AdJack

“I Never Thought I’d Win a Thousand Dollars”

It was about 5:40 p.m. ET on Friday, June 12 and Daryl Stevens realized he hadn’t watched any commercials that week.  So he watched his fave five, hit the submit button at 5:44, and decided to stick around to watch the drawing video. 

At 6:00 p.m. the screen cleared and, shortly after members were invited to submit a number to compose the winning series, the magic numbers began to appear.  13, 16, 14, 4, 22, and the final AdJack bonus, 3.

“I glanced at it, I looked at it, I really didn’t believe it,” Daryl says.  “I replayed the video, and there they were again, the winning numbers.  My numbers. 4, 22, 13, 6, 16 and 3.  I was marking them out, crossing them out, replaying the video. I couldn’t believe it.  I was stunned for about five minutes.  So then I said to myself, ‘Okay, if they send me something that says I won, then I’ll believe it.’ And even when I got David Boland’s email, I still really just couldn’t believe it.”

Who would?  He’d only discovered AdJack in the last week of May, and this was his third week to play.

“I think I found AdJack by accident,” he says.  “I might have been Googling something else. At first, I don’t think I knew there was a drawing. I was just looking at ads. I thought, this is a cool way of looking at commercials. There was a drawing involved, so I thought, why don’t I just sign up?  I never thought I’d win a thousand dollars.”

Daryl is a full-time radiology student at West Central Technical College in Douglasville, GA.  He enjoys great commercials, and he says AdJack has the greatest, easiest-to-find collection of them he’s found so far.  What are his favorites? “I love the dancing in the iPod commercials,” he says.  “But I love the E-Trade baby.  The E-Trade babies are my favorites.”

Why You’re Buying Round Sunglasses

This may not strike you as profound, but today’s New York Times offers an interesting story on why round sunglasses are turning up everywhere this summer, from the top fashion houses to big box bargain stores.  Did the Fashion God blow a big whistle and shout, “OK, everybody, make round sunglasses for summer, 2009!”?

Not quite, but close.

The NYTs story jumps from dot to dot, tracing the possible line to why and how fashion sunglass designers happened to all reach the same place at the same time.  Writer Eric Wilson says it’s because of several events in 2007 and 2008.

Influential eyewear designer Selima Salaun happened to be at the Venice Biennali art fair two years ago when West African photographer Malick Sidibé was honored for his 1950s and ‘60s black and white portraits of folks, many of whom were wearing sunglasses.  Other prominent designers were there too, and soon afterward, Sidibé began to ascend in the fashion world.

Also, in July 2007, a pair of John Lennon’s wire-rimmed glasses went up for auction with a reported bid of $1.5 million.  Lennon’s image had been plastered all over New York since May 2007, publicizing a Lennon exhibition at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame annex in Soho.  Demand for wire-rims skyrocketed throughout the city.

In 2008, some designers were too far ahead of the trend to be successful. This year’s most successful sellers are modified round-rims that are slightly more angular and have stems that are higher on the frame. They look better on a broader variety of faces. 

Wilson also cites an exclusive preview of the Broadway musical “Hair” in May, 2008 that many top designers attended as a possible influence on the trend.  By the end of 2008, retailers were seeing round sunglasses in the fashion previews for 2009, and now here you are, buying them for the beach. 

Quick Fix

Bernadette Bracikowski is one of those AdJack members who zips in to watch her commercials and zips right out again.  She never spent any time poking around the site until she won on Friday, May 8th. 

“Most of the contests I enter just ask for basic information like your name and address, so I can enter really fast.  This one is different, and I figured because there was fun involved that there wasn’t as good a chance of winning, but I entered anyway. “

She says she’s addicted to entering sweepstakes and has won some great prizes such as a trip to New York City a couple of years ago. The holder of a degree in clinical chemistry, she now makes money at home in Torrance, California, doing online surveys.  When she’s not doing that, she’s likely to be knitting or crocheting—or signing onto AdJack.  “It’s a fun thing to do…almost every day.”

Chad is the Man!

Yes, we’re going to move on from this topic soon, but we admit, we just can’t get over the fact that an AdJack member lost his $500 for not paying attention.  His loss, however, is Chad Johnson’s gain.  Chad’s numbers came up on April 17 along with rican1chy’s, so we’re just going to suppose that those other numbers never came up. Boing!  There you are!  A retroactive $500 goes to Chad Johnson of Lovettsville, Virginia.  Thanks, everybody, for helping us set this precedent. 

‘Give it to Chad’ Club Grows

The chant is growing—“Give it to Chad, give it to Chad.”

Only one humanitarian in our ranks is saying that the money rican1chy left on the table from his CrackaJack win on April 17 should be given to a non-profit.  Not a peep out of anyone in Cheyenne, WY, about the $500 going to any of their worthy causes.  Hey, Cheyenne—is there anybody out there?

OK, OK.  We’re leaning strongly toward giving it to Chad—and that’s Chad Johnson, not the country.  That was our first thought, actually, and it appears that many of you agree.

Anybody else want to weigh in on the matter?  Going once, going twice…

One Winner, One Loser

A woman from Torrence, California won the $1,000 CrackaJack last night, and at the same moment, our man from Cheyenne, Wyoming, rican1chy, forfeited his half of $1,000 he won on April 17.

For the past month, we did everything in our power to let him know the money was waiting for him to claim it.  We even sent a news release to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, now WyomingNews.com, and to radio stations WKKK-AM, KFBO-AM, KGAB-AM, KGAB-AM, and KGWN-TV 5.  We thought it might be fun for them to help us find rican1chy, but they apparently didn’t share our sense of fun or urgency.  They dismissed us as publicity-seeking scamsters.

We know the guy’s name because he registered it, like everybody else does when they become members of AdJack.  We are prohibited by law from publicizing his name without his written permission. We also supposedly know his email address and his zip code. That’s how we know he lives somewhere in Cheyenne, Wyoming, or at least that’s what he said when he registered.

Here’s the deal, folks:  AdJack will indeed let you know if and when you’ve won, but we (highly) recommend that you do several things in your own interest, to wit:

1) Never give AdJack a phony email address.  Duh….

2) Do whatever one does to keep AdJack emails from getting caught in one’s spam filter.

3) Check the winning number series on Friday around 6 p.m. to see if you won.  Only two out of 22 winners so far have sent us an email proclaiming their joy.  What does this mean? That most of you really don’t expect to win?

And now, let us discuss the issue of what should be done with the unclaimed $500.  Should we give it to a Cheyenne, Wyoming homeless shelter, since the prize couldn’t find its home?  (We asked the busy folks at WFBC, the oldest, still locally owned radio station in Cheyenne, to give us some suggestions, but that must not be what they do.  Either that, or we ain’t from around there.) Should we let you vote on which national charity to give it to?  Or should we simply re-pocket the cash and give it to the next lucky AdJack member? 

Harmonic Convergence

May 8th’s CrackaJack winner Wilma Tipton of Midland, Texas, is no passive consumer of commercials. She loves the ones that feature animals, especially the Budweiser Clydesdale and Dalmatian in “Fetch,” and Avista Language School’s fish that demonstrates its game-changing power in “Learn Another Language.”

But lookout, marketers, if she doesn’t like your pitch.  “If it’s really annoying or distasteful, I write the company and I tell them so.  There was one with a rap song that drove me up the wall.  I wrote to them and told them I realize you are trying to home in on a certain demographic, but I don’t think you’re reaching them in this time slot. I don’t know if my letter made any difference, but I noticed it was gone soon after I sent my letter.”

Wilma, a former music teacher, has won several great prizes through systematically entering sweepstakes, and is one of those folks who only tunes into the Super Bowl to watch commercials, so she found harmonic convergence at AdJack. She likes the opportunity to daily submit numbers for the Friday drawing.  “AdJack is totally different from any other contest I’ve ever entered,” she says.  “It’s a refreshing two- or three-minute break where I can watch my favorite commercials.”

She was in the midst of explaining how she would come back to the site even though she’s not eligible to win now, when she was informed that her $1,000 CrackaJack prize doesn’t disqualify her for future contests.  “Really?” she said. “Wow!”

Wilma, who volunteered at a no-kill animal shelter, is pictured above with Wilson , a Himalayan cat that was returned after several years by the family who adopted him. “We were told that the family was having ‘issues,’“ Wilma says.  “He was badly matted and dirty. He had a nasty temper and nobody wanted to deal with him. After a ‘lion cut’ to remove the matted fur and a bath, he was a happy camper again. He’s giving me kitty kisses all over my hair in this picture. He was placed with a very happy grandma soon after this picture was taken.”

Yikes! Winner About to Forfeit $500 Prize

Hey rican1chy!  AdJack is looking for you! 

We’re putting the all call out to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where rican1chy resides.  This person, a male, won half the weekly $1,000 CrackaJack prize on Friday, April 17, but has not responded to CEO David Boland’s notifying emails. 

“It’s no joke,” Boland says.  “The guy with the username rican1chy won $500 that day, but unless he responds to my emails by 6 p.m. ET Friday, May 15, he’ll forfeit his prize.”

The April 17 winner registered as a member at AdJack on June 11, 2008, and according to Boland, last visited the site on April 26, after his win. Boland knows the winner’s name but is prohibited from publicizing it, and knows he lives in Cheyenne because of the winner’s registered zip code.  Other than that, rican1chy’s failure to reply to multiple emails makes it nearly impossible to find him, short of calling in the FBI. He must respond to Boland’s emails to claim his prize.

“The winning numbers are always clearly posted on the site, so all anyone has to do is check those numbers to see if they have won,” Boland says. “Most people apparently don’t do that; they wait for AdJack to notify them. I’m happy to do that, but they have to respond to my winner’s notices to claim their money.”

Birthday + CrackaJack = iPhone

Chad Johnson of Lovettsville, Virginia, is not a sweepstakes guy.  He doesn’t remember exactly how he found AdJack.  “Probably somebody sent me an email with a funny commercial. I started going to the site then.  It’s one of those things you hear about and then check out. 

One of the first things he did was look up this year’s Super Bowl commercials.  “It was significantly after the game, and I still hadn’t seen any of the commercials, so I looked them up on AdJack,” he says. His verdict?  “Eh, most of them didn’t do that much for me.  I think they were pretty low-key this year.  I did like the Coke avatar commercial, but I expect most computer geeks would like it.”

He doesn’t consider himself a full-fledged computer geek, but his work as a graphic designer has him in front of a computer for most of his work day.  He goes to AdJack to see if Apple has any new commercials.  “I love the Apple commercials.  The iPod, the Apple versus PC commercials, the iPhone commercials.  After seeing the iPhone commercial so many times on AdJack, I finally told my wife I wanted one for my birthday.  And that’s what I got.”

So, on April 17, one day after getting his new AdJack-inspired iPhone for his April 16 birthday, he and another AdJacker draw winning numbers, entitling him to half of the $1,000 CrackaJack prize.  That’s what we call tidy. 

Small Splurge “Feel Good” Spending Up

Did anyone you know buy bright red lipstick lately, even though they didn’t need it?  Maybe you opted for fries at Micky D’s when you usually go for higher end dining? 

You may be contributing to what Nancy Upton, assistant professor at the Northwestern University College of Business Administration and an expert on hedonistic spending calls ‘the lipstick effect”—increased spending on small stuff that makes consumers feel good during an economic downtown.

Upton says that during the Great Depression, cosmetic sales, especially for lipstick, increased.  The same thing is happening today.  Mass color cosmetic sales were up 3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2008. 

