting about our using advertising to do it. We'll always remember MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, and that was a form of advertising. Besides, these ads are in English, a language we doubt many Afghans speak comfortably. As we've said before it is a calamity that we don't have Satchmos and Marian Andersons to woo the people who must be our friends, but our culture stopped turning them out a long time ago, and seems inordinately proud of it.

2. MadAve's culture of hyperbole spreads to HYER LURNING:

One academic believes fans of specific shows are more interested in the ads surrounding them. "THERE'S A STRONG LINK BETWEEN INVOLVEMENT WITH PROGRAMMING AND ATTITUDES TOWARD ADVERTISING!!!!!," said Larry DeGaris, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Indianapolis. In a recent national study of 1,121 U.S. adults, Mr. DeGaris found sports fans are about four times more likely to like advertising than non-fans!!!!!

Not everyone feels the same way. "Just because it's promoted as an event doesn't mean that it automatically becomes one and we should pay a lot more for it," said Sam Armando, senior VP-director of strategic intelligence at SMGX, part of Publicis Groupe's Starcom MediaVest Group. [STRONG overemphasis added]

When a media type is more skeptical of advertising than a perfesser I'd say there are a bit too few high-IQ types on our sedate green campuses. We should be grateful it's tougher than ever to earn tenure.

3. General Mills, proud member of the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers, boosted its media spending (read its financing-junk-television spending) by 33 PERCENT and saw SALES INCREASE THREE PERCENT! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm guessing in Minneapolis they're working nights and weekends creating Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.

4. And sorry, CRAINIACS, despite your somewhat misleading hed ("Is the Party Ending for Private-Label Package Goods?"), some people still believe that buying an expensive brand name may not buy quality.

5.

"It's a fascinating, creepy document, and I don't know whether I love it or hate it," said Steffan Postaer, chief creative officer at Euro RSCG, Chicago. "But I do wish I'd made it."

And Steffy, despite all those WONDERFUL campaigns how many people STILL think of Nike as a company with an attitude that stokes racial hatreds to sell $1000 sneakers even as it pays its Vietnamese help three cents an hour -- and mistreats the help to boot? No wonder Nike's a hit with you MadAveMen. BE LIKE PHIL!