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  1. Grad Student Gets Richer Quick

    March 5, 2010  | Comments (0)

    Lorraine Hoey was surprised by how quickly she won on AdJack.

    “I’d only been playing for two or three months when I won on Friday, Jan 1, 2010,” she said. “I really didn’t expect to win that quickly. But I read on the site where some people won early, like me. That’s really encouraging. If you do it every day your chances of winning are really good.”

    An aspiring children’s writer and graduate student at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Lorraine appreciates a good commercial on several levels.  “Some of them are very, very clever. Sometimes they’re even kind of exciting. I have certain commercials I look for and watch over and over again. The commercial with the linebacker in the office--I could watch it every day. I love that one. I love the Starry-Eyed Surprise Diet Coke ad for the song.  And any Will Farrell video--the basketball player—they’re great. I like that you get to rate them and give the companies feed back. That’s really cool, too.”

    Her enthusiasm for smart commercials spills over to AdJack.  “I think it’s great,” she says. “I signed up because it’s such a clever idea. Watching commercials for the possibility of winning something, and you don’t have to put any money into it? Well, yeah!”… more

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  2. “I Ain’t Gonna Believe It ’Til I See It.”

    February 18, 2010  | Comments (2)

    Jim Valdez brought in the New Year in fine style, winning the CrackaJack prize on Friday, January 1, along with another winner.

    A sweeps player for only about a year, he watches commercials every day on AdJack, then spends an hour or so entering other contests.  His diligence paid off with two cash prizes so far, but he’s still waiting to see if this sweepstakes thing is for real.

    “A lot of my friends say ‘nah, you didn’t really win. I ain’t going to believe it until I see it.’ One friend of mine was shocked when I won this one, and then another one. My buddies say they’ll believe it when they see the checks,” and I say ‘you’re just like me. We’ll see what happens.’”

    Jim called in from the road where he works construction in southeastern Utah. He doesn’t ski—“Why is it people expect everybody from Utah to ski? I’m afraid of heights,” he says—but he hunts and fishes, and goes four wheeling when he’s not out building or repairing roads to oil rigs in the Utah mountains.

    When the AdJack check comes in, he’ll get to treat his buddies to a hot cup of we told you so.… more

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  3. Lucky Sandy Adds AdJack to Win List

    February 12, 2010  | Comments (0)

    She has won lots of stuff in her long sweepstakes career, with a $5,000 prize in a cookie sweepstakes standing out in her memory, so Sandy of Portland, Oregon took the December 4 CrackaJack prize she shared with two other winners in stride.  She enters about 10 sweepstakes contests a week, but until the end of 2009, her luck had been pretty dry.

    Her husband is an AdJack member too, who encouraged her to start playing about three months ago.  “He’s been playing for a long time,” she says.  She won within a month of joining.

    She’s at her computer before dawn most mornings, playing AdJack before she leaves for a day of delivering babies, a job she has been doing for the past 32 years.  It’s often 4:30 or 5 a.m. when she clicks on the E-Trade babies.  “I love those talking babies. Maybe it’s because of what I do for a living. I’m into babies. I saw on the Super Bowl that there’s a whole new series coming round.”

    When she’s not working, she’s taking advantage of her adopted state’s big outdoors, or painting.… more

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  4. Jersey Winner Only Watches Ads on AdJack

    February 11, 2010  | Comments (2)

    Since Tom McMahon of Oradell, New Jersey, bought his TiVo, the only place he willingly watches commercials is on AdJack. 

    He plays at least a couple times each week, clicking on the E-Trade babies when they’re on the front page, and if they’re not, then he’s on the lookout for something else that’s fun. He has been playing AdJack for so long he says he was about to give up when he got the notice that he won on December 4.

    He shares the $1,000 CrackaJack with two others who won on that day. … more

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  5. This year’s Super Bowl ads go goofy and frugal

    February 5, 2010  | Comments (2)

    Emily Fredrix, AP Marketing Writer, February 5, 2010, 2:18 pm EST

    NEW YORK (AP)—Game on! Super Bowl ads are returning to their goofy roots.

    Men march across a hillside without pants, toys joyride in Vegas and the miserly Mr. Burns from “The Simpsons” loses his fortune but finds happiness. It’s a sign that people are feeling better—or at least want to feel better—about the economy, experts say.

    The commercials Sunday on advertising’s most expensive showcase also aim to appeal to people’s focus on value.

