Maybe Because I'm Polish, But This Christmas Ad Really Hits Me

This man in a Polish Christmas ad really REALLY
wants to learn English. Find out why. 

Christmas is the season for holiday ads that make you weep, and this one fits the bill.

Here, we have an elderly gentleman who, at the beginning of the ad at least, does not speak English.

But he's determined to learn, dammit. He's got a VERY important person to meet, and that person speaks English, not the Polish our gentleman speaks.

In the ad for Allegro, basically the Polish version of Amazon or Ebay. the man receives some learning material to help him learn English. Fortunately, our English As A Second Language learner is an enthusiastic student.

Even if that means plastering everything in his house, including his dog, with Post It notes labeling everything in English. He even converses with his rubber ducky in the bathtub to make sure he master the English language perfectly.

Spoiler alert: Our eldery Polish gentleman's meeting with the Very Important Person Who Speaks English seems to go well.

H/T my sister Lynn for this find. Here's the video, which is well worth the watch:  Note, there's a surprising moment of NSFW language part way through.

ANOTHER British Christmas Ad Wins The Day

Mog the CGI cat cauises an eventful Christmas
for a family in a delightful Sainsbury's
holiday ad from Britain.  

What is it about Christmas ads from British retailers?

American advertisers can sure learn from them, as ours are mostly terrible. (Apple's sweet 2013 Christmas ad was a welcome exception, however.)

The reason I'm saying this because barely a week after this Grinch managed to offer a seal of approval to the new John Lewis holiday ad from Britain, we have this great one from Sainsbury's, which is an English supermarket chain.

In this ad, Mog, a cat character made popular by beloved childrens' author Judith Kerr, awakes from a Christmas Eve nightmare and inadvertently and hilariously creates a real life Christmas nightmare for himself and the entire Thomas family.

The sight gags are hilarious, and children in particular will love the chaos in the Christmas ad. (This child at heart loved the chaos, too.)

It's Christmas, so of course everything works out in the end, but I love the way they get there.

Watch this great viral video of the Sainsbury's ad, called "Mog's Christmas Calamity":

Duracell Batteries Tugging On Heart Strings?

You need batteries for those flashlights as you make your way home in the dark from tonight's Fourth of July fireworks display?

Go get some Duracell batteries. But before you do, watch their ad. Somehow, a battery ad managed to make me a little weepy.

A little girl receives a special Teddy bear from
her father in a charming new Duracell ad. 

Most advertisements annoy me, so when I find one that's actually kinda compelling, I highlight it.

In the Duracell ad, which you can watch below, a man deployed overseas sends his daughter back home a teddy bear. The bear has recorded message from Dad that plays when the daughter squeezes the bear.

Everytime she gives Teddy a squeeze,  her father's voice comes out and says, "I love you, baby girl"

This goes on for awhile. The ad demonstrates how long Duracell batteries are supposed to last and how important they are.

The Duracell ad is based on a true story. Apparently, people with Duracell were doing market research in peoples' homes when they encountered this arrangement.

At one place, they asked the kids to bring out their favorite battery operated toys. They expected things like toy cars and such, but a girl brought out a teddy bear that had her father's voice.

It turned out Dad was Robert Nilson, a Navy air traffic controller, who put together a battery powered teddy bear to play messages from him to his daughter, says television station WBRC in Birmingham, Alabama.

Nilson said the Duracell ad is pretty close to reality.

Though the Nilson family experienced the scenario in the Duracell ad, , actors stand in for the scene during the commercial, of course.

Here's the sweet ad:

Your Smart Phone Will Save Your Life. Or Kill You

This iPhone took a bullet to save
a British man's life.  

Your iPhone or whatever device you have is apparently also a bulletproof vest or a flamethrower, based on a news item and a viral video.

According to Business Insider UK, in October, 2014, a 25 year old man approached a gang of teenagers who had shut off the water supply to his apartment block in Cheshire, England.

