New TV Commercial Sells Anticipation of Baseball, Music and Sex

I’m not much of a Budweiser guy, not at all actually. But their new commercial has really caught my attention. In the 60 second version of the spot they show glimpses, or vignettes, of people getting ready for something. The scenes range from a guy barbecuing in his yard, people getting ready for a baseball game, a band gearing up for a concert and my favorite, a woman getting ready to go to work. The art direction here is spectacular. The music (You! Me! Dancing! by Los Campesinos) has that driving baseline and building anticipation of preparing. And that is what Budweiser is really selling here, the promise of, or  the hope of, an awesome time. Whether you’re getting ready for the party, the game, the concert , the date or all of the above – what you’re excited most about is what could happen. And Bud captures that here perfectly:

Budweiser – Grab Some Buds

I guess the tie that binds everything together here is the beer. Budweiser would like you to believe that it is responsible for making all the magic happen. That’s advertising for ya!

A Man’s Home is His Castle…

And truer words were never spoken when that home is the hands of this father & son team. The newest LEGO commercial (and possibly new campaign) aimed squarely at adult men speaks this proverbial expression loud and clear. Using a voice reminiscent of the late John Facenda (of NFL films greatness) LEGO manages to capture the ear of the casual viewer during ESPN commercial breaks and the like.  I first saw this during SportsCenter and have seen it multiple times on the guy-centric sports channel. It does the job effectively as everyone who has seen it  immediately wants to get out the bricks and build something.

The best part about this commercial is that the LEGO set they’re building isn’t a set at all. It comes purely from their imagination. How fun is that? A father and son building the wildest thing they can think of, complete with “windmill thingies” just because they can. I don’t know if LEGO is going to release any more in the “Build Together” series but I hope they do. This is the first time I can remember LEGO doing targeted television commercial ads aimed at the adults who are actually buying the product.  Brilliant, it works.

LEGO Build Together

I think this commercial is hitting the airwaves just in time for the holiday season.  And I for one am going to go out and buy some LEGO sets to build with my son. You should too!

All You Need is Love

So here is another one of BlackBerry’s ‘Love What You Do’ commercials. This one is even more confusing than the last. If you remember the Rock Band version, the band practices real hard and becomes great. In this one, two wannabe fashion designers put a show together. I guess if your first show goes well, you can continue to do what you love.  But what if it’s absolutely horrible? I guess you go out and yourself get a BlackBerry.

Become a Fashionista in Five Easy Steps:

• 1. Work on stuff with friend
• 2. Fight about it
• 3. Work on it some more
• 4. Put on show
• 5. Rave Reviews to shock the fashion world.

Enter the BlackBerry ‘Love What You Do’ logo again and… scene! So, there is even less connection with technology, smartphones, BlackBerry’s, etc. than I’d like to see.  I think step 3.5 in this version is – Up and coming fashion designers run out of rare and expensive fabric they need to complete new line, use Blackberry to track down new vendor, purchase and ship in time to save the show. I still think if they didn’t have the Beatles cover song, they wouldn’t have a commercial at all.

Take a look:

More Love

The ‘Love What You Do’ campaign has several commercials, check out these others:

Rockband Love

Oh, I hope it does!

I hope the new Droid phone is everything the iPhone is and isn’t. Everything it is because I was just at an Apple store yesterday and the iPhone is awesome and of course, I want one. And everything it isn’t because it will be available from Verizon so I can actually get one. And since I’m using a BlackBerry on Verizon’s Network, I’m pretty excited about the chance to try out a new phone without having to switch carriers.

iDon’t Believe the Hype

Verizon’s newest smartphone, scheduled for a November release according to the television commercials, is hyped up to be the latest attempt by multiple manufacturers to be labled an “iPhone Killer”. Well, it’ll have to be pretty good. It’s rumored that it will have a 5 megapixel camera with flash, video, GPS directions, full QWERTY keyboard, speech recognition, replacement batteries, run multiple apps, music, “The Network” and 10,000+ Apps. That’s a pretty good start.

Watch the commerical to see if it gets you as excited about the upcoming holiday season as it does me.

There’s a Map for That

Since we’re talking about Verizon vs. Apple, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about the other latest commercial from Verizon attacking Apple. Instead of “there’s an App for That” from Apple, Verizon is touting it’s excellent coverage under “There’s a Map for That” coverage. A direct blow from one major network to the other. Enjoy!

All You Need is Love

Apparently, all you really need is love and a BlackBerry and everything else in between takes care of itself. According to the latest commercial in the ‘Love What You Do’ campaign, BlackBerry is insinuating that if you have one of their smartphones you’ll be able to do whatever you want. Like start a rock band and become really, really, ridiculously famous. I’m just not sure how the phones actually accomplish this for you.

For those of you who haven’t seen the commercial, let me break it down for you.

BlackBerry Saves the World in Five Easy Steps:

• 1. There’s a band
• 2. They suck
• 3. The band practices
• 4. The band rocks out
• 5. The band gets fans

Enter the BlackBerry ‘Love What You Do’ logo and… scene! So, I get the point that somewhere along the way the band used their awesome BBs to help them do something productive that could otherwise not be done without them. However, it would be nice if the commercial at least hinted at what that actually was. There should be a step 3.5 – While traveling through the remote parts of the mid-west with little to no mobile coverage, Band connects with concert promoter who gets them a gig at the Whiskey. That would make sense.

The commercial does succeed in pulling some emotional heart-strings, but I’m not sure that is enough to convince people who don’t have BlackBerry’s to buy one. Certainly, if they didn’t have such an established brand they would never be able to pull this off because it is strictly branding and has no product sell value at all.

Take a look for yourself and make your own decision.

More Love

The ‘Love What You Do’ campaign has several commercials, check out these others:

• Fashion Show/Runway Love