    The ad line-up includes everything from economy-priced televisions by Vizio to budget cars from Kia. Denny’s touts free Grand Slams again, Charles Barkley raps about $5 meal deals at Taco Bell, and the 1985 Chicago Bears’ resurrect their “Super Bowl Shuffle” for pre-paid cell phone brand Boost Mobile.

    Super Bowl ads are a much anticipated, and usually funny, sideshow. The broadcast is watched as much for its commercials as it is for the game itself. (This year’s extravaganza on CBS pits quarterback Drew Brees’ New Orleans Saints against Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts.)

    Last year’s line-up had several uncharateristically somber ads. Anheuser-Busch’s Clydesdale ads were traditional and sweet, not funny. The more staid tone reflected the nation’s mood, still in shock and worry over how deep the financial crisis would get.

    To be sure, the commercials aren’t all fun and games.

    A prominent exception is an expected anti-abortion ad by conservative Christian group Focus on the Family. It stars former Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow, the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner who helped his team win two college football championships. Tebow’s mom was counseled to end her pregnancy but chose not to.

    But overall, the laughs are back.

    “Six months ago if you were optimistic or happy, it was awkward and people looked and said, ‘How insensitive can you be?’ “ said Allen Adamson, managing director of branding firm Landor Associates in New York. “Now it’s socially acceptable not to be sullen and depressed, but within reason. And I think the Super Bowl provides one of those venues… more

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  6. Things Are Looking Up Now

    February 5, 2010  | Comments (0)

    Robert Fencl endured a spate of tough luck in 2009, but hopes his AdJack win on Friday, December 4 is the harbinger of better things to come.  He’ll share the $1,000 CrackaJack with two others whose numbers came up that day.

    “I’m not a big gambler or anything,” he says. “I’m not much for casinos, or Las Vegas, but I enjoy entering contests.  The Internet has made it a lot easier than it was in the old days, when you had to mail stuff in to enter. I enjoy AdJack because I see a lot of commercials I don’t see all the time on TV.  I get a kick out of the Budweiser ads.”

    Robert trained as a pharmacy technologist, then worked in the grocery industry until he was laid off. “Last year was pretty lousy, generally,” he says, but in 2010, he’s hoping to train for work in a new field, and to lose some weight.  Right now, he’s taking care of his elderly mother, and playing AdJack every day.… more

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  7. Luckiest Week of a Lifetime…So Far

    January 20, 2010  | Comments (1)

    Tom Haddon was poking around on the Internet one day, looking for the E-Trade babies ‘cause they make him laugh, when he came across AdJack. 

    “A hobby of mine for the past ten years or so is to go on the Internet and find contests, and kind of just look around.  I was looking for those baby commercials; you know the ones.

    “I enjoy all the commercials more than I enjoy television now. I look for things that are humorous these days. I don’t need all that gloom and doom on TV. I find a lot of comedic relief in the commercials. I don’t want to know about the darkness and problems in the world. I’d rather laugh.”

    Tom found himself a rural retreat in Selinsgrove, PA several years ago, a tiny town that is home to Susquehanna University.  When the weather is good, you might find him at the fastest half-mile dirt track in the east, Selinsgrove Speedway. He cheered the high school football team to the state AAA championship this fall. He likes football commercials, too. 

    The week of November 27 Tom says was a very good week.  He won the $1,000 CrackaJack, and was notified that he also won a 2010 Volkswagen GTI, the fourth of only six available in the contest.  “That’s by far the luckiest week I’ve ever had in my life.”

    On a larger scale, Tom says he lucked out in daughters, claiming to have produced… more

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  8. Requiem for a wiener song

    January 15, 2010  | Comments (2)

    Today’s New York Times announced that the Oscar Mayer brand will no longer use its iconic “I’d love to be an Oscar Mayer wiener” jingle. Just the mention of it brings on an assault of Last Song Syndrome.  See if you don’t go around singing “I’d love to be an Oscar Mayer wiener” for the rest of the day. 

    Ad man Richard Trentlage wrote the words in 1963 and Philip Bova wrote the tune. Americans have been singing it since the commercial made its national TV debut in 1965. 

    The original Oscar Mayer had been dead for about ten years by that time.  He and his two brothers, immigrants from Germany, were responsible for setting their wieners apart from all others, first, by banding them with yellow paper, then following up with a whole branding campaign, one of the first of its kind. He came up with the wienermobile idea, too, in 1936. Carl Mayer came up with the indispensible weinerwhistle in 1952.

