June 2008 - Posts
When most people think about winning the lottery, they think about what they could do for themselves with the money: buy a new house or a flashy car, perhaps, or quit that dead-end job.
A new commercial for the Washington state lottery poses the more altruistic question: “Whose world could you change?”
In their quirky universe, the answer is that you could offer a little joy ride to birds that can’t fly well, or at all, on their own.
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| Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images file |
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When we recently attended a screening of the “Sex and the City” movie, we expected having to sit through the requisite commercials before the main feature. Especially for a film so product-placement-fashion-spread heavy. We did not, however, expect an ad for the U.S. Marine Corps.
That fact gets to the heart of what is right and wrong with “America’s Marines,” currently running in movie theaters and on television. The commercial features U.S. Marines in dress uniform performing a complex rifle drill in some of America’s most beloved and beautiful places: against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, amid the bright lights of New York City, at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge and, most strikingly, along the edge of the Grand Canyon.
The lush music, deep-voiced announcer and stunning cinematography make it a natural fit for the big screen. In fact, it’s hard to appreciate the commercial if you don’t see it on a movie-sized screen, and it’s so eye-catching that you can enjoy it even if you are the target demographic for a movie about thirty- and fortysomethings living in New York City rather than twentysomethings considering a career in the Marines.
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| Staff Sergeant Brian J. Griffin / U.S. Marines |
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In an age when teens are inundated with images of sex and violence, one has to wonder, is anything shocking anymore?
The makers of the “truth” anti-smoking ads, who for years have been trying to scare would-be smokers straight with startling images such as masses of body bags and people posing as “dead” smokers, think they have hit on something: shocking the kids by not being so shocking at all.
The American Legacy Foundation’s latest anti-smoking campaign juxtaposes joyful cartoon characters and upbeat musical numbers with troubling anecdotes about smoking, in the hopes that a little sardonic humor will keep the attention of famously fickle 12- to 17-year-olds.
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| American Legacy Foundation |
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We’ve heard a lot of talk lately about how young people in this country want to feel inspired. The makers of Cheetos apparently think that they want to be inspired to do mean things to other people.
The company’s ad campaign, dubbed Orange Underground, consists of a series of commercials in which a cartoon Cheetos mascot goads people to use the orange squiggly snack for evil.
In one commercial, an office worker passes by the desk of a "neat freak," and smashes Cheetos into his computer and ear phones. In another, a woman upset by another patron at a Laundromat drops some Cheetos into her load of whites. In yet another, a woman sticks Cheetos up the nose of a snoring seatmate on an airplane.
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