“Lipstick is a small, relatively inexpensive purchase that cheers you up,” Upton said in a recent interview with Marketing Daily. “McDonald’s sales are up, as are other lower-end restaurants.  People know it’s cheaper to eat at home, but it’s an inexpensive way to lift their mood, especially if they’re working late. People are looking for short-term gratification.”

While drug-store cosmetic sales are up, fragrance sales are down. Upton thinks that’s because we wear fragrances for other people.  “After a few minutes, we don’t even notice we’re wearing it.  We notice that new lipstick all day long.”

Upton says when people are anxious they go for short-term gratification and low risk decisions.  They don’t purchase items like cars unless they must, and then, Upton says, “they make all kinds of trade-offs between safety, style, mileage and price.  It’s so uncomfortable that many will just exit the shopping process and put off any decision.”

She doesn’t expect “the new frugality” to last.  “They are giving up things that make them happy, like having their hair colored and going out to dinner,” but Upton predicts we will soon return to our old ways, but with a new set of skills. 

“Now that they’re learning how to do extreme comparison shopping, people won’t go back to careless spending.  Smart shopping makes them feel savvy.  They like it.  But they will return to their go-to services and products, the things that make them feel good.”

Tweet Victory?  Ashton Crowns New Media King

Bloggers and Ashton Kutcher himself are hailing last night’s Tweet-off betwixt Kutcher and CNN as proof that the Internet is now king over all Medialand.  What does it mean that Kutcher got a million followers on Twitter a half-hour before CNN did on Thursday?  Kutcher says that it signals that the guard has changed from the old to the new.

“The new wave is here,” the TV and film actor declares. “We get to choose what we want to see and don’t want see.” He puts media giants on notice that they can no longer hog-tie us by default while they pummel us with their points of view until we buy into their ideology.  He even says no one can force us to watch endless commercials.  Yeah. 

The jubilant Kutcher proclaims that we have the power to determine what we watch, what we let into our lives, and with a simple click, close off what we don’t like.  “No longer are our lives dominated by mass media force-feeding us what they want us to hear or what they think we should hear.”
So click on, my AdJack friends, secure in the knowledge that you’ve already crossed the great divide.  You’ve been in control of what you watch at AdJack for more than a year. 

What good is advertising?

Here’s how advertising actually works:  an Internet reporter on branding trends wrote in a blog this morning about hearing a JC Penney commercial last night.  “Although I can’t tell you if it was on the radio or TV,” the reporter wrote, “I fleetingly thought to myself, ‘Oh, they’re still around?’ That’s nice.  They’re good people.’” The reporter continued, “Penney’s has always had an aura of friendly Midwestern earnestness about it, like the kid who’d do anything for you in high school but you haven’t seen since graduation.’”

Well, how’s that for an unsolicited branding statement? I submit that the blogger, a veteran observer of the marketing business, would not have had that fleeting thought about J. C. Penney if he had not heard the commercial. Notice the marketing veteran can’t remember whether it was radio or TV.  And notice that the ad wasn’t on the Internet. The net result was a positive reinforcement of the J. C. Penney brand in one person’s mind.  No accident, of course, but the result of years of corporate investment in brand image. 

The blogger went on to write about this morning’s Wall Street Journal story about Penney’s forthcoming debut of a mid-priced home décor line designed by model Cindy Crawford.  The Wall Street Journal story made him remember the ad from the night before, none of which would be worth a dime if Penney’s didn’t competently deliver dependable products.  Duh…

Take note, Prof. Eric Clemons (see Jack’s March 29 blog.)

Not Trusted, Not Wanted, Not Needed?

Professor Eric Clemons of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania says advertising as we know it is doomed because it is not trusted, wanted or needed. 

In a March 22 TechCrunch guest blogpost, Prof. Clemons says consumers do not trust advertising, citing credible studies that advertising and company- sponsored blogs are the least-trusted source of information on products and services. 

He says consumers don’t want to watch ads, illustrating his point with the fact that TV network programmers synchronize ads around the evening news so channel surfers can’t avoid messaging of some kind.

And he says that consumers don’t need advertising because they can get whatever information they need about product offerings from Internet search and independent rating sites. 

He says “the Internet is about freedom, and I suspect that a fully free population will not be held captive and forced to watch ads.”

The lengthy article brought on an avalanche of comment.  Un1crom at socialmode.com said, “Yes, I generally hate banner, text, billboard ads and neon signs like everyone else.  Except when I don’t.”

So, let me hear from all you folks out in AdJackland who actually enjoy watching ads.  Myself, I often get a kick out of them, but then, you’d expect that. 

Ohio Winner Gets Fun Fix on AdJack

It was the wee hours of the morning Saturday, March 7 when Ellen Long looked at her AdJack numbers for the previous week, and saw that she had a match.  She sent AdJack CEO David Boland an email, and confirmed that, sure enough, she was the 21st official $1,000 CrackaJack winner.

“I get up at 4 a.m. every day.  I’ve done it for years.  I like the quiet time between getting my husband off to work, and helping get the neighbor’s kids off to school.  On Saturday, I go through those numbers with a fine tooth comb.”

If it weren’t for AdJack, she wouldn’t see many commercials at all. “I’m one of those folks who doesn’t get to see many commercials on TV because my husband zips through them, you know?” she says, laughing.  “I love watching them, unless they’re really, really stupid. Most of the time they’re funny. “

When Ellen says she’s been there, done that, she’s not kidding.  Originally from Pennsylvania, she lived in Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Bangkok, Thailand before settling down in Stow, Ohio, near family.  She enjoys playing on her computer and enters a few sweepstakes, “the ones that don’t demand to know all about my life,” she says.

Her daughter told her about AdJack.  “’This one’s a good one,’ my daughter said. And it is.  I love watching commercials on AdJack.”

Be Good to Your Mom.  Tell Her About AdJack.

Way, way back on February 20, at 6 p.m., the numbers 20, 3, 24, 13, 28, & 4 came shooting onto the AdJack screen. Yay! There was a winner! But was anyone jumping up and down and screaming “I won! I won!?” Nope.  Poor ol’ lonely Jack waited next to his computer, helplessly hoping the happy AdJacker would recognize the winning numbers and share his joy.  He waited one day. Two days.  Three.  Then he realized she was never going to notice that she won, and so he sent her the congratulatory email.

Then she jumped up and down and screamed “I won! I won!” At least, Jack imagined she did. 

Actually, Joan Hagene of St. Peters, Missouri says, “I was pretty excited. I was extremely excited.  Oh my goodness, I was so happy!” But did she jump up and down and shout?

Well, you have to understand that Joan has been playing sweepstakes for years, and the $1,000 CrackaJack is the biggest prize she has ever won, so she really wasn’t expecting the news.  And, she actually comes to AdJack for the fun of watching commercials.  “I enjoy taking a few minutes out of my day to log onto the site,” she says. “It’s much more fun watching commercials on the website than on television.”

The one who may actually twist and shout is Shawn, her lucky son who told her about AdJack. He and his fiancée are building a house, and Joan says she is now able to think big about a housewarming gift.

CrackaJack Goes to Boulder

Daniel Shuman doesn’t remember how he heard about AdJack.  “Maybe it was on the ‘Poorer than You’ blog my friend Stephanie from college writes.  I can’t remember.  Anyway, somebody said there was this website that was like a lottery you don’t have to pay to enter.  I love that concept.  And I like to make a game out of picking the five shortest ads to watch of the ten that are displayed on the page, even if searching for the shorter ones takes me longer than if I just watched the longer ones.”

His investment of less than five minutes daily paid off big time on Friday, February 27, when he became the latest $1,000 CrackaJack winner. 

A systems engineer at Intel, Daniel is 23, and a recent transplant from Philadelphia to Boulder, he says, for his first post-college job “with a capital J.”

No Knock Outs for Oscar

Three and a half hours of program time were devoted to the 81st Oscar Awards Ceremony on Sunday night. The big sponsor was J.C. Penny women’s fashion.  Their ads were well written and produced but left at least a portion of the 36 million-plus viewers uninspired to do their part toward stimulating the economy.  Apparently Oscar’s audience is primarily female.

I probably should have taken some notes, but I was counting on being impressed enough to remember what I saw. Turns out I’d seen most of the commercials elsewhere, including the 2009 Super Bowl, which BTW, drew the biggest sports audience in televised history at almost 99 million.

Audience tracker Nielsen Media Research says the Oscar show still ranks as the year’s highest-rated entertainment spectacle on TV, and it’s a cash cow for Walt Disney Co.’s ABC, but Sunday’s figures continue to mark a general decline in American TV audiences over the past 10 years.  In 1998, a record 55 million tuned in to watch “Titanic” sail off with 11 awards.

TV critics were less than excited about the show. The New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley, borrowing ad speak to describe host Hugh Jackman’s performance, said it was “the hosting equivalent of a value meal.”

Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times seemed most unhappy with the show. “I’m beginning to believe that saving the Oscars is a job for Iron Man or Hancock, a kick-ass superhero with the kind of unassailable powers that would allow them to radically overhaul what has become the year’s stodgiest awards fest.”

Obviously Mr. Goldstein craves more drama than the Oscars delivered this year.  Perhaps he is a victim of over-stimulation in years past, or maybe he missed the excitement of the Super Bowl’s racy Go Daddy commercials which sacrificed customers to get big buzz, according to the Wired blog networks. 

Report Says One in Six TV Ads During Football Wrong for Kids

Common Sense Media, a national non-profit organization led by concerned parents and individuals with experience in child advocacy, public policy, education, media and entertainment, released a report this month on the content of ads shown during NFL broadcasts.

The news isn’t good, according to the report.  Broadcast Dysfunction: Sex, Violence, Alcohol and the NFL says many ads supporting more than 50 games this season trade in sex, violence and Viagra®.

“Nearly 5.3 million kids watch football each week, yet one in six of the ads shown during the broadcasts features contents that’s wildly inappropriate for kids—that’s every other commercial break,” said Common Sense Media CEO and founder James Steyer.  “The game of football is great fun for families, but it can be really awkward for parents when they have to explain erectile dysfunction on a Sunday afternoon, or have to dive for the remote during violent promos for network shows. I know we speak for millions of football fans and parents everywhere when we say this situation is really getting ridiculous.”
The report found that 40 percent of the games included ads for Viagra® and Cialis®; nearly 500 of the ads involved gun fights, explosions, and murders; and more than 75 of the ads featured significant levels of sexuality, including scenes featuring prostitution and strippers. Nearly half (46.5 percent) of the violent or sexual ads were promos by the networks for their own programs. Three hundred ads were for alcohol.
“The good news is it wouldn’t take too much effort to cut out the inappropriate content in commercials,” says Steyer. “With so many families tuning in to ‘America’s Game,’ we just want the networks and the league to do the right thing. And they can do that with just a little bit of self-restraint and common sense.”

Pink Slip for Good Old Days

Bob Lutz, the guy who less than ten years ago convinced General Motors that it needed to think of itself as a global company in competition with other global car manufacturers, will take his final multimillion-dollar compensation package and drive off to Florida at the end of 2009, according to a recent Detroit Free Press story.

Lutz said future auto product development is likely to be driven by regulation, not the most exciting prospect for “a person like me who thrives on the challenge of anticipating…customer desires and has a certain knack for doing vehicles that please people in the marketplace.”