During the ensuing argument, one of the teens pulled out a sawed off shotgun and shot the 25 year old in the abdoman. Says police:

"Fortunately, the victim's mobile phoe took the brunt of the shot and as a result of this, he survived. This is remarkable - had that phone not been in his pocket at that time he woud undoubtably have died."

A teenager has been found guilty of attempted murder and will be sentenced this coming July. The gunshot victim is OK. But he had to buy a new iPhone to replace the one that took the  bullet.

On the other hand, never stab your smart phone battery with a knife. Unless you like fireworks. There's some viral videos circulating that purport to show what happens when you do.

Here's an example. Yikes!!

Prom Season Brings Out Great Kids, And A Few Lousy Adults

Alabama teen Joy Webb picked her grandfather, James Drain,
to take to the prom because Drain never had
the chance to go to his prom when he was in high school 

Every year I like the stories of teenagers doing something special for that springtime high school rite: The prom.

So it is this year, with quite a few great examples. We have Drew Holm of Indiana, who took his great grandmother, Katie Keith to the prom because she is, in his words, "the prettiest woman."

Then there's the great story of Joy Webb, an Alabama 17 year old, who learned her grandfather, James Drain, 80, never had the opportunity to go to his high school prom, so Joy took James to hers. 

Then there's Ben Moser, the star quarterback at his high school in Pennsylvania, who remembered back when he was in fourth grade that he promised to take his friend, Mary Lapkowicz, who has Down's Syndrome, to the prom when they were high school seniors.

So, Moser took Kapkowicz to the prom this year and a good time was had by all, of course.

I'm glad we have these kids to hold up as examples of how to behave gallantly. Especially since some adults have really fallen short.

Young women like to wear glamorous, sexy dresses to proms, as well they should. It's a celebration.

A few school administrators are a bit too focused on students' bodies.

We have the case of Alexus Miller Wigfall, a student at Harrisburg High School in Pennsylvania, who was kicked out of the prom for a dress some idiot thought was too revealing, or, apparently, the school administrator thought the girl was too fat to be at a prom.

Wigfall said the school administrator told her, "You have more boobs that other girls...The other girls have less to show."

To the mind of one Michigan school administrator
Mireya Briceno is a flashing naked girl, basically,
because of the cut of her prom dress. Seems
fine to me, but what to I know?  

A similar thing happened to Mireya Briceno in Michigan, where some school jerky adult thought the cut of her unusual but fun prom dress showed a bit too much skin around the middle.

By the way, the news articles showed pictures of both young women in their dresses.  I'm highly confused about how the school principals and such could say they were indecent.

Adminstrators at a Louisiana high school wanted to ban female, openly gay honors student from wearing a tuxedo at her prom because the clothes were the wrong "gender."  Hey, at least she's well covered up with the tux, what's the school complaining about, then?

I think some adults have been staring at teens' clothing a wee bit too much.

So, we have a case of the kids acting like kind, responsible adults and adults acting like perverted teenagers gawking and shaming people over how they quite reasonably dress.

Maybe we should reverse who's in charge.

The Grinch's Heart Expands: I Actually LOVE This Too-Early Christmas Ad

Sam about to give his best friend, Monty the Penguin
his Christmas surprise in this perfect John Lewis holiday ad.  

People who know me know this rite of the Christmas Holiday Season, which started I think back on January 10:

I hate, HATE all the demands that we buy, buy, BUY our way to Christmas happiness.

If we don't brawl tooth and nail over some worthless electronic gadget at Walmart at 5 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving, then we're worthless human beings, goes the retail line.

That said, I stumbled upon an early Christmas ad for John Lewis, a British retailer.   Watch it at the bottom of this post.

In the ad we follow a boy named Sam and his best friend, Monty the Penguin.

I have to tell you right now I have a childlike fixation on penguins and actually wish I had one, so the fact the ad has a penguin got my interest.

The story in the advertisement, and how it's put together is so sweet. Sam and Monty, as I said, are best friends, but as the holidays approach, Monty is clearly longing for something. Sam notices and does something about it as a Christmas gift.

