In mid July, 2011, the California Milk Processor Board launched a new advertising campaign called ‘Everything I do is wrong,’ created by the same advertising firm, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, who started the wildly successful ‘Got Milk?’ campaign of previous years.

The campaign was instantly controversial, so I grabbed some screen shots of the site (http://everythingidoiswrong.com/) before it was taken down.* Here they are:

The site included a number of social-networking enabled features, including printable ‘Pre-Approved Apologies’:

• “We can both blame myself”
• “I’m sorry I listened to what you said and not what you meant”
• “I apologize for letting you misinterpret what I was saying”
• “I apologize for not reading between the right lines”
• “I’m sorry for the thing or things I did or didn’t do”

And a way to generate videos and post them to your facebook wall. I generated one, which read my facebook profile, found that I was married, and automatically included my wife’s name in the apology.  I’m working on capturing and encoding the video, and will post it here when complete.

* it is still up at time of writing, 7-16-2011.

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From Summer, 2009, Burger King’s highly suggestive ad ‘The Big Seven Incher.’ This was collected by one of my students at McDaniel in the fall of 2010.

The classic PSA from ‘Keep America Beautiful’, aired starting in 1971.

This aired starting on Earth Day, 1971 on broadcast television. It’s effect in the US was profound, both on littering behavior as well as reinforcing the simplistic stereotypes of indigenous people. Wikipedia has an entry on the ad and its impact here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_America_Beautiful

70\’s PSA Keep America Beautiful (Crying Indian)

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Clips from the show ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’ demonstrating product placement in reality shows – in this case, British Airways

The classic ad, which inaugurated the era of heady ‘character-based’ advertisements, as well as the trend of premiering big new ads during the Superbowl. The ad aired during the Superbowl in 1984.

There is much written on the history of this ad, much of it incorrect. Advertising Age has an encyclopedia entry on Apple, which contains a discussion of the ad.

Most ads for American beer are based on humor or scantily-clad women.  Imported beers, however, seem to follow the hard-liquor model of advertisements, emphasizing the kind of person who drinks their beer:

Hennessy’s ‘Flaunt’ campaign (aired primarily on Jon Stewart’s ‘Daily Show’) is typical of aspirational luxury character ads. Part 2:

Hennessy’s ‘Flaunt’ campaign (aired primarily on Jon Stewart’s ‘Daily Show’) is typical of aspirational luxury character ads. Part 1:

When ads for hard liquor reappeared on American TV in 2002, they immediately started with the kind of character appeal ads typical of other expensive, discretionary goods. Jack Daniels was no exception:

A twist on the classic formula of scantly-clad women draping themselves over automobiles, from Chevy, Superbowl 2007