Described by admirers as a lover of fast cars with a gut instinct for what buyers wanted and by critics as one of the dinosaurs of Detroit, Lutz said the new car design climate will eliminate the psychological or sociological factor, “that emotional factor that I was very good at playing.” His said car manufacturing will become “a more national business, where cars need to have certain characteristics, and above all, to have regulatory compliance.”

Lutz rejoined GM as vice chairman in 2001, having worked for GM of Europe from 1963 to 1971.  He served as vice chairman and co-president of Chrysler from 1986 until 1998. His resume includes high executive positions at Ford and BMW.  His comment early last year that “Global warming is a crock of s**t,” and that his promotion of the Chevrolet Volt is more grounded in a desire to decrease dependence on foreign oil than a concern about CO2 emissions, was first reported in D Magazine, then blasted through the blogosphere.

According to the Free Press story, GM ended 2008 down 22.7% from the previous year.  The top brass told Congress the company will cut as many as 31,500 salaried and hourly US workers through 2012 in order to eliminate factories and dealers.  The company would have gone bankrupt if not for the recent $13.4 billion federal loan.  On February 17, GM will present Congress its long-term viability plan that was part of the loan deal.

Lutz’s compensation package in 2008 was reportedly $6.9 million.  Gerald Myers, business professor at the University of Michigan, joked that Lutz probably opted out rather than receive a mere $500,000 for his labors, the new yearly cap for executives at companies receiving Federal Treasury assistance. 

Although GM officials are roundly applauding Lutz and his service, David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, says the Lutz retirement is symbolic, that he may be the convenient GM sacrificial lamb.  “If you start letting a lot of people go down through the organization,” Cole says, “you need to have something at the top that’s consistent with what you’re doing in the lower parts.”

First Big California Win Goes to Corona Man

A friend of Daniel Su’s told him about a website where you can watch a few commercials and get chances to win thousands of dollars.

“Initially, I was skeptical, but after a few entries, I knew it was for real,” Daniel says.  As of January 30, he is certain beyond a doubt.  That’s the day he won the $1,000 CrackaJack prize.

Daniel was born in Korea to Chinese parents.  When he was 17, the family immigrated to Muscatine , Iowa , where they joined extended family in running a restaurant business. When his parents retired, the family moved to southern California where Daniel puts his University of Iowa MBA to work in the financial services field.

He went into business for himself more than nine years ago and has managed to stay upright so far.  “It was tough when I started my business, and it’s tough now. It’s very nice to take a break and watch a few funny commercials after work,” he says.

His current favorite is “Eat Like Snake,” brought to us by Burger King, the same folks who invented the subservient chicken.  The commercial ran in selected US markets about two years ago.

Jack’s Picks

Okay, folks.  Yesterday I sat down to watch the Super Bowl, surrounded by a wide variety of friends and family, ready to be wowed by creative genius in advertising. I have my favorites, which I’ll briefly mention below, but we want to hear from you. Which ads stuck with you and why?

Bud Light Conan/Sweden:  This ad featuring a naïve Conan was fresh and entertaining, packing an extra laugh for ex-pats who have seen Brad Pitt and Charlie Sheen on billboards in Japan, advertising the most ridiculous things.

Cash4Gold: Ed McMahon and MC Hammer pair up in a memorable, funny pitch for our gold. I didn’t trust the “regular” folks they used in previous spots--but Ed and MC give it to us straight. When Ed said he was cashing in his golden hip replacement, I knew this company was for real. I’m calling for my secure envelope now.

CareerBuilders.com Tips: I personally am unemployable at this point; too much of a smart ass and unable (and unwilling) to carry one more person’s pack. This ad reminds us all that life is just too short (or too long, I guess) to spend it in a job you hate, especially if you have to share an office with another jackass. I hope there were no koalas harmed in the filming of that commercial!

Doritos Crystal Ball: I love that the idea for the Crystal Ball spot came from an online contest. This commercial makes me laugh every time I see it.

Pepsi MacGruber: I know, everyone expects me to talk about Pepsi Generations or the Refresh Anthem, but no. MacGruber, like Doritos’ crystal-ball-to-the-crotch ad just makes me laugh. Nice mullet, dude.

The Super Bowl landscape seemed cluttered.  I’m glad there’s a quiet place where I can watch the best of ads, when I want to watch them.

As Luck Would Have It…

Do you recognize the name Kris Van Der Werff?  AdJack did, when his numbers came up as the winning CrackaJack combination this past Friday, January 23.  We knew his name because Kris won the CrackaJack six weeks ago, on December 12.

He was not aware that he had won again until he got AdJack CEO David Boland’s notifying email. What was his reaction?  “Relief,” he says.  “The money will come in handy to pay some bills.”

Even we are wondering if Kris has some sort of mojo working, since the last time he won he had only submitted numbers twice in the two weeks he had been a member. So we took the liberty of asking, just what is your method?  He lives in Las Vegas, and works as an accountant for a gaming machine manufacturer.  Maybe that gives him some sort of insider knowledge when it comes to chance?

“No,” he says, musing on his good fortune, “I don’t really know.  I primarily take the numbers that are assigned.  I may change one of two to correspond with my birthday or something like that.  But I think I was just lucky.”

January Winner’s Opinions Include Dog’s Views

“I really enjoy watching the commercials on Adjack,” says freelance writer Louise Judsen, winner of the January 9 $1,000 CrackaJack.  “My dog Griffin, the sweetest and most opinionated Pembroke Welsh Corgi I have ever known, enjoys the ads too. He sits with me and watches the ads on my laptop and makes his opinion known when he bays at the commercials he likes best.”

Louise also takes more than a passing interest in the commercials on AdJack. She has an MBA in marketing from the University of Illinois at Urbana and a Master Degree in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University which she stacked on top of a BA with Honors in history and political science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

“Since I know about these fields and write about them, I enjoy seeing what’s new in advertising.  I write about marketing and journalism (and also History) in my work quite a bit.  AdJack gives me the opportunity to see what is new and fresh in marketing and keeps me up-to-date.”

When she goes to the site, she’s always looking for funny ads. “I think they stand out because people remember them. When an ad gets people’s attention, they get interested in the product. It also increases an ad’s effectiveness.  We all watch the Super Bowl to see the creative ads.  People then talk about those ads around the water cooler and it turns into word of mouth advertising, the type of advertising advertisers covet most.”

She says she takes advantage of the star rating function for each commercial, registering her opinion with one star for ads that that fail to entertain her - usually because she thinks they are too long - and four stars for her favorites.

“The ones where they’re dancing crazy aren’t my style.” she continued. “Also, I feel the ones that last more than a minute are terrible! They are just too long!  However I do like watching all the different ads because you have to keep up with what is new – life is always changing.”

The Chicago native gives her current home base of Alexandria, Virginia, a five-star rating.  She loves its small town feel, its history, shops and restaurants, and especially loves the fact that it’s dog-friendly.  “It’s dog heaven,” she says.  She regularly promenades Griffin down King Street, where he’s in good company with lots of other dogs.

“It is kind of like an Easter Parade.  All the dogs are out on the weekend and they seem to always look their best.”

Griffin will be a beneficiary of Louise’s win.  “He’ll be getting a lot more treats than usual,” she says.

Sandwich Wars: Was Research Half-Baked?

Did anybody ask you which you like better, Domino’s new sandwiches or Subway’s? 

Ol’ Jack got passed over when it came to participating in the alleged big taste test, but if you were one of the chosen who declared Domino’s sandwiches superior to Subway’s, I hope you’ll come forward and tell us just how the test was run. 

Were Subway’s sandwiches indeed served cold, as Jeff Moody, CEO of Subway’s Franchisee Advertising Trust, supposes?  Were the three Subway sandwiches that were allegedly stacked up against Domino’s piled high with the whole gamut of Subway veggies?  (Veggies?  Ewwwwww.) And were said three sandwiches supposed to represent Subway’s entire selection?  Did the Domino’s testers pit the Domino’s Philly Cheese Steak against Subway’s Philly Cheese Steak, or, as Moody guesses, did the nefarious scientists substitute the Subway Steak and Cheese?

You may marvel that grown men in expensive suits are outraged on both sides of this issue, but millions of dollars are swirling around the argument.  And your curiosity may be raised enough for you to search out Domino’s when lunchtime rolls around, just to see what all the fuss is about. 

One thing’s for sure; Domino President David Brandon’s nationally televised commercial showing him figuratively spitting in the eye of Subway’s legal department got both companies tons of valuable “earned” media attention on editorial pages.  According to a Brandweek report, Domino’s spent $135 million on media January through November, 2008 to Subway’s $412 million in the same period. 

That ain’t hay, as we say here in the barn.

Jack, OSA

BTW, thanks, folks, for the lively discussion about the state of our economy in the blog comments for January 20’s entry.  Usually when I suggest that folks write their Congress rep or senator, I’m just joking.  But not this time.  I think it’s important that you express your opinions in writing so that our representatives cannot ignore what you are saying.

Let ’Em Eat Whole Foods?

One symbol of extravagance that may be looking unnecessarily gaudy to consumers these days is Whole Foods, the Austin, Texas-based upscale grocery chain referred to even in flusher times as Whole Paycheck.  Eagle-eyed investors are circling the once-plump company.

This month, activist shareholder Ron Burkle’s Yucapipa investment firm reportedly bought a 7% stake in Whole Foods, saying he intends to monitor its performance closely. Last November, Leonard Green Equity Investors bought 17% of the company and placed two handpicked members on the board of directors, a move some observers speculate signaled the investors were unhappy with management’s direction.

None of which is to say that Whole Food stores will soon be offering affordable prices on foods that don’t make you sick—although if you happen to reside in a homeless shelter in a town that boasts a Whole Foods, you may very well eat high on the hog from time to time and not even know it.

San Francisco’s Real Food Company competes well pricewise in the organic arena in a town full of foodophiles, with some neighborhood locations in relatively small storefronts.  Trader Joe’s, a company that touts itself as “the neighborhood grocery store,” takes pride in offering a wide variety of high quality specialty items along with meat, milk and bread.  Its company website lightly points out that you can’t buy stock in the privately held company but the good news is that the customer is king.

Thanks to Kroger and other big box stores, discerning eaters in America’s smaller communities can get quality organic foods and specialty items if you ask for them. You can always carry your stuff home in a recycled Whole Foods shopping bag if you’re really into conspicuous consumption.

Sometimes I wonder why healthy food is not more widely advertised. The people who eat it sure are sexier.

Jack, OSA

A New Day

This morning I watched Barack Obama walk alone down a marble hallway, and I wondered at the expression on his face.  There was no jubilation, no trace of self-satisfaction.  It was the face of monumental resolve.

A few minutes after noon, I listened hard to everything the new President said. His words explained the gravity of his expression. “I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.” He said the United States has survived thus far because the majority of its people have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers.

“The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit, to choose our better history, to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation, the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness,” he said, and reminded us that America was built by risk-takers, doers, and makers.

He called our “patchwork heritage” of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and non-believers a strength, not a weakness, and called us to demonstrate the solid values of hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism that have been the quiet force of progress throughout America’s history.

Some cynics complain that many Americans appear to worship Obama, but the relief from fear that renewed hope brings should not be confused with worship. For now, what do you say we all take a break from fear, loathing and cynicism, and instead, hear what the man said: that our goods and services are no less needed today than they were last week or last month or last year, that our capacity remains undiminished. 

“Starting today,” Obama said, “we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

I’m game.  How about you?