And like I said, the ad makes this Grinch's heart grow warm and sweet.  It's a nice antidote to the usual screaming and yelling about Christmas sales that we usually see.

It's really a wonderful ad. It'll go down as one of the all time classic Christmas commercials. But warning:  There is a MAJOR Kleenex alert before you watch this now totally viral video

Lots of people are getting weepy watching it.

Here it is:

Sometimes There's Bad Cops, But Sometimes There's REALLY Good Ones.

Police Detective Jack Mook leaves with his sons
after the best court hearing he's ever had to attend.  

There's good cops, and there's bad cops.

Bad cops shoot unarmed teenagers, arrest people for breaking nonexistent laws and pilfer money from innocent people. 

Good cops play by the book. And they go above and beyond. They are heroic. And sometimes, like one Pittsburgh detective named Jack Mook, really take human decency to a new level.  

He'd been mentoring a couple kids, two brothers who were not having a good time.  They disappeared for awhile. He got worried, tracked the older one down and got to the bottom of the story.

The brothers' foster parents were abusing them.

Yeah, he could have opened an investigation into the foster parents (Actually, I do believe they're in trouble.) But he had to do something else for the kids.

Mook pulled some strings and got the brothers a new foster parent: Himself.

So now the unmarried Mook is basically a single father to the two kids. After he became a foster parent, he took things one more step further, as you will see in the video, below.

Hat tip to Laura Stark for alerting me to this one.

Budweiser's Anti-Drunk Driving PSA Enough To Make Dog Owners Cry

A cute scene from Budweiser's anti-drunken driving
public service announcement  

Budweiser, the giant maker of beer, feels compelled from time to time to release a public service announcement noting that their beer is GREAT! (to some people anyway), but you don't want to have too much of it at once.

You know, drunken driving. You don't want to   go out on the road schnockered and then hurt or kill somebody. Or yourself. Think of the people waiting for you at home.

Or, your doggie companion waiting for you at home.

At the end of this post, you will find the tug-at-your-heartstrings Budweiser Don't Drive Drunk, Dog Loving PSA, called "Friends Are Waiting."

It comes complete with cuteness, a wimpering worrying dog, a good message, and, in the end, relief and happiness.

It's totally worth the watch. And definitely worth remembering next time you buy a six pack of Budweiser, or your favorite microbrew:

Another Touching, Awesome Ad from Thailand Of All Places

Will these two young men bully or help the protagonist
in a compelling life insurance ad for Thailand?  

For some reason, advertisers in Thailand know how to pull heartstrings and pull off a great advertisement.

In this one, for a life insurnance company, we follow the story of a young man, who, on the surface, isn't the greatest guitar player and performer in the world.

But the backstory pulls you in, and it's beautiful.

Thai Life Insurance has put out a series of these well made, tearjerky ads for several  years now, according to AdWeek. 

Here's the ad that manages to tell a compelling story, for once:

Thailand Mobile Phone, And Burger King Ad Violate Rule That Ads Must Be Bad And Irritating

How does the dad in this Thailand mobile
phone ad manage this crying baby?  

As I occasionally do in this blog, I try to give positive reinforcement to those few awesome advertisters that (thankfully) violate what seems to be a code of conduct for television commercials.

That code dictates that all advertising must be stupid, irritating, talent-free, must insult our intelligence and show no creativity.

Today, I give kudos to the Thailand mobile phone company DTAC, and Burger King, who released a couple good ads recently.

As if to demonstrate the public craves compelling advertising, both the mobile phone ad and the Burger King advertisement videos have gone viral.

What's different about this Whopper?
Watch the ad below and find out. 

I don't expect much from ads, and that's OK. The point of them is to convince us to buy a product, so you can't necessarily get to incredible film making like in the movie Citizen Kane or something.

But there's room for emotion and camera work and a good script in a short format like advertising, and the Thailand DTAC mobile phone ad, from the agency Y&R does that.   

It shows a young dad struggling with a crying infant while his wife shops at a grocery store. He calls her for help on the spiffy mobile home that's in the ad.