    The brand’s new advertising agency hired a Nashville songwriter to come up with a new song.  Check back in 50 years to see if it’s still going strong.
    … more

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  9. Chuck Klosterman on Advertising

    January 8, 2010  | Comments (1)

    Klosterman grew up on a farm outside Wyndmere, North Dakota and upon graduating from University of North Dakota, spent several years writing for the Fargo Forum, then the Akron Beacon-Journal in Ohio.  Since then, he has written a New York Times bestseller, Downtown Owl, and several other books on pop culture. His latest book, Eating the Dinosaur, covers a wide range of topics including advertising. He’s getting interviewed all over the place, and in case you haven’t read any of them, we bring you a couple of quotes here.

    From the Amazon review

    Q. Should I read this book? 
    Klosterman:  “Probably. Do you see a clear relationship between the Branch Davidian disaster and the recording of Nirvana’s In Utero? Does Barack Obama make you want to drink Pepsi? Does ABBA remind you of AC/DC? If so, you probably don’t need to read this book. You probably wrote this book. But I suspect everybody else will totally love it, except for the ones who absolutely hate it.”

    From Reality Through the Prism of Technology by Anna Mundow, Boston.com:

    Mundow: On advertising, are you saying we’ve internalized its messages?

    Klosterman: “We’re used to the idea that advertising is sophisticated; that it is frivolous to discount advertising as an art form. So practically all advertising you see is treated intellectually. If you put up a billboard with just a glass of Coke on it, there would be talk about the brilliance of this. People would create explanations to project their own meaning because nobody ever assumes that things are devoid of meaning. They have become so good at finding a subtext that they will write it into their own minds.”

    So, wow. I’ve been asserting all along that advertising is an art form. What? Sophisticates agree with me and a farm boy from North Dakota?  It’s truly a wonderful world.… more

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  10. Luck, or Habit of Mind?

    December 31, 2009  | Comments (0)

    The Research Center for the People and the Press has parsed out a grid of what Americans think about the past 10 years, and what they are thinking about the next 10, based on interviews the Pew folks conducted with 700-plus adults.

    They say that, based on those interviews, most of you didn’t like the last ten years, but you’re hopeful that the next ten years will be better.  Hmmmm.  They also say that these 700-plus people liked the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s better than the past ten years.  I’m thinking that folks like the past better the further they get from it.  And I’ve noticed that no matter how good some people have it, they’ll find something to complain about, and no matter what hits some others, they bounce back.

    So here we are, pausing on the edge of the next decade, squinting into an opaque future, and looking back on a past that is fast becoming an arguable fiction, a point of view.

    What happens to you may be a matter of luck, but how you react to what happens is a matter of attitude.  In case your mom… more

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  11. Persistence and Loyalty Pay Off

    December 15, 2009  | Comments (1)

    Most Friday nights you’ll find Phyllis Holmberg and her husband, his brother and their sister-in-law at the Biloxi, Mississippi casinos where they meet for dinner and to indulge a little cash in Phyllis’s favorite sport: gambling. When the Holmbergs get back to their house 40 miles away, Phyllis always checks her AdJack numbers, then makes her first entry for the next go ‘round.

    When she got home on Friday, November 20, she checked her numbers and this time she couldn’t believe her eyes. “’Honey, I think I won,’ I said to my husband. I checked again. Then I looked at my account to make sure that I hadn’t written the numbers down wrong, and there it was. It said ‘CrackaJack.’ ‘Oh, wow!’ I said. I DID win! I never win anything!”

    The $1,000 CrackaJack is the first big one for Phyllis, but she doesn’t let that stop her. “I love to gamble,” she says. “I might win a little bit, but I never win the really big money.

    “I used to spend a lot of time entering sweeps, and I got some small stuff. I was spending too many hours in front of the computer. But then I came across AdJack. I quit entering everything else and I just do AdJack now. I’ve been entering for a about a year and a half.  I read about these people who win the first time they play, and I think, how do they do that?”

    She said she’ll use her AdJack winnings to… more

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  12. Luck on Friday the 13th

    November 18, 2009  | Comments (2)

    Rachel Shahvar.jpgThree or four weeks ago Rachel Shahvar of San Francisco started looking on the Internet for risk-free sweepstakes, “something that didn’t cost anything to enter,” she said.  In about five minutes she found AdJack near the top of a list of the top one hundred sweepstakes.  “I’m in the advertising industry, so I thought, ‘why not? Watch some ads, maybe win some money.’” So she signed on for her first contest ever. On November’s Friday the 13th she checked her numbers, and wham, there they were, matched right up for the $1,000 CrackaJack.