Parting Shot: CEO Rallies Retailers to Change

Lee Scott steps down as Wal-Mart CEO on January 31. He dedicated his last public speaking opportunity as Wal-Mart chief, an address to the National Retail Federation in Washington, DC on January 12, to addressing big issues facing the country. What he had to say may surprise you.

“When I was invited to speak with you today, I am sure the expectation was for me to talk about Christmas sales,” Scott said to the industry gathering. “I hope you will bear with me as I go in a different direction. I would like to talk about the big issues facing our country and the role that we can play as retailers.”

“How do we come out of this difficult period in our history as a stronger America?” Scott asked. “Are we going to end the national embarrassment of 47 million uninsured and finally make health care in this country affordable for working men and women? Are we going to end our addiction to foreign oil and put our country on an economically and environmentally sustainable path through alternative sources of energy? Are we going to end the shameful slide of our education system and offer our children the knowledge, training, and opportunity they need and deserve? Are we going to solve the immigration problems in a way that secures our borders, respects the rule of law, and shows a deep compassion that families deserve?”

Scott said his years at Wal-Mart taught him that there’s nothing like crisis to bring change. “Over the last few years, a problem-solving vacuum has existed in Washington. There has been too much partisanship, too much gamesmanship, too much selfishness. The American people are tired of it,” he said.

He called on commerce to “build new relationships,” and to “listen not only to people who agree with us,” but also to those who do not. “This can work,” he said. “We have seen it work at Wal-Mart.”

“We have seen it in our efforts to become a more sustainable company, where some of our best ideas have come from NGOs and former critics,” Scott said. “We have seen it with the Better Health Care Together coalition, where we stood on the same stage with labor leaders and agreed that health care must be reformed. “

Scott said that retailers are closer to American working men and women than any other industry. “We know what makes a difference and what does not—because our customers tell us every day at our cash registers.”

“Let me be clear,” he said. “There is no conflict between delivering value to shareholders and helping solve bigger societal problems, “that meeting societal responsibilities can align and strengthen businesses.”

He called on his colleagues to squarely face health care, diversity, responsible sourcing, and immigration issues as opportunities for growth. “Every retailer, each and every business, can participate, can make a difference in society,” he said. “If you do it, I guarantee that you will be a better business and a better company. I know that together with leaders in government and the NGO community we can build a stronger America.”

So, goodbye Lee Scott. Thanks for the straight talk. We hope that everybody, not just your retail industry colleagues, listens.

Jack, OSM

Lots of New Stuff Out There

Innovators are still turning out plenty of consumables despite evidence that consumers are jittery if not broke.

Air Jordan will introduce its 2009 athletic shoe on January 31 at the sneak preview price of $230 per pair. If you can curb your urge to buy, the price goes down to a mere $190 per pair on February 14, when the shoe is launched big time at the NBA All Star Weekend.  Auto engineering and the sport of fencing inspired designer Jason Mayden in the three-year process of creating the shoe.  Each shoe sole will be injected with a unique swirl pattern, a nod to b-ball superstar Michael Jordan’s artistic side.

For all you die-hard Chuck Taylor fans, Converse’s latest designer model, the 1Hund(red) Tokyo Police Club sneaker, came out about two months ago at select retailers.  Get them now for $89.99 at the Converse website, and 10 percent of your purchase price goes to The Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Palm’s new touch-screen phone, the Pre, debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas yesterday.  It has a pinch function that allows you to zoom in or out, or to flick to scroll, and includes a physical keyboard that slides out from underneath the touch screen. Unlike its primary competitor, the Pre will allow users to run multiple applications at the same time. No news about when it will be on the market or its price, but company officials said “sometime before July,” and that the price would be “competitive.”

BMW unveiled a sensor system to be installed in all 2009 models that allows emergency responders to predict the likelihood of severe injuries in a crash. The data will give firefighters and paramedics a jump on what to expect and help them determine more quickly where injured parties should be taken.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally told attendees of the Consumer Electronics Show that his company intends to be in the forefront of the digitization of the automobile, Bryce G. Hoffman reports in the Detroit News.  “Those of us in this room are limited only by our collective imagination....” Mulally said in a keynote address. He unveiled Sync 2.0’s voice-controlled turn-by-turn navigation system, and gave a sneak preview of a virtual personal assistant named “Eva” that handles e-mail, scheduling and entertainment through conversational commands.

Come back soon for news about Whole Foods, and how Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott handled questions consumers sent him via email.

Hope your holidays were great. 

Cleveland Winner Counting on Luck

“It’s the money,” laughs Lori Williams, talking about what drives her to watch commercials on AdJack.  The Cleveland, Ohio, housing inspector says green is her favorite color at the moment.  She’s spending more of her off-work hours entering sweepstakes that offer big cash.  Her two-month membership at AdJack paid off on Friday, December 26, when winning CrackaJack numbers came up for her and co-winner Marcia Hartgrove.

The mother of two teenage boys says the most compelling commercial for her at the moment is the one about free credit reports.  “I like the little rap song,” she says, “but I don’t even want to see mine!”

St. Nick-of-Time Arrives December 26

Marcia Hartgrove of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was one of two AdJack members who came up with winning numbers on Friday, December 26.  Plans for her half of the $1,000 CrackaJack came easy.

“Talk about spreading Christmas love and cheer,” she wrote in an email message. “This is the ultimate!!  I heard about AdJack about eight months ago…from Online-Sweepstakes.com and have been entering ever since.  I have always tried to enter at least two or three times per week; however, within the last couple of months I have been entering almost everyday.  I really enjoy Adjack—it has made winning even more fun!  It’s really entertaining to view the new commercials and rate them.”

Marcia says the money comes at a great time, as she and her husband juggle family responsibilities and do a delicate financial balancing act that includes trying to sell a house in Columbia, Missouri while establishing a new household in Oklahoma City.

She thought she would have to forego a visit any time soon to her daughter and two grandchildren back in Missouri, but thanks to her CrackaJack win last Friday, she’s making new plans.

Knowing the Real Thing When You See It

Ever hummed “I’d Like to Buy the World a ….. “?

One of the most famous and successful commercials in American advertising history started out in a fog, resulted from an all-nighter, and was initially an expensive flop.

On February 18, 1971, Bill Backer, creative director on the Coke account for New York advertising agency McCann-Erickson, was on his way to London to write and arrange several radio commercials for Coca Cola. His team, Billy Davis, formerly of the Four Tops, and English songwriter Roger Cook, was waiting for him but a massive English fog over Heathrow forced Backer’s plane to land in Shannon, Ireland.  Angry travelers had to share rooms at the one available hotel or sleep at the airport.

The next morning, Backer noticed a decidedly different mood in the airport coffee shop as folks gathered waiting for clearance to fly.  They were laughing and talking over bottles of Coca Cola. Backer recalls in his book, The Care and Feeding of Ideas, that at that moment, he began to see his product as more than a drink.  It occurred to him that the familiar words, “Let’s have a Coke” were really a way of saying, “Let’s keep each other company for a little while.” He says he realized it was being said all over the world, and he began to think of Coke as more than just a liquid refresher, but as a link between all people, a universal bond that allows people to enjoy each others’ company if only for a few minutes.

When he finally reached London around midnight the next day, he insisted that Davis and Cook begin work immediately on his idea.  “I could see and hear a song that treated the whole world as if it were a person, a person the singer would like to help and get to know. I’m not sure how the lyric should start,” he said, “but I know the last line—I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.”

They worked through the night, and the next day presented it to David Mackay, arranger for the New Seekers, with instructions to make the arrangement warm but not too cute.  On February 12, 1971, the commercial “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” was shipped to radio stations throughout the United States.  It flopped.  Bottlers hated it and refused to buy airtime for it. The public paid no attention.

Undeterred, Backer persuaded McCann-Erickson that the message simply needed a visual element.  The company eventually approved more than $250,000 for filming, at that time one of the largest budgets ever devoted to a television commercial.  Art director Harvey Gabor proposed that the song be treated for TV as a “First United Chorus of the World.”

The initial filming at the English Cliffs of Dover was a debacle. Several thousand British schoolchildren proved unmanageable on the one day during the shooting schedule that it didn’t rain.  They moved the production to Rome, where unprecedented rains fell day after day.  The entire production budget melted away.  Scrapping the cast of 1,200 kids, the producers pieced together 500 extras gathered from foreign embassies.  They spotted a British governess walking down the street pushing a baby carriage and recruited her for the female lead.

After a tepid European response, the spot was released in the US in July, 1971. By November, viewers wrote more than a hundred thousand letters clamoring for the ad. They pummeled radio stations with requests to play the commercial.  The song was rewritten omitting references to Coke, and the New Seekers and Hillside Singers both scored hits on the pop charts with it. Recordings of the song and versions of the sheet music appeared in a variety of languages to fill a demand that has never ceased.

We’re offering the 1984 winter holiday version of the commercial here, with our sincere best wishes for your great luck now and in 2009, and the hope that when you know you have a great idea, you won’t let a series of initial failures stop you.

Happy Holidays.  See you here in 2009!

Jack, speaking for the AdJack Crew

Beginner’s Luck

For the second time in his two-week history with AdJack, Kris Van Der Werff watched commercials during the week of December 12, submitted his numbers, and voila—won a tidy $1,000 for his efforts.

His wife has been entering for about a month, since she learned about AdJack from a sweepstakes survey site.

He doesn’t consider himself a true “sweeper,” since the only other game website he frequents is RewardTV.  An accountant, he works for a Las Vegas company that manufactures gaming equipment.  For fun, he and his wife like to go to concerts. 

Let’s Don’t But Say We Did?

I’ve been entertaining myself lately by categorizing the responses on YouTube to GE’s 2005 commercial titled “Model Miners.” The commercial was uploaded on YouTube a couple years ago, and has since been viewed more than 75,000 times.  (And none of those viewers ever had a chance of winning a buck for their pleasure—or pain.  Tch, tch.)

The commercial created quite a stir when it ran on TV.  Among those who were appalled was Josh Ozersky, who registered his disgust in the New York Times Arts section on July 3, 2005. He, like so many YouTube viewers, marveled at the use of Tennessee Ernie Ford’s 1955-56 hit version of “16 Tons” in an effort to “make coal sexy again.” Those are the words of General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt.  Coal, sexy?  Again?  I must say, they succeeded in making coal sexy once, if only for 30 seconds.

As one whose not-too-distant relatives once labored in the mines, I can report that some bonds of affection were apparently formed.  The song my kin most often heard was
“My sweetheart’s a mule in the mines
I drive her without any lines
all day I just sit, I chew and I spit
all over my sweetheart’s behind.”

I wonder if they even considered that song for the commercial?  Nah, probably not.

So far, 62 people have weighed in on the Model Miners commercial in the comments section, some as recently as two weeks ago.  According to my quick survey, 23 comments registered satiric disgust; 21 were perfectly appalled by the commercial, nine took off on tangents in the discussion, four completely missed the point, two were apathetic, one indicated that his libido was aroused, and two seemed to accept the message that coal is cool.  Or hot, as it were.

AdJack carries several of GE’s Ecomagination commercials because we think they’re engaging, but we notice that not much if anything has actually been accomplished toward making coal clean in the three years since the Model Miners spot came out.  Our CO2 problem is going from bad to worse.  Model Miners?  All we will say is we hope somebody comes up quick with a way to make coal clean. We don’t care if it’s sexy.

