Almost a year ago, two of our owners attended an industry seminar that focused on the topic of specialization. They came back from the trip and as part of the recap, started a discussion on how...or even should this idea of specialization…apply to CurrentMarketing. At the time, I was still living with the old school belief that if you work on one concept in a market segment, you are barred from a second or even third concept forever, even if they never overlap geographic areas. I remember thinking that the clients would never tolerate it.

And today, as we address working with clients in like businesses who may or may not overlap, we find that they actually like our experience in their particular line of work and have no issue whatsoever with us working for several same concepts. The “current” clients don’t mind and the ones seeking our services prefer it. We have the Schmitt Söhne wine account and market several of their rieslings that are often positioned right next to one another on the shelf. We have three veneer companies now that use our design services, two different reconstructive surgery docs for whom we have done projects and several high schools that employ us to prepare their recruitment and advertising materials.
We specialize in great ideas. So, what if you work on a tire store chain in the Northeast and then different tire store chain out West? What is learned from each experience can be shared to the benefit of both brands.

It may just be that I was tired.  It may just be that I was upset with commercials getting in the way of an exciting 4th quarter (that was awesome wasn't it?).  Or it may just be that I'm spot on, and the 4th quarter commercials seemed to have almost nothing redeeming about them.

Did the advertisers just give up and go back to old stuff or what?  It seems like every commercial was a replay I had already seen, or was just a rehash of what we've already seen from their brands.  There seemed to be only a few highlights worth mentioning and like Katy I'm going to break mine down into 3 categories:  The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good

Definitely my favorite was Alec Baldwin's Hulu commercial.  Equal parts funny and creepy, it made me finally want to go check out Hulu.com.  Sure, I'm an internet nerd, but I've never had a reason to go by Hulu beyond its initial launch.  Definitely going to check it out now.  Hulu is an evil plot to destroy the world -- I should probably keep my eye on it.

And of course the clear awesomeness of Miller High Life's now famous "1 second commercial" early in the quarter.  Pure genius.

The Bad

Cash 4 Gold ads are always bad, but bringing MC Hammer into this was a kick in my junk.  I don't own much gold (it is tacky), but what little we do have at home I think I'm going to hide it from the likes of him.  And who is Ed McMahon and when did he become a TV Personality?  Nick, you're old, do you recognize him?

The MacGruber Pepsi commercial was funny, but they've done it before and it wasn't exactly as charming as it was the first time.  Bonus points for Pepsuber though, I don't remember that from the first MacGruber commercial.

The Ugly

I'm not sure if anyone else noticed, but there seemed to be a ton of local commercials running.  And by far the scariest, ugliest, down-right most embarassing-uh-est was Darryl Issacs's "Hero" ad.  Hope he doesn't sue me for that.

For me, the third quarter ads were a hit-and-miss bunch this year. Coming off the Springsteen half time show, I was in a great mood and my wager (for entertainment purposes only) was still in play, so maybe that was why the "Heroes" spot featuring NFL stars played so well in my mind, even though I gave up on the show last season and I hate John Elway.  In spite of some ham-handed CGI, I thought the spot was clever and fun.

But my mood was quickly squashed by a parade of mediocre ads from Toyota and Priceline, which felt like rehashes of current campaigns, and Overstock.com who used Carlos Boozer to shill for their site. Note to advertisers: if at some point, you feel like you have to put your "celebrity" spokesman's full name up on the screen so everyone who doesn't live in Utah knows who it is, maybe you should rethink your selection. While Carlos seemed charming enough, they should really have sprung for a pitch man with a Q rating higher than mine.

And I'm just going to say it... I don't understand why everyone always gushes over the Budweiser Clydesdale ads. (All 3 ranked in the top 15 on the USAToday rankings.) I thought they were less than clever and suffered form some really bad CGI in spots. This is the Super Bowl. At this level, (and with these budgets) there are no excuses for "sore thumb" visual effects.

