Daniel Harmon

These St. Patrick’s Day radio ads for Finnegans Irish Amber are gut-busting, laugh-to-tears hilarious. A wee bit irreverent? Yes, absolutely. They start out “blessed are those who drink Finnegans,” and then it’s all down hill from there. But if you can make it through the sacrilege and the thick Irish brogue, you’re in for a fun 60 seconds.

Now I’d like to point out that I’m not endorsing this product in anyway. To tell the truth, I don’t even drink. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (more known as the Mormon Church), I live by the Word of Wisdom: a law of health that prohibits consumption of alcohol, coffee, tea and illicit drugs.

But I also recognize as well as anyone that beer (or in this case, ale) commercials are some of the funniest out there. So for me, this is all about the brilliance of the ad’s writing, music and voice talent—not the beverage. In fact, I have a brother that served a mission for our Church in Ireland and he can attest to how true these are to the Irish culture.

That said, onto the ads.

“House”

“Karate”

I’d like to emphasize an interesting strategy behind this concept (besides the fact that “Finnegan’s donates all its profits to charity”). Finnegan’s is actually calling attention to the obvious inebriating effects of their brew; something I’ve never seen in any alcoholic drink’s ads. It’s not glamorous, but it’s honest—and in this case, hysterical.

For once, an alcoholic beverage company is willing to own up to what everyone knows in the first place: if you drink enough of the stuff, you’re going to get sloshed. You have to hand it to them for being willing to tackle the issue at all—even if they’re just trying to sell more of it, not warn against its adverse consequences.

And besides, you have to give credit to any ad that can get away with saying “karate potion” or “domicile”—no matter what the context.

By the way, I found these on the 2008 Radio-Mercury Awards Finalists list (the highest award in radio advertising).

Congrats to BJ Lawson for defeating his mudslinging primary opponent, Augustus Cho! The final tally? A landslide: 71 percent to 29 percent.

And while I’m basking in the splendor of this victory, I’d like to mention a creative (and brilliant) marketing move that Lawson employed during his primary contest. He and his supporters gave away 10,000 copies of the U.S. Constitution. Think about that for a moment. Rather than his supporters just spitting out the obligatory “vote for Lawson” and offering some tired, seen-it-a-thousand-times-before flyer, imagine them asking you, “would you like a free copy of the Constitution?” What a fresh, emotionally-gripping proposition! No matter what party you belong to, such a unique gesture would at least make you think twice before giving your normal, preprogrammed rejection—unless you’re a red-blooded communist, of course.

Another benefit: He’s creating a great brand for himself. Now, when people hear Lawson, they think Constitution. Not a bad association.

And on top of that, this focuses his efforts on educating the people, not pandering to the beauty-contest politics that we’re all so used to. I’m guessing that out of the 10,000 people who accepted a copy, at least 90% of them had never read our nation’s founding document front to back in their lives. And even if they still haven’t, I think it’s campaign money well spent.

So as the Republican Party’s nominee, Lawson is now poised to take on Rep. David Price—the stale, spend-o-matic, 22-years-in-office-too-many embodiment of federal government gone wrong.

For the general election in November, he’s shooting to give out 100,000 Constitutions! It’s time that we the people learn exactly what it is that comes after…“We the people…”

Here’s a nice video his supporters put together for him.

This ad aired during the NCAA National Championship Game—just one of a slew of great ads during the event. My buddy said he was actually more impressed with the NCAA’s commercials than this year’s Super Bowl offerings

What makes this ad so funny is the performance by the out-of-touch business exec that wants to “go viral” and “get on the Net” to “blog it out.”

Interestingly, Directv depicts the guy who cares about the blogosphere as a total self-centered dingbat. For a company trying to show off their technologically-advanced prowess, it’s ironic that they’re also subtlety poking fun at the new media—apparently “tweens” are the only ones that care about blogs—that now makes and brakes products and brands. However, considering the fact that I’m writing about their ad and posting it on my blog (free advertising for them), they probably know exactly what they’re doing. Still, they don’t have this posted on YouTube yet. So they’re not totally with it.

There’s a few more ads to this campaign here—though not as funny as this one, in my opinion.

I found this poster series on the Communication Arts website.  In collaboration with the Arbor Day Foundation, the in-house design team at Nebraska Book Company made these to promote the purchase of used text books.

I love the balance of color, the paradoxical concept, and the way the illustrations use negative space, allowing your eye to instinctively complete the image forms. And notice the clever use of the inverted recycle logo to create the v in save—a nice little touch of visual wit.

Ironically, the tag line, “Buy a Book, Build a Forest,” reminds me of an anything-but-politically-correct bumper sticker I saw as a teenager in Idaho. Its message aimed to achieve the same end, just through different means. It read, “Save a Tree, Eat a Beaver.”