    Was she shocked to win so quickly?  Um, not particularly.  “My friends tell me I’m lucky,” she said.  “I win stuff all the time.”

    The digital artist for a Sausalito advertising agency said she’s going to put her winnings in the bank, then had a second thought.  “Maybe I’ll take my boyfriend out to dinner.”… more

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  13. Psyched in Illinois

    November 18, 2009  | Comments (0)

    Mikaela OsilajaMikaela Osilaja was looking for good sweeps contests on the Internet one day last summer when AdJack popped up.  Some weeks she plays often, and some weeks not at all.  The week of September 25 she looked up a few Geiko ads, and voila, she’s $1,000 richer. 

    The Joliet, Illinois psychology major is a senior at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois.  She says she doesn’t have much time for playing sweeps during the school year, but when she does, it’s usually AdJack.

    “It’s a good way to look up ads you may have missed on regular television,” she says.  “Usually on Adjack you can see the full length of the ad.  On TV, sometimes they’re cut short.”… more

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  14. Winners’ Circle Expands to Include Three

    November 12, 2009  | Comments (0)

    Winners from Indiana, Rhode Island, and Texas make up the first-ever trio of AdJack winners. Their lucky numbers came up on Friday, October 16. Charlotte Klein, Ronnie Henry, and Don LaCroix have one thing in common—they are all AdJack regulars.

    Charlotte Klien.jpg
    Crackajack winner, Charlotte Klein and grandson.

    The win is a windfall for Charlotte Klein of South Bend, Indiana, who has been recuperating physically and financially from sickness that left her jobless earlier this year. She was recently able to resume her cab driving job in the hometown of Notre Dame just in time for busy weekends when football fans from all over the nation flood into town.

    “When I got the email that I had won, I was absolutely elated” she says. “I love the site. It’s a real stress buster for me. Sometimes I drive for fourteen or eighteen hours a day, and I don’t have time for much of anything else. The money is a blessing, believe me. I’ve been feeling lucky lately, and life is beginning to get better.

    Ronnie Henry.jpg
    Crackajack winner, Ronnie Henry and son Christian

    Ronnie Henry of Ft. Worth, Texas is taking it easy these days after 30 years of pounding the pavement carrying the U.S. mail. Among his favorite pastimes now is logging onto AdJack.tv.

    He comes regularly to the site, looking at commercials, sometimes putting his two cents’ worth in when he likes or doesn’t like them, and every week, he hopes for the big MadJack win. He says he’ll keep coming back, with his eyes firmly on the prize. “I’m hoping for that MadJack” he says. “That’s it for me.”

    In the meantime, he’ll spend his winnings on his 14-year old son and two grandchildren, a boy and a girl.  “They love their Paw Paw,” Ronnie says.

    Don LaCroix.jpg
    Crackajack winner, Don LaCroix.

    For nearly two years now, Don LaCroix of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, has been getting up every morning and faithfully going to AdJack where he watches his five commercials and enters his numbers. AdJack isn’t the only sweep he enters, but it’s the only one that’s paid off so far.

    “This is the first time I’ve ever won anything,” Don says “I was very surprised when I got the email.”

    Even though he hasn’t won in the past, he says he’s not discouraged. “I’ve always believed you can’t win if you don’t play” he says. The plus with AdJack is that he enjoys the process."Some of the ads I really enjoy watching. Shaq as a jockey is pretty funny. And I like the E-Trade talking babies.  But the best thing about AdJack is the odds, he says. “They’re pretty good. That’s always a plus.”

    His win came at a very good time. “My wife’s birthday is coming up” he says. “This will help.”… more

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  15. AdJack Comeback Brings Double Luck

    October 28, 2009  | Comments (0)

    Beckett_Rippey.jpgBeckett Rippey found AdJack one day on the Internet when she was searching for jobs.

    The University of Colorado graduate hit the job market last December with a degree in communications at one of the bleakest times to get a job in the past 80 years.  In February, she joined AdJack to take a break from the arduous task of job hunting.

    “I actually don’t know how I found it, but I decided to join because I was interested in doing something with advertising.  I thought the site was fun, so I bookmarked it on my computer.”

    She played every day for a while, then got caught up in a move across the country to San Diego, still on the hunt for a job.  After a couple of months, she decided to see what was up on AdJack.

    “I lucked out!” she says.  “On the day I was notified that I won the CrackaJack, I also found out that I got the job I wanted.  It was a great day!”… more

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