For me, the highlight of the third quarter lineup was the "Hate Work" spot for Careerbuilder. It was funny, it demanded your attention, and best of all, it made sense, which was a rare commodity this year. While it didn't score well on the USAToday ad meter, it was popular with viewers on their site. And for the record, I DO work next to that guy.

Now let's check in with our resident boy-genius "The Bouv" for a 4th Quarter wrap-up.

Thanks, Nick. You stay classy.

The second quarter sounds like it was a little better than the first. I agree completely with Nick that movie trailers don't count - big budgets and existing banks of footage don't present any challenges for a Super Bowl ad. Nonetheless, I will see Star Trek and Up based on the trailers I saw. Maybe Monsters vs. Aliens if I get time.

I've grouped my set of ads into three categories:
Fake Punts (my absolute favorite play in football)
Onside Kicks (my second favorite play in football, although it can be somewhat predictable at times)
Running Plays (I hate the running game - just throw it already!)

Running Plays:
If I never see another ridiculous talking baby or frenetically dancing lizard, it will be too soon. For the love of Kelly Kapowski, Etrade! Come up with another idea!
At the end of the day, Hyundai....you're still Hyundai. Regardless of awards.
Is it really appetizing to eat something (Cheetos) that attracts pigeons? Not so much.

Onside Kicks:
Budweiser, Gatorade and H&R Block did nothing for me. Not buying anything from those companies, but at least they aren't as bad as the Running Plays.

Fake Punts:
The Cars.com ad with the prodigy kid reminded me to look for a 4-wheel drive vehicle after I have been dealing with snow/slush/ice for 10 days in my low clearance Volkswagen Bug. Clearly did its job.
The Bud Light Drinkability skiing ad was very clever, IMHO.
The Teleflora Rude Flowers spot was hilarious and totally worth the animation costs. These guys went right after flowers.com and their boxed delivery.
And the King of all of the Fake Punts:
Nextel Roadies!!!
Love the concept, the execution and the placement of this ad. Worth the production and media dollars, Nextel. Well down.

Over to you, Jimmy D. Keep it crack-a-lackin'.

Believe it or not, I completely missed this year's Super Bowl.  Looked like a classic Super Bowl ending, but with the ice storm, my cable and Internet were out for a more than a week.  And I just wasn't in the mood to venture out on a winter night, not having a dog in that fight.  (See, Dennis, it DOES sometimes pay to be a Cleveland Browns fan!)  So I looked at SB commercials online, at the office (after hours, of course) on Monday.  But ain't that kinda the way our world is going?

I'm kinda glad I missed it all because there just wasn't a lot a lot of great marketing in the first quarter.  I can't get all that excited about movie trailers (three in first quarter alone) since they just take great lines out of context and splice together thirty or forty-five seconds-worth of fun.  I thought the Audi Transporter and Toyota Venza spots looked like some frustrated filmmakers were stuck on Madison Avenue.  Talk about over-produced. Oh, and I own and Audi, so please to preach to me about reliability...I know better.

Pepsi's Forever Young  put a lump in my throat.  I have an a strong affinity for that song and for Dylan.  Unfortunately for the sponsor,  I don't drink Pepsi, but if I did, I'd feel better about my choice.  As it is, I'll just thank Pepsi for the warm tingles it gave me on a cold night.

The highlight for me was the Doritos Bus spot.   FINALLY.  A commercial that went beyond trying to make me feel good about identifying with a brand.  Doritos showed some product features, benefits (albeit hyperbolic benefits) and even rock-solid demonstration!  It made me want to buy the product.

I can't turn it over to Katy without asking GoDaddy.com: "You're joking, right?  Please say you're joking."  The only thing worse was the online continuation.  There's five minutes of my life I'll never get back!  I choose not to link to that spot.  If you haven't seen it, it's not worth your time.

Now, to Katy Miller on the virtual Steelers' sideline....