commercial

Zen Stone TV ad: The music's just not trippy enough

I guess maybe the marketing folks behind Creative's Zen Stone music player, the company's answer to the iPod Shuffle, are consciously avoiding corny references to the word "stoned." But in this new TV ad for the little guys (via TechFresh), I definitely think the corporate-training-video soundtrack ought to have been replaced with some Pink Floyd. I mean, come on, they're music players, not elevator music players:

The whole thing kind of bears a slight resemblance to that "bouncy ball" Sony TV ad, which certainly set off a wave of imitators eager to make … Read more

OK, the Bravia bouncy ball ad was cool. Now let's move on

A few years ago, Sony made a pretty big splash with that advertisement for its Bravia HDTVs that showed a zillion colorful bouncy balls roaming the streets of San Francisco:

It kind of got old when people started spoofing it in Halo (and also when some second-rate nightclub DJs began spinning a lame techno remix of the Jose Gonzales song playing in the background), but now the "colorful balls fall from the sky" ad trend has really gone over the hill. One word: Pokemon. Check out this promotional ad for the new Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl games … Read more

Joost commercial isn't quite ready for the Super Bowl

Most well-funded Web 2.0 start-ups spend their extra capital on logo T-shirts, Frisbees, or beer mugs. But if you're the ever-classy Joost, the hush-hush online video start-up, you make a commercial to explain your product. I'm not sure whether this will actually be shown on televisions in one country or another, or if it'll stay on the Web. Ironically, it's being distributed via YouTube, which is certainly going to be one of its foremost rivals.

I think the commercial is a little dull. It could use some Diet Coke and Mentos.

(Adverblog via PSFK)

According to Novell ads, Linux is a cute girl who needs a haircut

Novell has made a series of ads parodying the iconic (can we call them "iconic" now?) "I'm a Mac" commercials. Like Apple's ads, they feature a dweeby PC and a "cool kid" Mac, although Novell's Mac looks less like a 2007-era hipster and more like a Freddie Prinze, Jr.-ish jock from a late '90s teen movie. (I mean, a Mac would at least be more inclined to resemble a slightly edgier character played by Ethan Embry.)

Then there's Novell's addition, Linux. In an obvious pander to male geeks, … Read more

Listening to the radio without any ads

Crave noted recently that radios, of all things, seem to be blazing new trails in audio technology on a daily basis. And this latest product out of Sweden is a perfect example.

The "PopCatcher MusicDock MD-601" is kind of an automatic TiVo for radio, scanning only for music and skipping over any advertisements, DJ chatter or anything else between songs. It then records the tunes on what it claims are "perfectly cut, high-quality MP3 files" on whatever media player is docked in the device.

The problem, according to our cousins at Crave UK, is repetition. In … Read more

Last night's iPhone commercial from the Oscars

Many of us here at Crave are iPhone skeptics, but we still think that Apple sure put together a cool commercial for the pricey handheld device. Featuring famous movie and TV scenes of people answering phones--from Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate to Lucille Ball to "The Dude" from The Big Lebowski--the ad premiered last night during the Oscars.

Happy viewing!

(Via My iPhone.)

So much for those Beatles iPod rumors

By now you know it: one, Peyton Manning is pretty fantastic; and two, there was no big announcement from Apple last night involving the Beatles. No "Beatles Edition" widescreen iPod, no Fab Four tunes in the iTunes Music Store, nada. Guess we can file that one under "unsubstantiated Mac rumors."

The ad everyone's talking about, according to the similarly disappointed Cult of Mac, is the Coca-Cola spot that spoofed Grand Theft Auto. Kind of reminded me of that South Park episode where half the action took place in World of Warcraft. So, here it is; … Read more

Domo arigato, Mr. P.C.

No, the Japanese "I'm a Mac" ads do not include Hello Kitty, Pikachu, or anything with tentacles. But they're quite funny in their own right, if only because I have absolutely no idea what the actors are saying in them but can still pretty much grasp the message that they're trying to convey. It's interesting, too, to see how the Japanese ads are much more reliant on physical expressions and gags, whereas the British Mac ads that Candace blogged here a few days ago are all about the wit (not surprisingly).

Additionally, I am … Read more

Apple gives Brits their own PC vs. Mac ads

The Brits now have their own version of those funny Apple commercials pitting Mac against PC.

The commercials, which can be viewed on Apple's U.K. Web site, follow the same scenario as the American versions. The only strange thing is that instead of Bill Gates, "PC" bears a striking resemblance to Al Gore.

Come on now. Everyone who has seen An Inconvenient Truth knows that Gore is an Apple man.

Wii commercial airs south of the border

Talk about a head fake. While the Nintento faithful have been waiting for any bit of information about the Wii in the United States, the company has apparently been airing a 2.5-minute commercial south of the border that showed up on YouTube, according a weekend post on Digg. After viewing it, we agree with this observation: Does anyone ever sit down while playing this thing? (See CNET's first-look video of the Wii here.)