If jeans could talk - Bluenotes "Your Summer Story" ad

I love this stupid ad.

A guy submits his jeans as his "what I did for my summer vacation" paper. No one should ever have to actually study in school again!

Although this ad is a bit too much like performance art in which invariably somebody takes their clothes off, trumping anything else that might be going on; it's the subtext to the stripping that is pretty much the whole story.

In the battle of ersatz experience created by commodities vs. real experience brand intelligence - here represented by the choice of jeans - is certainly straining hard against actual experience. The ad's not so much saying that you can buy your way to success at school (or at least to a fun summer vacation) as that in the arena of conventional learning - school - a gesture can be just as smart as doing your homework the way it's expected to be done. And of course, it's the cool kids who are having all the fun.

That's not how I remember things, but then that was a different time:)

There's also a nice narrative arc to this ad with the the girl writing the word "love" at the beginning, setting things up for him stripping off his jeans later.

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VW Routan ad vs. Ford Flex ad - retooling America's Big 3 automakers

First, thanks to the folks who commented on my post about the "aging hippies" VW Routan ad. Since then I recently discovered Ads of the World has a whole folder of VW ads. I'd like to add a couple of thoughts to my previous post.

One, I don't feel critical or bad about aging hippies. God, I AM one! And I'd die to have a vintage VW bus like the one in the driveway in that ad. I'm terribly jealous of all the folks who love their buses and rebuild them and take road trips and go to those crazy van club get-togethers.

I just thought that VW Routan ad was very peculiar thing for VW to do when hippie culture basically adopted the Beetle and the transporter and opened up the huge North American market for them. It seems just, well, ungrateful.

Second, I think we've really lost something when the only purpose a van seems to have these days is to promote middle class family values, mom's driving their kids to polo practice, schlepping around piles of consumer toys. Van used to be associated with a lot more than status quo consumerism, but these days the only sex drugs and rock 'n roll that remains is in the sound tracks.

Now along comes the Ford Flex (shown in the Canadian ad above) - not really a van but not really a truck either. What is it anyway? It should be called the Ford Can'tMakeMyMindUp.

But wait, to be honest, there's something about the Flex that grabs me. It looks a lot like this '67 Country Squire. I've always loved station wagons and have owned a few. Maybe it's the idea that you can lie down in them :)

Anyway, everyone has to be very concerned about the economy right now. Surely the geniuses working at Ford, GM and Chrysler must know that it won't matter what kind of vehicles they produce when nobody has money to buy them and the banks aren't lending.

By all means bring on the hybrids. But the idea of greening up motor transport is only part of the solution. We are going to need a lot more than that. We need to do something about six lane freeways clogged with vehicles, each with just one driver, no passengers.

Maybe the Flex and the Routan are pointing unconsciously in a new direction: Let's get everyone in America driving around together in vans. And bring back hitchhiking while we're at it.

Yes we can!


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zefrank is one damned media savvy dude; check out this video on brand emotional aftertaste.



Not as cleverly crtical but awesome in his depth of knowledge and almost-over-the-top radio voice, Terry O'Reilly does a show called the Age of Persuasion on CBC radio (Saturday, 4 p.m.), and has just started a new blog: http://www.oreillyradio.com/

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