So why are the ads crap? I think it’s because each year advertisers want to top what has been done before. They want to do something bigger and more outrageous. But in the end that equates to dumber, cruder and well, dumber. I said it again.

Thirty seconds of airtime cost about $30 million dollars. That’s a lot of cake. Nobody wants to spend that kind of money and not get noticed. So advertisers push the limits of believability, they abandon concept and they focus on trying to get viewer jaws to drop with special effects. Here’s one spot from a great agency that was especially bad.

In contrast, Coca-Cola ran this Super Bowl commercial a few years ago and in my opinion, it’s the last great commercial I’ve seen that warranted 100 million viewers.

This year, there was only one clear winner and that was the commercial that didn’t run in the Super Bowl. The gay dating service Mancrunch.com generated millions in free publicity when CBS rejected the ad.

There was one bright spot in yesterday’s game and that was for Google. They used TV to promote a search engine. They used a love story to promote technology. It was a beautiful juxtaposition. My only nit is that this concept didn’t need to run in the Super Bowl – in fact its understated quality was probably missed by many shitfaced football fans. And that’s too bad. They missed a helluva commercial.

When that thing we want is a bigger house or a faster car, envy has no upside. But when that thing we want is to do better work, then envy can motivate us to improve.

I’ve been envious of other people’s work many times. I’ve been envious of ads, books, movies, poems, photographs, art – you name it. I’ve come away wishing that I had created the thing I envy. A bolt of envy knocks me off my feet every time.

Envy makes me want to achieve more, do better, think more creatively, to be less literal, to be more surprising, more unexpected, be smarter, on and on. In the movie “As Good As It Gets,” Jack Nicholson tells Helen Hunt that she makes him “want to be a better man.” I guess in a way, that’s what envy does for me.

Economic times are tough and all, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves. When you have fun, it brings levity to everyone else. When you have fun, the dark clouds lift.

We spend too much time doing exactly what the client wants and too little time actually listening to the client’s problems. If a client wants something a certain way, your first response should be “why do they want it like that?” Ask questions and find out where their head is. Ask the right questions and you’ll get to the bottom of it. Then and only then can you solve it the right way.

Think about it.

It’s easier for a college to recruit if it has a strong program. There are colleges that are known for business, medicine, art, science and everything in between. The idea of a strong college program is similar to an ad agency’s positioning and point of strength. An ad agency must stand for something if it’s going to attract the attention of prospects.

Colleges also need to overcome many of the same challenges as an ad agency. For example, a college in Springfield, Missouri will have more difficulty attracting students than one in San Francisco, California. And a small, unknown college will have more difficulty attracting students than, say, The University of Texas.

The key to both college and ad agency is to be great at something and the reputation will follow. If we were a college, which one would we be?

Officer, who took an oath to serve and protect, taking a nap at the Tampa
International Airport.

During the lunch break, the production company delivered a birthday
cake to a member of the crew.

He was surprised. Not so much that they had made a cake for him. He
was actually surprised that it was his birthday. From the look on his
face, he had clearly forgotten.

In the world of self-absorption, I found this moment both touching and
rare.

Anyone who knows me knows I love the game. It’s a fun sport that can be played indoors, it’s great exercise and you can play it your whole life. What’s not to love?

The name is officially called “Table Tennis.” The less formal name is “Ping Pong,” which happens to be owned by Parker Bros. Serious players say they are playing Table Tennis, but I prefer Ping Pong for three reasons:

Ping Pong is what the game sounds like. The ball off the paddle and then off the table produces a sound that approximates “ping” and “pong”. The name that describes the sound, the feeling and vibe is the one I prefer.

Ping Pong sounds more fun than Table Tennis. I put a lot into the game but I like the looseness that Ping Pong connotes. I don’t want to dress in formal whites and concern myself with clearing proper inches of toss on serve. I want to put back a few beers and have fun.

It’s the name I grew up with. I never said, “Hey dad, want to play some table tennis before dinner?” No, I said, “Dad, wanna play some ping pong?” Nostalgia. Tradition. The legacy of the basement.

I also prefer Bob to Robert and Vicki to Victoria. But that’s just me…

If you rent the movie now, it’s still scary but hardly believable. It was a big mechanical shark and it moved liked a big mechanical shark. As a moviegoer, we wanted to believe it was real. We wanted to go there with Spielberg.

Think back to Jurassic Park in 1993. Most of you probably saw it. I don’t know about you, but those dinosaurs looked real. They were roaming the earth and I was in awe.

If you rent the movie now, it’s not too believable. It looks like early computer animation. The dinosaurs look fake, the background looks fake, it all looks fake. Except for the Jurassic Park waterfalls, which happened to be real.

Now we have Avatar and we’re all falling for it again. Oh sure, it is stunning and looks like nothing we’ve ever seen before. But in another 15 years will this 3-D technology look dated? Who knows? For now, I’m buying it.

The point is that we want to be transported. We want to believe. The reason that magic is so powerful has very little to do with the magician and everything to do with the audience. I want to believe what’s possible. Don’t you?

Paramount Chairman Brad Grey was quoted as saying, “Our 2009 slate was green-lit in a very different economic climate and as a result we must remain flexible and willing to recalibrate and adapt to a changing environment.”

That may be what he said but what he meant was “We have Oscar bait with “Up In The Air”, not “Shutter Island.” The fact is that Paramount did not want to overspend marketing a movie that wasn’t going to win any awards on March 7.

In movie circles, Martin Scorsese is as close to God as you will find. He is considered the best filmmaker alive today. So I wonder how the conversation went down between Brad and Marty:

Brad: Sir Martin, could I have a moment of your time?

SFX: FOOTSTEPS AS MARTY WALKS AWAY