The ad nicely demonstrates how wonderful the phone is, but includes an awesome note about what the phone CAN'T replace. Watch the phone ad, as it's wonderful, then below that, we get into the very good Burger King ad.

Here's the phone ad:



The Burger King ad was only shown locally around San Francisco around the time of the city's recent gay pride celebration. But Burger King meant for the ad to be seen on line around the world.

In the ad, made by the agency David, Miami, Pride participants and other city residents, presumably not actors but actual people, stop at a San Francisco Burger King and asked if they want to try a Burger King Pride Whopper.

The Burger King workers don't give customers much information about what might be different about the Pride Whoppers, but the people who try the burger quickly figure out what is different, and what is not different about the burger.

Very nice. Watch:

"Empty Chair" Guinness Ad Pulls Heartstrings

A still from the "Empty Chair" Guinness ad  

There's not much I can say about the Guinness Beer ad, that you will see in the video below, without being a spoiler, so I'll just let you watch it and see what you think.  

I will say it's appropriate for the Fourth of July weekend.

Yes, the ad is shamelessly selling Guinness, but that's what an advertisement is supposed to do. But it also has a nice message. And definitely tugs at the heartstrings.

Guinness does have a history of good ads, like the famous wheelchair basketball ad that came out last year that was a nice meditation on friendship.

Anyway, here's the very thoughtful new advertisement from Guinness:

A Surprise, Wonderful, Cinematic Firestone Tire Ad Makes Me Happy

As I always do in those rare instances when somebody manages to produce an advertisement that's actually compelling and well made, I must give props today to Firestone Tires and their ad agency Leo Burnett Chicago    

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Last night, while watching "The Voice" and trying to ignore the boring people in commercials yell at me to buy clothes and cars, Firestone got my attention right away.

I saw a young guy adding gasoline to the tank of a battered old pickup truck with really nice tires in the middle of nowhere in some dusty place in the American west.

A country singer on the radio warbles "True love will find you in the end." then the young guy cuts the music and the engine as he comes to an abrupt stop at a tired, weather beaten farm house.

We see a woman in a bride's dress, carrying a hound dog run out of the house and into the guy's truck as they make their escape to elope. This scene is interspersed with glimpses of a middle aged couple in their own battered vehicle (again with great tires!) leave a store that's seen better days to go home.

The two vehicles, with the eloping couple in one, and the parents, the middle aged couple, in the other then meet on a road.  (I won't give away the ending. You'll have to watch the video at the bottom of this post)

This commercial is so cinematic and tells a wonderful story with so few words, it does get your attention and is really a work of art.

There has been a welcome mini-trend in advertising in which agencies try to tell a compelling story to get your attention. I hope this trend expands.

It's almost enough to make me run out of the house now and buy some Firestone tires.

Here's the awesome ad.

My Search For The Rare Great TV Ad Reveals A Few Finds

With my well documented hatred of most advertising because it's stupid, here's another effort at positive reinforcement, which I do from time to time, to tell advertisers how it's done.

A screen shot from an excellent Bell's Whiskey
ad in South Africa  

I still have not found the logic behind most television ads, which operate on the premise that if you irritate the viewer, they will buy your product.

Maybe I'm just weird because I'm the opposite. A well-done, engaging ad might encourage me to buy, otherwise, not so much.

So, in the interest of being helpful to the ad agencies, here's a few good ones, most of them found in an occasion series of articles about advertising at vice.com

First, we have this heartwarming one from Bell's Whiskey in South Africa, called "The Reader.":




Here's a great newer ad for the new citizenM Hotel in Times Square (yes, it's lower case "c" on "citizen" just to be different.

