Goody Hot Sauce, courtesy of Leo Burnett, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Hot sauce ads are a dime a dozen. And the strategy is always the same: Whoa! This is some really hot sauce.

Fire. Fire alarms. Sprinkler systems. Burnt moustaches. It's all been done.

Personally, I think many, if not most, of the hot sauce ads I see are spec, meaning created without the client's knowledge for purely portfolio-building purposes. Who knows? In any event, here's the most recent addition to the category.

Is the hot sauce bottle supposed to be a lighter or a detonator? I'm not sure. And I don't think it matters. Both work, I suppose.

Whoa! This is some really hot sauce!

Secondhand Smoke Billboards for the Wyoming Department of Health

A few months ago I discovered a wonderful little creative shop in Denver called Sukle Advertising & Design. They do quite a bit of government-sponsored work, like for water preservation or anti-smoking initiatives. I'm hoping they get a more substantial client soon. They seem to have some nice talent over there -- as evidenced by their most recent work for the Wyoming Department of Health.

The idea is simple: make the term "secondhand smoke" synonymous with death. Literally. These outdoor boards do just that, replacing the word death or one of its derivatives with the term secondhand smoke in common idioms or phrases. There were several of these, but these two are my favorites. Special kudos to copywriters Jim Glynn and Zac Spector.

The best and worst of the Superbowl commercials

Here are what I consider the best and worst spots of the Superbowl. Overall, I thought this was a slightly above average year. There were a few that shined as well as a few that bombed, as there are every year. I say ‘slightly above average’ only because I went into this with such incredibly low expectations. These are dark economic days, and I thought NBC would have a hard time filling the time slots. Advertising budgets are some of the first casualties in a downturn, and Superbowl advertising, which everyone agrees to be exorbitantly expensive, is a shoe-in for places to cut back. Perhaps that would explain why some big brands were absent this year (Fed-Ex, McDonalds) and why Miller only gave us a one-second blip.

And yet despite the bleak economy, some brands ponied up the money not only for the media buy but also for the multi-million-dollar production fees. Seriously. Some of these spots cost more than some feature-length independent films.

The Best
This one had me laughing out loud for quite some time. Brilliant use of repetition. And the casting is spot on.



I’m not sure what this spot says about Bridgestone Tires, other than that they’re often stolen, but it sure is fun.



A very expensive, beautiful spot for Coke. It’s not as fun as last year’s parade blimp spot, but it’s fun nonetheless.



This spot for Hyundai isn’t a new idea. The whole “our product is so great, the competition is angry” has been done a million times. But I doubt it’s ever been done this well. Brilliant. And I love the last line.



This one for monster.com is my favorite. Simple. Hilarious.



The Worst
This one was done by amateurs in a contest sponsored by Doritos. But it certainly isn’t Super Bowl worthy. And certainly not worth the $1 million the winners and creators of this spot received.



This one is cruel and stupid.



This Sobe’s spot was in 3D, but that couldn’t possibly have helped. It’s ridunculous.



Go Daddy is always crude and lewd, but this one with Danica Patrick may be the worst one yet. Shameful.



This spot for Vizio is an easy target. It feels more like a Power Point presentation than a spot. And it makes the brand seem cheap. If your annual advertising budget is only a few million dollars, don’t spend it all on the Superbowl media buy. Be smart. Build a branding campaign inch by inch throughout the year.

Pure Inventions Commercial: I am a Rainbow

Check out this spot from Pure Inventions, a "unique line of fruit and tea extracts." Done by Grey in New York. I love the song. It's called "Rainbow" by Marshall Altman. I couldn't find the song online so Marshall was kind enough to send it to me. Thank you, Marshall.

Carlsberg Sports Drink Commercial

This spot is a few months old, but I only just discovered it. It's another product of the YouTube school of advertising: create a spot that looks like a home video. I think it's a strong idea, though. And the animation is spot on. Very funny. Enjoy.

Photo of President Thomas S. Monson

I found this photo of Thomas S. Monson, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, online and had to share it. I think it captures President Monson's warmth and friendly disposition really well. He's such a happy, wonderful, amazing man. The stories I hear about his life, particularly those regarding his service as a young LDS bishop are inspiring. I'm a better person because of his counsel and example.


According to Church's Wikipedia page, the LDS Church is the fourth largest Christian denomination in the country. Whoa? Really? I had no idea. Awesome.

MLK Dream Weekend Campaign

Here's a new campaign I've done for a local nonprofit that holds an annual event honoring Martin Luther King and his "I Have a Dream Speech." You can learn more about them at mlkdreamweekend.com.

Five books I've read (or listened to) recently

I see it's been almost a month since my last post. Shameful. What's wrong with me? Anyway, a lot has happened in the past few weeks. For starters, here are the five books I've read or listened to on audiobooks. All simply mah-velous.


Peter and the Secret of Rundoon. The third and currently last book in the Peter and the Starcatchers series. I love these books. Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson have exactly the right mix of humor, humanity and classic fast-paced adventure. I'd read a hundred of these if there were that many.


Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card. As I've mentioned in a previous post, Ender's Game may be my favorite novel ever. So when this book was released -- a direct sequel to Ender's Game, unlike Speaker for the Dead, which is also a sequel but occurs much later in the life of the main character -- I was ecstatic. It's wonderful. Card captures better than any other living author of whom I am aware what it means to belong to a family or how it feels to be utterly alone without one. Also, if you've ever wondered what soldiers returning from war feel like, read this book. Amazing. I pray Card plans to write a direct sequel to this one.

The Hound of the Baskervilles. I had never read any Sherlock Holmes adventures before, but now I'm hooked. I can see how Holmes has greatly influenced modern mystery writers as well as Scooby Doo, although the bad guy at the end of this short novel does not say, "And I would have gotten away with it too if not for you pesky kids!"

The Hard Way ( a Jack Reacher novel). A few months ago someone posted on my blog and encouraged me to read Lee Child's Jack Reacher's novels. Bless you bless you whoever you are. Reacher is the tough guy I've always wanted to be. Hard Way has a simple premise, but in Jack Reacher's world nothing is never as easy as it might first appear. My only complaint about the audiobook was the reader, who adopted a strained voice for one character that was impossible to understand. Fortunately the character doesn't have too many scenes, but whenever he did I wanted to reach through my iPod and shake the reader senseless. Hey, pal. You're a reader. If I can't understand you, you're not reading; you're making noise.

Nevertheless, The Hard Way is a Jack Reacher winner. I don't expect to tire of this guy any time soon.

Echo Park. This is my first Michael Connelly book. After listening to the audiobook of this one, I encouraged Lauren to check him out. She's since read four of his novels and enjoyed them all. Connelly's reoccuring character Harry Bosch is an older, wiser LA detective who strives to be a "true detective," one who is meticulously thorough and shows true compassion to the victims of the crimes he investigates. This near obsessive behavior however can drive Bosch to bend the rules of police procedure a bit in ways that aren't always ethical. It's a great character. And I'm looking forward to reading more of Bosch's adventures.

New Print Campaign for the Greenville Drive (an homage to The Christmas Story)

Erwin-Penland, the agency I work for, just created a fun print campaign for local minor league baseball team The Greenville Drive. The ads invite folks to give season tickets this Christmas and do so with a nod to everyone's favorite holiday flick, A Christmas Story. Jason Smith is the art director. Lon Murdock is the photographer. The last one is my favorite.

Adidas Soccer Spot

Here's a new commercial from ad agency 180Amsterdam featuring soccer great Steven Gerrard trying to hit a clay pigeon with a soccer ball. There's lot of debate online on whether or not this is real, which is precisely what the agency was hoping for, I'm sure. Advertising that gets noticed is great. Advertising that gets watched again and again and then discussed and argued about is flat out brilliant. In other words, in advertising terms, whether this is real or not is totally irrelevant.

As for me, I've watched it about 17 times and I'm pretty sure my opinion is right. But rather than influence you, I merely invite you to experience it yourself.

Ender's Game comics from Marvel

Ask me what my favorite novel is, and I will tell you without hesitation that it's Ender's Game written by Orson Scott Card. It is cliche to say so, but when I first read it many, many years ago as a youngster it changed me. I had never been so emotionally invested in a character before. I never knew that stories could have such a hold on you, and I've read it again and again for that reason. Ender was the first true hero that I felt like I knew.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was to learn that Marvel would be doing a comic adaptation of the novel. The first two issues of the five-part series are available now, and they are nothing short of amazing. The art is stunning, but it's the adaptation by Chris Yost that has me the most mesmerized. For those of you who may say that an adaptation can never do the source material justice, give this one a try. Yost has truly captured the Ender's Game I first pictured in my mind. And, amazingly enough, he's done so with as few words as possible. This is a man who understands the advantages of the comic medium and who uses them to their fullest.

But don't take my word for it. Here is Orson Scott Card's reaction to the comic series.

Hostage by Robert Crais

I love Robert Crais, especially his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike novels. The two make a lovely testosterone-filled pair. There’s always lots of busted heads and snarky commentary to go around when Elvis and Pike are on the job. But Hostage is one of Crais’s standalone novels. A few years ago it was made into a movie with Bruce Willis, but I recently saw the trailer, and I don’t think it’s anything I’ll want to see any time soon. It looked rather silly. But “silly,” dear reader, the novel is not.

Hostage tells the story of Jeff Talley, a former LA SWAT hostage negotiator who left the job after a hostage situation went bad and Talley became consumed with guilt. Now he’s the chief of police in the sleepy California town of Bristo Camino where the only legal infractions are the occasional speeding ticket.

All that changes when three criminals on the run are forced to stop in Bristo Camino to steal a car. As you might suspect, a hostage situation ensues, but it’s far more complicated than you might think. I’d rather not give anything away here, but suffice it to say that Crais is a master of the slow boil. Just when you think the situation couldn’t get any more dire or more complicated, Crais throws another wrench into the gears. This isn’t a simple hostage story. This is a story about the lengths one man will go to save the people he loves. It’s lots of fun, and although it’s loaded with more gore and language than you typically get from Crais, it’s still a wonderful ride.