Blog? What Blog?

Thanks to everyone who filled out the survey AdJack recently sent to the membership. We’ll share the information with you as soon as it’s completely compiled. We think you’ll be interested in what AdJack members had to say about features and improvements you would like to see.

Some of your answers were surprising.  For example, I was shocked to learn that many of you aren’t reading my blog first thing, every time you come to the site.  In fact, a lot of you don’t even know about the blog.  So, here’s my question: if an ass brays in the forest and there’s no one around to hear him, did he make a sound?  Oh, never mind.

We want you to know that as we count our many blessings during this Thanksgiving season, you are among them.  We’ve had fun talking with members who have won AdJack prizes, and we’re looking forward to even more fun as we further develop the site.  Hang on and hang in.  We’re only getting started.

Idaho Winner Proves Play’s the Thing

Jo Anne Johnson watches commercials at AdJack every day except Sunday. On Friday, November 14, the numbers 17, 5, 7, 23, 13, & 3 came up.  She had four out of the first five in no particular sequence and the AdJack bonus number 3, which gave her the day’s CrackaJack prize.  Hello $1,000!

The lifelong Boise resident says her son knows she enjoys playing sweepstakes, so he sent her an email about AdJack.  “I’ve loved entering sweepstakes ever since I retired 20 years ago.  It sort of replaced going to work every day.”

She spends an hour to 90 minutes each day entering contests, with a stop at AdJack always on the list.  “It’s fun,” she says.  “I like the ads.  There’s a good selection.  The ones I don’t like, I stay away from.  Like most people, I like the one about the troops coming home.  I still get teary-eyed when I watch it.”

She’s been an executive, a business owner, a wife and mother.  Now when she’s not driving around in the 2001 Dodge Caravan she won in a sweeps contest or watching commercials on AdJack, she ‘s writing plays.

“There’s a pretty good market around here for melodramas,” she says, laughing.  “I load my plays with corny lines and plenty of opportunities for broad acting.”

Who Do You Blame for Fat?

We consumers are a growing market, pound by pound, inch by inch, and we’re growing by the simple act of consuming. Marketers work our ravenous appetites for food, sex, love, pleasure, security and status to their advantage every day.

For many years critics have targeted the advertising business for pumping our desires into a frenzy of excess.  Nielsen, the company famous for monitoring our television-watching habits, also examines our consumption behavior in other areas.  Recently, it published a study titled “A Widening Market: The obese consumer in the U. S.”

The Nielsen Consumer Insight study reports that three-fourths of American consumers believe that advertising encourages people to eat less-healthy food, and that food manufacturing companies should provide healthier food.

The report says that most consumers don’t put as much blame on fast food companies.  They rank in the second tier of responsibility, alongside the government.

Sarah Hills, in a report on the study for foodnavigator-usa.com, notes this is a radical shift in attitude from 2006, when Nielsen LifeChoices said 82 percent of American adults took individual responsibility for weight gain. Six percent blamed fast food companies, and only two percent blamed food manufacturers.

According to the Body Mass Index, a third of Americans are obese. Women represent 54 percent of that group, and many are aged 55-64.  Older consumers who have grown fatter as they age tend to be more concerned about it than younger obese consumers.

Nielson’s report is designed to help marketers “unlock” this consumer segment by helping them understand obese consumers and their self-perceptions.  This could result in the creation of products that address the obesity problem—or help us ignore it.

A recent Credit Suisse report estimates that revenue from obesity products in the consumer staples sector, including food and beverage companies, will reach $1.4 trillion globally by 2012, with average annual growth of 9.2 percent from 2008. 

Advertisers Miss the Mark for Car Buyers?

Think Gen Y is all about style over substance?  You might think that, judging from mass market vehicle commercials, says a San Diego marketing consultancy.

Think again, says Strategic Vision, at least when it comes to buying a new vehicle.

Data from the company’s 2007-2008 New Vehicle Experience Study suggests that folks born between 1979 and 1999 may not be very different from older new car buyers when it comes to preferences that influence purchases.

According to a recent Marketing Daily article, safety and security in design and durability are much more important to Gen Yers than, say, how fun the vehicle is to drive.  The study says brands perceived to have higher security ratings are much more often considered for purchase regardless of whether they are considered “fun.”

Gen Y new car buyers, 77% of whom are female, are likely to be college educated and buying for the first time. Seventy-nine percent of the surveyed buyers said they want a vehicle that offers security, can be trusted, is safe, and expresses confidence. If they perceive that security is built into the brand, then they’ll consider how fun and exciting it is.

Gen Yers do have more interest in style and performance than older generations, but for the most part, when it comes to buying a new car, “any 19-year-old is more like their 50-year old parent than their Gen Y cohort,” says Strategic Vision spokesman Alexander Edwards.

No Trick; All Treat for Ohio Winner October 31

Thomas McElwee of Columbus, Ohio was on the AdJack site Friday, October 31 trying to get one more set of numbers entered before the deadline but the clock beat him. Instead, he got the invitation to submit a number for the week’s drawing.

He submitted the number 26, then watched as the winning numbers began to materialize on the screen.  20, 4, 9…. so far, so good….15…. uh oh…. 26!  Wow!  And then the AdJack bonus number 1!

Touchdown!  He had four out of the five winning numbers plus the AdJack bonus number 1 which gave him the game, unless somebody else happened to score a winning set as well. An hour later, he got a confirmation email from AdJack CEO David Boland that he had indeed won the entire CrackaJack prize of $1,000.

“I was pretty excited,” Tom says.  “I called a couple of my friends and told them, and they were skeptical, thinking it was a scam. ‘No I don’t think so,’ I said.”

The tech support specialist has been selectively playing sweepstakes since early summer, monitoring Online-Sweepstakes for good contests.  He watches commercials on AdJack at least five times each week, usually opting for the funny ones.  Among his favorites are the Bavaria and Brahma beer commercials, and the Sasquatch series.  “I like the funny ones,” he says. “I have shared the Zazoo ad, the one for condoms, with friends,” he says, laughing.

“I like the AdJack site a lot,” he says.  “I have been reading the blogs. Recently I was glad to see an article about political buying power. I thought it was great.”

Lather Up to Show Your Political Support

I’ve said before that we vote with our wallets, but at the time I was thinking about product approval, not the presidential election.  According to GoodGuide, we’re backing presidential campaigns as we book airline reservations, use our charge cards, and even buy soap! Do you know who the companies you buy products from are supporting with your dollars? Are they supporting politicians you wouldn’t?

Dara O’Rourke, founder of GoodGuide, says his company works in partnership with the Center for Responsive Politics to release company-focused campaign finance data, showing the political donations of major corporations to Republican and Democratic parties and candidates.

Rourke says, “Obama supporters may be surprised to learn that Procter & Gamble, the maker of Tide laundry detergent and Pantene shampoo, donates overwhelmingly to Republicans. Even though McCain likes to tout Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman as economic advisors, their respective former companies HP and EBay, slightly favor Democrats.”

Go to GoodGuide’s Political Contribution page and click “Republican” or “Democratic” to see which companies support your political perspective. 

Who’s the Luckiest?

Jason Weber marvels at his wife’s amazing luck, but the latest $1,000 CrackaJack winner pulled down a bit of luck of his own on Friday, October 3.

Jason sometimes says “Yeah, whatever,” when his wife throws a sweepstake idea his way, even though she racks up an eye-popping pile each year in prizes and cash through entering sweepstakes. “When I think of some of the stuff she’s won, it blows my mind,” he says. “For example, she recently won an all-expense paid 12-day cruise through the Mediterranean and on the second night of the cruise she won a BMW in the casino.”

When she told him about AdJack, she piqued his interest. He’s in the event management and promotion business himself in Winchester, Virginia, so he was intrigued by the idea of commercials as art and entertainment.  “I know what it takes to make a great ad,” he says.  “The creativity in these ads is amazing. They get a lot across in just a few seconds’ time, and it’s not all just sales. There are usually clever subtexts in the messages. That’s what makes them fun to watch.”

Like several other AdJack winners, Jason is a relative newcomer to the site.  He had only submitted a few entries when he got the notice that he won. For once, he’s the one who feels lucky.

On the Contrary: Relief is Not A Swallow Away

Maybe you’ve noticed there are no political ads on AdJack. There’s no shortage of clever commercials making cases for both sides, but we’ve decided to offer a moment of relief from the fray.

The news predicts we can expect a horrific onslaught of negative ads in the coming weeks, slinging half truths engineered to stick in our minds and sway what we do when we reach the voting booth. Ferreting out pivotal truths may seem nearly impossible amidst the din. How can we know what’s true?  If there’s a simple answer, it’s in a four-letter word:  work.  You’ll have to work to find the truth, and it will involve critically examining what is being said.  Swish, but don’t swallow.

When you buy a product and its performance disappoints you, you vote it out with your dollars. There’s no return, no refund on the package we’re about to purchase with our votes.  As the 1990 Diet Coke commercial warns, “Choose wisely.”

Nevermind What Mighta Been

The ninth CrackaJack winner, Russell Schultz of Canton, Michigan, won his first computer in the mid 1980s in a sweepstakes contest.

“It was a top of the line IBM,” Russell says.  “We got a lot of use out of it.”

Now Russell and his wife of 42 years each have their own computers.  He keeps his own scrupulously clean of spyware and hidden cookies with a daily scouring.  Even though he is supposed to steer clear of his wife’s machine, he says he tries to give it a weekly once-over.  She doesn’t play sweeps but she doesn’t mind that he does, and she especially likes it when he wins.

The retired General Motors autoworker, father of four and grandfather of 10, says he will probably hand over what’s left of the $1,000 prize after taxes to his wife to use for Christmas.  “I won’t have to attack the savings this year.” He’s thankful for the win, and chooses to forget that he was one number shy of scoring the $365,000 MadJack on September 26.

He likes the overall clean character of AdJack, especially the funny ads.  “I don’t like the ones that use profanity,” he says.  “I interrupt those and move on to something else, like the elephant singing in the rain, or the Michael Jordan commercials where he’s talking about how he didn’t get where he is overnight, that he worked hard.  I like ads that are funny, or helpful.“

Husband Lays Claim to CrackaJack Prize

Sherry Alexander of Lebanon, Indiana, a relatively new member of AdJack, won the September 19 CrackaJack prize of $1,000, becoming the eighth winner.

The veteran contest player says “I’d only done two or three weeks of contests when I won.  That’s it.” Which may explain why she wasn’t fully aware of how the AdJack program works.  She has her husband to thank, twice.  He told her about AdJack, and when she missed the first email notice that she won, he found the second email telling her she was fast approaching the prize expiration date.  “I went into panic mode.  I said, ‘oh my gosh!  What do I do now?’” She began to post comments in the news section.

AdJack CEO David Boland saw the posts and emailed her a third time, explaining that normally, winners’ correspondence is conducted via email. The effort to notify her sparked a lively discussion in the AdJack news column.

She and Boland finally connected, and perhaps several AdJack members now have a clearer understanding of how winners are notified—always by email, unless they happen to be tuned in at the time of the drawing, and see for themselves that they have won.  But it appears that Sherry’s battle for the money is only beginning.  Since her husband told her about AdJack, then rescued the second email notification that she won, she says, “He keeps telling me how he’s going to spend the money.”

For the record, winning sweepstakes numbers are always posted on Adjack under Sweepstakes, in the right column under Drawing Results. 