Skittles has put out some pretty wacky commercials lately. This one’s no exception.

The piñata man is funny and memorable; however, will it sell? As entertaining as this concept is, I also found it rather unappetizing—not exactly the emotion you want to elicit when convincing people to buy candy. On top of that, the thought of Skittles combined with chocolate wigs me out. Sounds like a bunch of small, over-hardened Tootsie Rolls. But then again, I’ve never met a Skittle I didn’t like.

Hillary Clinton gave us a nice little one-liner the other day. “It is time for a president who is ready on day one to be commander in chief of our economy,” she proclaimed. Good one, Hill. Sounds like she snatched the term from one of Ron Paul’s responses in the final debate (go about 5:00 into the YouTube) and tried to twist it into a “positive” thing.

As Paul points out in the video, Article II. Section 2 of the Constitution clearly states that “the President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States.” However, it doesn’t say anything about the President commanding the economy. That’s what dictators try—and eventually fail—to do.

As any good economist will tell you, in a truly free society, only the market commands the economy, with the principles of competition, supply and demand, self reliance and innovation and as the chief underpinnings.

Hillary went on to say that “sometimes the phone rings at 3 a.m. at the White House and it’s an economic crisis and we need a president who is ready, willing and able to answer that call.”

Hate to break it to you, Hill, but I’m afraid that phone’s been ringing off the hook for years. The “crisis” is the ongoing abandonment of sound money (a Constitutional gold standard) and free markets. Yet almost no one in Washington has been willing to heed the call (except for Ron Paul, of course).

Since Hillary already wants to extend her “commander in chief” power to the economy, if elected, where would she stop? Commander in chief of health care? (Actually, we already know she’s going for that one.) Commander in chief of education? (How I cringe at the thought.) How about commander in chief of energy? Or of agriculture? Or maybe even the environment? And while we’re at it, let’s just top it off with transportation, recreation, communication and the arts—then throw in a scepter and a tiara and call it a day.

If you’ve ever wanted to watch a water balloon explode in slow-motion (I know I have), now’s your big chance. The most incredible thing about this ad is that they did it all sans CGI; they used a camera that shot 10,000 frames per second instead.

The result? A very elegant and imaginative way of communicating what I love most about soda (or pop, if you’re from Idaho): the tongue tickling bubbliness. And I have to admit, the shots and song are so beautifully mesmerizing, it makes me want to expunge my memory of everything I know about carbonated water’s adverse health effects. Strong bones, joints and muscles? Who needs ‘em! Gimme some of that fizzy drink!

My techie friend, Duane and I have started a grassroots fundraising campaign for BJ Lawson’s North Carolina congressional race: BucksForBJ.blogspot.com. If you’re a Ron Paul fan, or if you want our government to return to Constitutional principles, please check out BJ Lawson’s website. I blogged about him here, too. If you like what you see, go to BucksForBJ.blogspot.com and pledge. We’re asking for small donations and for you to spread the word to some buddies. We call it a Money Ball—not to be confused with a money bomb.

I wasn’t always like this. Previously, I was about as politically active as a fence post. I never donated a dime to any politician (I thought they were already doing a good enough job of taking away my money). And I certainly never dreamed of campaigning for anybody.

But then along came Ron Paul. After my brother introduced him to me, I wanted to learn everything I could about him—and more importantly, the principles he stands for. As my closest friends and family can attest, I turned into a walking, interactive, encyclopedic, Ron Paul billboard.

I even donated to him. We didn’t have any extra money at the time, so I asked my wife to give my Christmas money to Ron Paul’s campaign fund. Ever since then, I’ve made a personal commitment to get more involved in the fight for freedom.

By the way, I’d love your ideas for improving BucksForBJ.blogspot.com. So leave a comment here if you have any thoughts. Thanks.

My oldest brother was in town visiting about a month ago. He’s a big fan of architectural design. I’m pretty partial to it as well. He told me about the Chicago Spire (now under construction). Ever heard of it? It’s an incredible structure! Once completed, it will stand 150 stories high. In comparison, the Sears Tower, the tallest building in North America, is only 108 stories.

The website is definitely worth a gander. It says the building is “inspired by nature.” Sounds like they’re just trying to vamp up its green appeal. I submit they change it to, “inspired by an industrial-strength tapered drill bit.” Now that’ll attract the tenants.

The Caterpillar corporate site I’ve been working on for the past few months went live today. Check it out here. There’s a link on Cat.com’s homepage too. The site focuses on the progress Caterpillar is making possible around the world.

I wrote a lot of the copy (an advertising term for text) on the pages. And I even helped with the writing on some of the scripts for the videos (voice over stuff). The designers did a great job, don’t you think? If you see anything that would improve the site, leave me a comment. Thanks.