Metaideation has been dormant for a few months. That will change soon. Watch this space.

Adviews is open for business with hundreds of vintage TV spots, all credited to the original agencies. Hours of fun. Note: you can only view them through iTunes! What the hell?

I recently blogged about the Orkin “Pizza/Cockroach” spot. Love it or hate it, or get sick and throw up from it, if you saw it you remembered it.

Now Orkin has a second spot, with a giant termite asking to use the phone because his car broke down–you know, like a traveling salesman.

My reaction: seen it. If it had been on DVR, I would have fast-forwarded past it. Instead, I reached for the “off” button on the remote.

This brings up a bigger question.

In the old days when print and TV ruled, a campaign typically meant “3 similar spots” or “3 similar print ads” or a combination of these plus more. The idea was that repetition would drill home the brand positioning – repetition was the advertiser’s friend.

Now I’m not so sure. With the Web the dominant medium for display ads and DVR technology dominating the way we watch TV, the way we define campaign has got to get a lot looser – fast.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have 3 similar spots. But each one has to be both recognizeable and _surprising_. New spots have to be really new. 3 cookie cutter spots or ads just won’t cut it anymore.

Otherwise, new technologies are going to keep coming out of the wordwork and eating away at agencies’ strategies like a… well… you know.

I don’t know how they did it, but they did it.

If you’re in the business, don’t miss this. It’s totally amazing and the best example I’ve see in a long time of “thinking out of the box.”

I hate it when this happens! Every color of the rainbow in a totally undisciplined palette, giant logo right in the middle of the poster followed by a giant URL, stock shot of “girl having fun on waterslide,” busy layered backgrounds, cheap typography tricks no first-year design student would touch with a ten-foot pole–I can’t think of any rule of good judgment this poster doesn’t break!

Great headline, though.

found on a SF BART train

(Excuse the lousy photo–I was on a moving train.)

These Post Shredded Wheat spots are brilliant, not because they’re funny and quirky and weird (though they are)–but because they’re true to brand heritage.

Anyone who’s seen or read Road to Wellville knows that all the original cereal magnates were all bats**t insane!

All the greatest advertising is true to the original idea that made the brand great in the first place, and this is no exception. A classic.

Viddy this, O my brothers. Real Muppets doing Really Bad Things in the name of coffee.

From SuperPunch via BoingBoing.

New spot for Microsoft’s search engine reboot, called Bing.

Did I call it about this graphic style, or what? (See my post below about the Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head “Ponytail” music video.)

By the way, does the name “Bing” remind any one else of Ned “Bing!” Ryerson, the ubernerd from “Groundhog Day?” (Who happens to resemble a balding Bill Gates, and not in a good way.)

I was watching this the other day during my lunch, and came this close to losing it.

Please proceed with caution.

Adding to the “Disturbing” factor on this one is the veiled reference to porno movies. “BLINK BLINK but I didn’t order any pizza with sausage…”  Boom chucka wow wow!

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