AdJack’s Glass Slipper Fits Indiana Woman and Michigan Man

Today both recent AdJack CrackaJack winners officially replied to claim their $1000 cash prize. Sherry Alexander of Lebanon, Indiana, and Russell Schultz of Canton, Michigan, both checked in with AdJack today, saving CEO David Boland the trouble of trying to figure out how to spend their prize money.  Several days passed before Sherry responded, which caused Boland to send a membership email urging folks to visit the site after each drawing to check the winning numbers (winning numbers are listed on the right of the Sweepstakes page) and check their emails for AdJack messages. He was surprised to learn that some members warned that AdJack emails could be considered spam, since this Website is totally opt-in, and built on the premise of member-privacy first. He also suggested placing AdJack on any “safe” lists, and/or faithfully checking junk mail folders for notification. And of course, he reminded membership that if an email is bogus, there’s absolutely no way to communicate with winners.

“I designed this site to run great commercial content without selling out the privacy of our membership. I added the sweepstakes because I thought it would be fun to give a little back to consumers—afterall, it’s consumers who make brands successful. It’s always exciting to write checks to winners, but at the same time, AdJack members should be a little more proactive--check their numbers and their emails,” Boland says. Winners would know instantly if they win if they tune into the interactive drawing on the site every Friday at 6:00 pm ET.

“We’re pleased that membership is growing and that people of all ages enjoy our clickable-commercial-break,” Boland says. He’s looking forward to rolling out more community-building features in the near future, and welcomes member comments, feedback and support. Feature stories on Sherry and Russell are in the works.

$1,000 Prize Goes Unclaimed

Last week a lucky AdJack member matched four of five sweepstakes numbers, plus the Adjack number to land the $1,000 CrackaJack prize. AdJack management notified the winner on Saturday, September 20th. The response? Cricket. Cricket. Does the winner have an aversion to cash? Unlikely!  The member has even visited the site a few times since last Friday, but apparently doesn’t realize he/she could be $1000 richer.

How much do we like giving money away? Enough to again share some helpful hints that make it easier for you to claim your cash. 

AdJack notifies winners via email, so be sure to update your spam filter to allow emails from david@adjack.tv or, at a minimum, check your spam folder Monday morning after each drawing. *Including a valid email is also helpful.* The last time we sent an email to all of our members over 150 emails bounced. This typically indicates that the email address is invalid. Look, we get that you don’t want pesky emails trying to sell you a bunch of stuff; we don’t either, that’s why AdJack protects your privacy.  We promise to feature great commercials and offer you a chance to win cash, no strings attached. If you offer up a bogus email, you’re the one who can’t be notified of your winnings. In other words, the joke is not on us.

If you’re not interested in the cash prizes you can disregard the previous suggestions and just watch great commercials.

AZ Resident Pulls Down a Cool $1,000

On Friday, September 5, Christine Schmanski became the seventh CrackaJack winner.

She’s a New Jersey native, a poet and aspiring lyricist who hopes to be published, a hiker who spends a lot of time climbing the red rocks of her adopted Sedona, Arizona region, and a self-described car nut who loves the vehicle commercials on AdJack.

She also turns to her computer for entertainment, which she says she now enjoys more than TV.  “That’s the other thing I love to do.  Play on the computer.”

An AdJack member for only two weeks when she won last Friday, she says the friend who told her about the site called her a stinker when Christine told her the big news.  “She’s been playing longer than I have,” Christine says, with a laugh.

It’s no problem getting her to watch commercials on AdJack.  “I love ‘em,” she says.  “I think they’re fun.  You can see them up close, and they’re just so creative.  My favorite one is the Coke commercial with the scruffy guy.  That one is super. And the Qashqai Nissan commercial—love that one.  And Audi, where he parks the car—that’s just so perfect.  I must be thinking about a brand new car…”

Don’t stop makin’ ’em. Just make ’em great.

Today’s news item (see right) might point toward the eventual extinction of TV commercials. It seems that many people cite the ability to avoid ads as a good reason for downloading TV programs on their computers.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  we like commercials.  No, we love commercials.  Even if we say we don’t.  Perhaps I should clarify.  We love to be entertained, and we love it when a commercial truly entertains us. The best commercials often pack a punch the same as a good joke and in fact, a lot of the best ones follow the same form.  The very best ones are short form theatre.

Now maybe we don’t like to have our favorite shows chopped up with a whole bunch of interruptions, and it happens that those interruptions are usually commercials. That’s as annoying as a compulsive channel changer.

But when commercials fit into a time when we’re not expecting programming anyway, we actually look forward to seeing them. The Super Bowl and millions of voluntary downloads of commercials prove that.

So, creative ad geniuses out there, keep it coming. We’re always in the market for entertainment, even if it’s only 30 seconds’ worth. On second thought, make that because it’s only 30 seconds’ worth.  We can find time for that.

TV on the PC

According to a survey of 10,000 households completed this summer, twenty percent of Internet families watch television shows on their computers. Nearly three-fourths of those families consume their TV this way every day.

That’s nearly twice as many PC TV watchers as there were in 2006, says TNS Global, a marketing research firm. The shift from TV on “their” schedule to TV on demand is well underway, says Michael Saxon, TNS vice president of brand and communications.

Reasons cited for the migration are portability, time flexibility, and the ability to evade commercials.  News, drama, comedy, reality shows and sports are favorite categories, reports Variety’s Mike Flaherty.

The report also says that 68% of online viewers watch streaming video, and 38% take advantage of free downloads.  Few survey respondents were willing to enroll in pay-per-watch or subscription schemes.  Read the whole story.

Sorrrrrry.

AdJack was down several times in the past 72 hours, but fortunately, not down for the count.

On August 19, blogger Paul Michael posted “Watching ads could be your ticket to a fortune” on Wisebread resulting in a flurry of activity on AdJack. That part was good.  What was bad was learning that a sudden rush on the site slowed it to the point of near-malfunction. If you experienced extremely slow downloads on the site last week, that’s why.

CEO David Boland was quick to the rescue, and the site is now everything he thought it was in the first place—meaning, if you and all your friends and neighbors decide to go to AdJack right now, your experience will be fast and seamless.  Just as it should be.

A sharp-eyed member caught the valiant Boland’s seeming spelling gaff when the dreaded error message was briefly up on the site.  What that member didn’t know was that when you’re really sorry, you spell it with three r’s. 

“I Don’t Feel Comfortable Talking About This…”

“...because it’s a complicated issue for the brand,” says Michele Kay, executive vice president of WPP Group’s Grey advertising firm, which handles the Olive Garden account.  She’s talking about issues surrounding “girl next door” Kendra Wilkinson’s innocent and unsolicited self-appointment as the restaurant’s brand ambassador.  The Olive Garden franchise spends millions on its family friendly image, but then again, so does Hugh Hefner.

According to Kendra’s MySpace page, her life ambition is to be married by age 24 and have kids. She’s so down-to-earth, she knows her time in the spotlight is limited. So what should Olive Garden do about this--fully release its brand to the wild, or ignore their high-profile fan until her hype wears off? The latter is what Starbucks does when celebrities are photographed with their branded coffee cups in hand. Then again, has Kendra successfully insisted that attractive female Starbucks baristas, too, compete for a nude pictorial in Playboy that she’ll personally shoot?

If Hefner’s girl keeps eating out, we may begin to confuse our local Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Walmart, and McDonald’s for Hooters.

CrackaJack Strikes Two Fridays in a Row

Dan Partridge of New Haven, Indiana, won the $1,000 CrackaJack prize on Friday, August 8.

His win followed on the heels of the previous Friday’s award of the CrackaJack to Amber Stamper of Williamsburg, Virginia and Carolyn Yarbrough of Friendsville, Tennessee, who split the prize.

Dan is the sixth CrackaJack winner since AdJack went live.

He is an experienced “sweeper” who also won $15,000 in the Indiana lottery in 1999, two weeks before Christmas.  “My luck seems to run in ten year spurts,” he says. 

Even though he has some impressive wins to his credit, he says he doesn’t like to get involved in many sweepstakes sites. “I don’t like to invest that much time in it, but I found the AdJack site interesting. If commercials are entertaining, I like watching them.  I like the Bud commercials, and I’m a big fan of the sports commercials.  There are some real smart ones for sports. And I am particularly fond of the Wii vs the Playstation commercial.  I like that one. It stands out. Common commercials I don’t care to watch.”

Dan says he will use his prize money to fund his move from his native Indiana to Texas or Arizona, where oil drilling is ramping up.  He has worked construction for most of his adult life, in the Texas oilfields and in steel building construction in Indiana.  “I’m looking forward to milder winters,” he says. 

First Week Newbie Wins Big

Carolyn Yarbrough of Friendsville, Tennessee had been coming to AdJack simply to watch the commercials for a while before she decided to join and enter the sweepstakes. 

Last week she joined and played the game, and when 6 p.m. Friday, August 1 rolled around, presto!  She hit the CrackaJack pot, matching four out of the first five numbers in no particular sequence, and the sixth AdJack bonus number.  She shares the prize with Amber Stamper of Williamsburg, Virginia, who also matched four out of the first five numbers and the bonus AdJack number. 

Carolyn had the number 15 in her winning sequence, but was not online at the time of last Friday’s live drawing. As luck would have it, David Boland submitted it.  Even though the AdJack CEO isn’t eligible to win, he still enjoys playing.  He isn’t certain that his number 15 was the number that made it to the computer first, but he says he likes to think he helped make the win happen for Carolyn. 

“This is the first time I have ever won anything on line,” she says.  She describes herself as a country girl who enjoys doing art, graphics and photography, loves traveling, waterfall climbing and mountains, and is married for almost 20 years “to the most wonderful man in the world.”

She entered her first online sweepstake about three weeks ago, so is surprised at her sudden good fortune. “I’ve been playing the same numbers on the Tennessee lottery for years. Those numbers are not getting it.  So I didn’t pick my own AdJack numbers. I let the site do that.

“When I first went to Adjack I was not thinking of entering; I was just watching the commercials.  I love the Budweiser ads, especially the one about the little underdog who doesn’t get picked for the fire department.  I’m always for the underdog,” she says. 

“I find some sites annoying and time consuming, but I think the reason I stayed at Adjack was because the commercials are good ones, ones I have watched on television and have always enjoyed.  I think a good commercial is as entertaining as the shows and movies on television.”

Virginia Mother of Three Splits the CrackaJack Prize

Amber Stamper, on the job full time of raising three boys, ages 8, 4, and 2 in Williamsburg, Virginia, won the CrackaJack sweepstake last Friday.

She’ll split the $1,000 prize evenly with another winner, soon to be announced.  The two matched four of the five winning numbers 15,16,10,2, and 24 in no particular sequence, and matched the AdJack number 1.

Like so many other members, Amber learned about AdJack through Online-Sweepstakes.  She says she has been doing sweeps in her spare time for a few years, but the CrackaJack is one of the biggest prizes she has ever won.

“The kids keep me very busy, and I don’t have a lot of time to myself.  I do enjoy sweepstaking, reading, doing crafts with the kids, and baking,” she says.  “I really enjoy AdJack.  The commercials are fun to watch and quite a few of them make me laugh.”

Not just one winner—two!  Today!

We wondered when it would happen. We knew since it is possible for two or more members to win any of the AdJack prizes, it was inevitable that it would eventually happen. Today two women came up with winning sets of CrackaJack numbers.

Women from Williamsburg, Virginia, and Friendsville, Tennessee will split the $1,000 CrackaJack prize. We’ll tell you more about them when they respond to their notification.

The likelihood of someone, or several someones, winning the AdJack sweepstakes increases with the number of entries submitted. But the number of submissions doesn’t affect your chance to win in any way. Winning numbers are winning numbers, no matter how many members play, so keep telling your friends about AdJack, and someday we’ll get the thrill of announcing the big prize winner—or as the case may be, winners.…

What do we really want?

Sex sells. It sells games, deodorant, cars, even Centrum vitamins for seniors. Every once in a while, we hear some backlash against the advertising establishment, yet ads get racier by the minute, and downloads of those commercials increase exponentially. Women keep buying beauty products, watching TV shows and paying to see movies that perpetuate the idea that women should be bombshell brainiacs with superhuman powers and oozing sexuality. But it’s no longer all about female exploitation. Throw in Abercrombie and Fitch’s steamy male model campaigns and maybe, just maybe, the writing is on the wall. Maybe the truth is that humans respond to the visual and emotional impact of beauty and sexual images and there’s no getting around it. Maybe our instinct is to make ourselves feel good, and taking in attractive images makes us feel good--even motivated. Marketers know that urge, whether acknowledged or not by us, will always drive our buying habits.

Thin is in, no matter what you say, Tyra.

In a study inspired by Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, Villanova U and College of New Jersey researchers recently found that...women like to feel bad about themselves. And the proof is in their purchase. As beautiful Tyra Banks trots out her “regular” bod on national TV, inspiring millions of “regular” women to follow suit, her average-sized peeps seem to be saying one thing, but paying for another. According to the study, women respond to thin with their pocketbooks, despite the negative effect on their own body image. Researchers are still inking their report, which also found that “despite the negative effect on their body image, women preferred ads showing thin models and said they were more likely to buy products featured in those ads than in ones showing “regular-size models.” College-age women studied were also four times more likely to turn down a pack of Oreos, or ask for reduced-fat versions after viewing commercials featuring beautiful, thin women.

That Bud, that’s Belgian

Fans of Budweiser beer are wondering what will become of Bud, America’s icon beer, now that its parent corporation Anheuser-Busch has succumbed to the charms of Belgian company InBev’s $52 billion—that illion with a big B--buyout.

The deal was inked on Monday, July 14.  InBev says few changes are in the works on the American side, but the Bud brand will likely be taken global, specifically to Asia, Europe and Latin America.

According to Mark Landler of the New York Times, InBev won’t shut down any of its 12 U. S.  breweries.  The sale makes the new Anheuser-Busch the third largest corporation in the world, behind number one Proctor & Gamble, and number two, Nestle.

Surely You Ingest…

Wonder how many donuts the Highlife Man had to eat to get that 30-second take on Grease, That’s Just Flavor?  I never thought about it before.  Hmmmm. The powdered sugar on a cake donut acts as a protective coating between the fingers and the food.  Huh.  Yeah.  We’ve got the perfect catch-all phrase now:  That’s just flavor…for a Highlife Man.

It appears that our boy Hank might have been doomed to an ordinary day until he popped the top on a Doubleshot Starbucks. And then…. the band began to play, the adoring crowds cheered him along his path to…to… wherever he was going, and his alter ego, wearing sneakers not wingtips, busts a caterpillar move on the way in.  His name, clearly, is being called.  Let’s hear it one more time for caffeine a go-go.

Don’t you just love the summer afternoon the Diet Coke commercial conjures up in Starry-Eyed Surprise?  It’s got me looking for my roller skates.  What a rush.  Maybe you never actually see the sparklies but you sure can feel ‘em.  Whoever said “summer afternoon’ is the most beautiful phrase in the English language was onto something.

I gotta go. 

Talkin’ Bout My Generation

So everyone knows about the Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y. But Generation Jones? According to Jonathan Pontell, social commentator and marketing consultant, there’s a “lost generation” between Boomers and Generation X. They are the middle-aged Americans with the most disposable income of all. Jonesers make up 26% of the US population, and they are receptive to marketing. Pontell says that nearly half the people in the US who make $75,000 or more are Jonesers. “…And Jonesers are very open to persuasive messaging and trying new things,” he says.  But they work long hours and have school-aged kids, so they spend a lot of time and money online. Pontell recommends that advertisers appeal to their need for simplicity, and “show them convenience.” I like this guy. Maybe that will work for all the generations. But I have one favor to ask in addition…keep things interesting, if not entertaining.

Nike Plans Global “Courage” Campaign Olympic Kickoff

Twenty years ago, Wieden & Kennedy launched Nike’s “Just Do It” theme, now described as one of the most inspirational and certainly recognizable brand statements of all time. This year Nike plans to commemorate its anniversary with a global campaign titled “Courage.” Athletes from more than a dozen countries will be featured against the Killers’ “All These Things That I’ve Done” soundtrack. Spots roll out around the world starting July 19, 2008. According to Natalie Zmuda of AdAge, Nike is no longer contracting with Crispin Porter & Bogusky to handle its running-shoe and Nike Plus business. In May of this year, the company returned to Wieden & Kennedy after just one TV ad. Full story

They think we won’t notice. Will we?

This morning I got a text message from my cell service provider, offering me a great deal on a cool ring tone. I deleted without reading the entire text. Just a few minutes ago I read, “Cell phone advertising is considered the next big thing, and the advertisers are closely watching the mobile phone user segment….” *sigh* I already pay more than $130/month for my cell service, the last thing I want to do is sift through a bunch of ads on my phone. I already get bombarded with less than entertaining commercials on TV, and by annoying pop-ups and banner ads that won’t go away when I try to click them closed. Maybe I’m a control freak, but I like to be entertained at my own will and pleasure. So what’s this mean to us regular folk? Should we brace ourselves for a whole new round of Jedi mind tricks from hungry mobile ad pimps?

So “they” are saying that since I’m most likely addicted to my cellie these days, sending me mobile ads is a fabulous idea—and a multi-billion $$ industry for them. They gloat that I can’t get away from them because I’m always looking at my phone for one reason or another. According to data gathered on mobile phone users in South Africa, I’ll just love clicking through the ads for more information, especially if the ads are entertaining. They say I won’t even notice I’m watching ads, and that I’ll just want to know more, or buy more, or send the ad to my friends.

I’m guessing I’ll know they’re shoving advertisements my way when I have to delete unwanted texts and close annoying windows on my phone. But maybe not. Maybe they’ll come up with a way to entertain me into an ad-induced buying frenzy. 

Michigan Man Scores First Big Win

Doug DeMott of Mount Morris, Michigan has been playing a certain set of numbers nearly every day in the two months he’s been an AdJack member, often revisiting his favorite ad, Messing with Sasquatch.  On Friday, June 27, the fun paid off. He is the third winner of the $1,000 CrackaJack prize.

Doug dedicates about two hours a day to entering sweepstakes and has won a number of small prizes, but this is the first big money he has scored.  His father has won several thousand dollars in lotteries, and it was his advice Doug took to stick with specific numbers.

AdJack CEO David Boland says Doug and his father’s method for winning is as effective as nailing a horseshoe upside down over your door.  “If it seems to work, why not?” Boland says, although he adds there is no rule of probability that indicates playing the same numbers creates a greater statistical chance of winning.

“The only sure-fire way to increase your chances of winning is to submit numbers as often as possible, and it appears that’s what Doug does,” Boland says. “It is interesting that two out of three CrackaJack winners have selected their numbers,” he adds. 

When Doug isn’t watching commercials on AdJack, he can often be found camping and tubing on Michigan’s rivers (Sasquatch territory?), or playing his acoustic-electric guitar.  He has been an industrial painter at Universal Coating Inc. in Flint, Michigan for 13 years. 

Celebrating Subtle Cultural Triumph

So I’m sitting here at my computer on this July Fourth, thinking about 232 years of freedom.

It was just luck (one of our favorite themes here at AdJack) that I clicked on Smirnoff’s Tea Partay today, where I was treated to a chuckle at the scenario of a tea party on a summer day in Olde New England, hosted on clay tennis courts by impeccably dressed descendants of our founding fathers. The commercial is a send up of WASP (that would be white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant) culture starring all our favorite stock characters including Buffy, the ultimate skinny white chick and all her beta friends. One phrase in the hip hop song the Prep Unit is presentin’ is “Haters like to clown our Ivy League educations but they’re just jealous cause our families run the nations.”

You can click through to the Smirnoff Tea Partay site, where the rival video, “Boyz in the Hillz” —Beverly, that is—rolls out West Coast stereotypes. Buffy has defected from New England and Ice Tea to a polished blond Ken doll flaunting Green Tea.  “Life behind bars ain’t nothing new to me, I was born and raised in a gated community,” one of the Ken dolls says.

What we have here is two flavas of the American Illusion, one old school, one new, but both in the language of the hood.  That’s rich. 

The New England Tea Partay was directed by Trinindadian Julien Christian Lutz aka Lil X, born in Ontario, Canada and now working in Hollywood.  He’s presentin’ against Mark Klasfeld, a veteran MTV and documentary director.

Losing Their Cool?

Whoops, don’t look now.  Your favorite clothesline may have snapped.

Women’s Wear Daily says many hip hop artists’ fashion lines are in trouble.  Looks like the music genre’s popularity may be on the wane, taking record and clothing sales down with it.

Fashion pundits say the reason is that the trend setters have moved on in the endless quest for the cutting edge now that hip hop fashion has gone mainstream.

Rappers like LL Cool J now do collections for retailers like Sears, which will introduce an LL Cool J-branded junior, young men’s and children’s wear for back-to-school. Even at their height, these brands wrestled with the “urban” identification, fearing it would turn off consumers.

Women’s brands like Baby Phat, Southpole, Akademiks and Apple Bottoms continue as top labels in the junior market. Their secrets of success are clear—they’ve evolved with their customers, integrated themselves into the mix of other junior brands in department stores and changed with the trends.

Imagine That.

In Ben Stiller’s new movie “Tropic Thunder,” an action comedy about a movie by the same name, you’ll see an energy drink called “Booty Sweat” being swilled on camera. 

A commercial for the imaginary drink opened a recent press screening for the film, prompting hilarity from the entertainment industry crowd that often witnesses Hollywood’s mercenary efforts to place product in films.

This time, life imitates art.  Paramount Pictures is licensing “Booty Sweat” for production as a real beverage.  It will be on retail shelves at Hot Topic, Hastings, Wherehouse and Coconuts, as well as available through Amazon and college bookstores around the nation before the movie’s wide release August 15. Several hundred thousand cases have already been produced, according to an article in Advertising Age.

The product will be packaged differently for urban and rural markets.  Urbanites will get the slang can, describing the contents as “delicious and bump up struttin’ energy drink…that will fill yo’ pimp pockets to burstin.’ Country folk will get the brand sans street slang.

Facebook v. MySpace

Facebook has recently surpassed MySpace in global monthly users, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle.  According to comScore data, nearly 124 million users visited Facebook in May, compared to MySpace’s 114.6 million.  These new numbers are much different from May of last year, when MySpace more than doubled Facebook in monthly users.

Speculations on what caused the shift include Facebook opening the site to outside developers, making it easy to create applications to share on the site. Earlier this year, Facebook began translating the site in multiple languages, including Chinese and Russian. Myspace has also expanded internationally, launching Myspace China and MySpace Latino and MySpace India in the past 18 months.

In the United States, MySpace still leads Facebook in monthly users: In May MySpace had 73.7 million hits, Facebook had 35.6 million.

Link to original article

Er…A Word About Underestimating Us.

I just got back from two conferences in New York City on the status of Internet publishing and video.  Everybody was talking about ads.

They talked about whether and how ads should be hooked to video content.  Should ads run before the video content folks want to watch, or should they be hooked to the tail of that video?  Or—how about those ads that are superimposed over the video content we’re trying to watch?  Just how much can advertisers intrude before they become truly offensive?

It reminded me of trying to engage on some level with someone who has a bad self concept.

I went back to my room and showed a friend the AdJack site.  We clicked on a few ads, and my friend and I agreed that the stuff we were watching is truly witty. Fun.  All by itself.

_Worth watching.  All by itself._

So how should advertisers get us to watch their ads?  Here’s the answer:  Make them clever.  Make them smart.  Find their relevance.  After all, this is the USA, where there’s a market for everything, including smart ads.

Green Brands Survey Reveals Consumer Concerns

A recent consumer survey conducted jointly by agencies Landor Associates, Cohn & Wolfe, and Penn, Schoen & Berland revealed the leading issues concerning American consumers.  The survey results were shared at the Sustainable Brands Conference 08 in Monterey, California.  According to the survey, the economy ranks as the number one issue of importance to consumers, followed by energy, and the environment.

Russ Meyer, chief strategy officer at Landor Associates, believes the survey results to be alarming, as they “indicate consumers only prioritize the environment when all other concerns are equal.” Despite ranking the economy as their number one concern and considering the current economic state of the U.S., consumers said they are still willing to pay more for sustainable products.

Two-thirds of those surveyed believe the environment is in worse shape than it was five years ago, and that consumers with incomes under $50,000 have greater concern for the environment than consumers making $100,000 or more.

The top 10 “greenest brands” identified by consumers in the survey:

1. Whole Foods
2. Burt’s Bees
3. Trader Joe’s
4. Tom’s of Maine
5. Toyota
6. Seventh Generation
7. General Electric
8. Honda
9. Whirlpool
10. Aveda

Milk Goes Viral

One of the most successful print campaigns of the past two decades is finally milking the power of the Internet.  The “Milk Moustache” campaign, developed in 1993 for the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board, glamorized a dowdy beverage in the notoriously crowded beverage industry.

In the early days of the campaign, Milk opted to take a substantial promotions budget ($100 million), and use it to dominate print while competitors sank their millions into television. Now, Milk is using the Internet and betting on the power of social media to target teenagers, enlisting the help of “America’s teenage sweetheart,” Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus. Her two official sites (mileycyrus.com and mileyworld.com, which received over 248,000 uniques in April) include links to the microsite bodybymilk.com. Youtube videos give a behind the scenes look at Cyrus’s “Milk Moustache” photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz.

This is the first time the Internet has been used as a significant part of the milk campaign, according to Sal Taibi, president of Lowe Worldwide which handles the account. Milk’s more aggressive online presence may foreshadow what’s to come for advertisers of other consumer packaged foods, who remain sheepish about harnessing the power of the Web. (read full ADWEEK article)

You don’t know me!

I love to shop. I love movies. And I love a good story. I guess that’s why I love great commercials. My favorites aren’t always funny or serious, but they are always clever. My current favorites are Misunderstood, and Maybe.

Advertisers talk a lot about wanting to interact with me—or maybe it’s more like they want me to interact with their brand. I think that really means that advertisers simply want me to buy what they’re selling—nothing new there. I’m cool with that, everyone has to make a living, right? And as I mentioned, I love to shop. Match made in heaven. But I’ve got a question for fellow ad lovers…Are you more likely to buy a product if you get a personalized invitation to click through to purchase?

What do you think? Are advertisers talking with us or to us? How are they reaching out to you and me these days? I can’t really tell a difference except that I get personalized emails from airlines that kind of creep me out, and McDonald’s occasionally takes over my computer screen with annoying breakfast biscuit footage that I can’t click away.

I appreciate AdJack respecting my privacy. The only emails I’ve received have either been from the CEO himself, or addressed to AdJack members—giving us a heads up about the increasing jackpot, a winner, or a little technical glitch. As far as I can tell, AdJack is reaching out and encouraging interaction…but wait a sec…AdJack isn’t an advertiser!

I love the Microsoft feature…it’s a little long for folks with ADD, but the script is pretty clever. 

And What Will Become of Ad Theatre?

There’s a lively discussion on New York Times reporter Saul Hansel’s blog about cable television shows moving to the Internet where they are “free”—Internet service fees notwithstanding—and mostly free of commercials.

Hansel points out that only recently have we been able to watch a wide variety of content on the Internet that was originally created, supposedly, exclusively for cable TV distribution. The cable companies are hollering that they pay big bucks for exclusive rights, and now producers are putting that content on the Internet where we can watch it whenever we want. 

Hansel says that as late as last November, the brass at Comedy Central told him they would not put full episodes of The Daily Show on the Internet because of their relationship with cable operators.  Something’s changed, because The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and South Park will now be webcast.

“They can’t have it both ways,” Hansel quotes Time Warner Cable’s Alexander Dudley.  “If they put the same content on the Internet for free that they’re asking cable companies to pay for, they are making it less valuable and we should be expected to pay less for it.”

One commenter said that cable’s pitch long ago was “…you pay for cable …because there are no commercials,” and points out that cable companies make m-m-m-millions on an overpriced product and slam the consumer with commercials, to boot.  He says cable companies appear to want it both ways, too.

My concern, of course, is for the future of classic commercials.  Good ol’ 30 and 60 second short form pop theatre that gives us something in common besides the weather.  I know I’m not the only one who gets a kick out of them, even if I am among the few who admit it.

Some Questions For You

Do you see more commercials on cable TV than on broadcast TV?

The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau recently asked that question, and reports that you say there are fewer ads on cable.  In fact, the CAB says that some 33 percent of viewers surveyed believe there are fewer ads on cable. Twelve percent of those surveyed said there are fewer ads on broadcast TV than on cable TV.

So, is perception reality?  Nope.  The fact is that the cable TV industry runs significantly higher advertising loads than broadcast TV, according to multiple industry studies. At least, according to Wayne Friedman, reporting in a trade webzine, MediaPost’s TV Watch.

Friedman says cable ad sales folks could respond to this perception by running even more commercials until viewers cry uncle—or “until they realize four car commercials in a row is not a new ‘Speed Racer’ series.”

Friedman says the survey was part of a bigger survey showing TV overall is still good for communicating brand messages. The CAB’s new global viewpoint is what’s good for TV is good for cable. Uh, I know I’m just an ass, but how is cable not TV?

Friedman wonders if viewers care when there are lots of commercials on TV, whether programming is delivered via cable or broadcast. Do ads on TV annoy you? Do you prefer watching them on your own terms, selecting what you want to see, when you want to see it?

Patterns of Luck

Ol’ Jack is starting to be a student of luck.  I just noticed that for several AdJack winners so far, there has been a coincidence with some aspect of a commonly accepted icon of luck. 

The first $1,000 CrackaJack winner submitted her very first and only number for that week on the thirteenth day of March, a day many people would consider unlucky.

She didn’t notice she was a winner, but David Boland, CEO of AdJack did, and was so excited about it, he notified her on April 1 in spite of his reservations about the timing.  April Fool’s Day is universally considered a day for pranks, and probably not a 24-hour period that anyone considers particularly lucky.

The next $1,000 CrackaJack winner won on his birthday, and the 3,000th member to register on AdJack won $200 for the happy coincidence that occurred again on the thirteenth day of a month, this time in May.

I’ve never paid much attention to luck or superstitions before, but some people believe that you can attract more of what you want simply by concentrating thought in the direction of your desires.

Good old Rene Descartes was definitely onto something when he wrote, “I think, therefore I am.”

Wonder who’s thinking hardest about this week’s prizes?  The $175,000 MadJack gets most of the attention, but the $25,000 MoJack would no doubt inspire some triple back flips, and the $1,000 CrackaJack is not too shabby. 

Hello AdJack, Hello $200

Rhiannon Dougherty of San Antonio, Texas, first visited AdJack on Tuesday and on Wednesday learned she was $200 richer.

She happened to be the 3,000th person to register as a member, on May 13. 

The full-time San Antonio College psychology student has her mother to thank.

“My mom won a cruise from a sweepstake, so since I’m off from school for a month, I thought, what better way to spend my time than entering sweepstakes? I found my way to onlinesweepstakes.com where I feverishly entered every contest I could, including AdJack’s, until I could no longer coherently type my email address.  Does this make me a ‘sweeper?’” she asks, laughing.

AdJack’s sweepstakes allow her to do something she likes anyway, but with the added opportunity to win cash.  “I actually like commercials,” she says.  “I’ve been known to actively seek out Super Bowl commercials.”

San Antonio born and raised, Rhiannon shares a house with her boyfriend and two dogs. Among her favorites on AdJack are commercials for Doritos and the Miller Lite ads that feature Dalmatians. 

Dumb Like a Fox

So I’ve been thinking all week:  What is dumb? Is there a truly dumb ad on AdJack?

My favorite online dictionary Onelook.com says one current popular meaning is “slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity.”

Onelook’s word origins explains further:  In Old English, (450-1100 CE) dumb means “silent, unable to speak,” and is connected to Proto-Indo-European, the hypothetical reconstructed language of the Indo-European family who are thought to have been talking among themselves back some 5,500 years. Their descendants, more modern Indo-Europeans, called people *dheubh when they wanted one word for “confusion, stupefaction, dizziness.” Old English and Gothic speakers before 1600 called people thumb and the Old North French said they were dumbr, meaning “mute, or speechless.” In Old High German it meant both this and “stupid,” and in Modern German this is the word’s only sense.  For English speakers from about 1323 on, dumb sometimes meant “foolish, or ignorant,” but the modern use, at least as of 1823, comes from the influence of German’s dumm. The dumbwaiter, a silent contrivance, has been around since 1749. Dumb down was first used in 1933.

To put a finer point on the issue of dumb, I’d have to say that very few national ads are dumb, although the strategy behind them might be questionable. Ad writers often exploit human lack of acuity to make a point or entertain us.  The first objective is to get your attention, with the goal of convincing you.  The subtext is usually where all the fun is, as the magpies so keenly observe in Let’s Do it Again.

Maybe we use the word too loosely, as a code word for something else. Groan.

I gotta go.

Dumb and More Dumb

Does dumb sell?  You bet!  You may groan, but a whole lot of people think it’s fun to watch others bumbling around in a mental fog. Is the Coca Cola Company poking fun at the idea of frivolous lawsuits in its commercial “Coke Zero Versus Coke”:/ad/coke-zero?  Maybe, but mostly the idea is to enjoy watching the reaction of a real lawyer to an absurd proposition, a la the old Candid Camera situation comedy.

Mercedes declares that beauty is nothing without brains in “This is a library”:/ad/library, but the premise of the ad seems insane rather than purely dumb.

Is the wind a dumb force?  See how German renewable energy company Epuron presents it in ““The Power of Wind,””:/ad/misunderstood which won top honors in 2007 for best film advertisement at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes, France.

Good old Jackie Moon, Semi Pro, is everyone’s favorite fool as he touts Old Spice and Bud Light.  These two ads have Ol’ Jack wondering:  Did it work? Did you buy Bud LIght and Old Spice antiperspirant because Jackie Moon said to?