Like the ad. It's a great stop-motion feature with two towel swans. It plays up the cliches of luxury, romantic hotels. And it's a got a great punch line:





And here's a four year old commercial for Volkswagon, that reminds me of the song "Little Old Lady From Pasadena." It's pretty funny, and the song playing in the background makes it that much tackier, which I love:




Next we have this clever Russian ad from a few years back about a guy searching for an insurance company, and finding customer service at one company to be a bit lacking:





Often, public service annoucements are the best ads. This is no exception. It's from Reporters Without Borders. an organization that advocates for full, unfettered press freedom worldwide. They get their message across wonderfully with this ad. The music in the background makes the video even more perfect:

Kleenex Alert! Wonderful, Touching Video By People With Down Syndrome To Soon-To-Be Mom

World Down Syndrome Day is tomorrow, March 21, and the people at Down Syndrome International put out this very sweet video that is one of the better advocacy PSA's I've seen.

A still from the World Down Syndrome Day video.  

In the video, the organizers say they got an email from  young woman who is pregnant and learned her baby has Down Syndrome.

The woman wrote: "I'm scared. What kind of life will my child have?"

Then the video goes on to have people with Down Syndrome from all over the world answer the young mother's question. Spoiler alert:  The answers are very reassuring.

I don't like to generalize about any particular group, but the people I've met in my life who have Down Syndrome tend to be the most interesting and fun individuals I've come across.  So the PSA definitely seems to meet Truth In Advertising standards.

Here's the video:  (Like I said, Kleenex alert!)

ANOTHER Awesome Ad: There's Hope For The Ad Industry Yet

For the third time in a week, I found a really good television advertisement.

In an awesome ad, look what a dog does
 to help this guy.  

That's a rare trifecta in a sea of terrible TV commercials.

This one is well done, and promotes an awesome cause. (Especially if you, like me, are a dog lover)

It's from the Royal Dutch Guide Dog Foundation, which brings service dogs to veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

The tag line is guide dogs have traditionally helped people who cannot see,  but these dogs help people who have seen too much.

I also like how the ad really portrays the dog as the veteran's comrade in arms.

As much of the commentary on this ad says, it does make you want to hug the dog nearest and dearest to you.

Here's the great ad:

Argentine Coca Cola Commercial Is Hilarious And Perfect

Sister in law Donna out in South Dakota alerted us via Facebook to a hilarious commercial for a new Coca Cola product, Coke Life

I don't know if new Coca Cola Life is any good
but their commercial is perfect.  

Apparently,  Coca Cola Life comes with an all natural sweetener and the bottle is fully recyclable, so that's a good thing.

I'm always looking for entertaining ads in a sea of awful commercials and I found one for Coca Cola Life.

The commercial promoting the product in Argentina has little to do with Coca-Cola Life itself, but it's done so well, showing the disruptive chaos of family life for a young couple.

The musical score played throughout the ad is the song "To Love Somebody," the 1967 smash by the Bee Gees. It fits brilliantly, so kudos to the people who thought to use that song.

Stay with the advertisement to the very end. It's got a great punch line in the closing seconds, too.

Here it is:

Yes, It's Commercialism, But I Do Like Apple's New Holiday Ad

The thing I hate about Christmas the most is the incessant begging to buy, buy, buy, buy BUY!

A seemingly self absorbed teen seems to ignore the
family in this Apple television ad, and then...... 

I know this makes me a hypocrite, because one of my jobs outside this blog is to, um, encourage people to buy stuff as gifts for Christmas.

But still, most of the Christmas ads you see on TV are too shrill, too cliched, too mawkish and too stupid for my tastes.

I have to admit it, though, I did like the new Apple commercial I first saw on TV last night.

In the ad, called "Misunderstood", an extended family goes off to the grandparents house in a winter wonderland to celebrate the holiday.

While most of the family seems to be having a ball, a morose looking teenager constantly has his nose in an iPhone, continually pecking away at the device's tiny keyboard. This, despite the family's efforts to engage the kid.

Christmas morning comes, and the teen is still pecking away at his phone. While the family opens the gifts, the teen finally stops playing with the iPhone, stops everybody at mid-gift opening,  points his iPhone at the big screen TV and turns it on

He wants to show the family something. Apple then manages to prompt a Kleenex alert with the ad.

Like I said, I actually think the ad is very well done:

Sign Language Fiasco, Sign Language Triumph

The guy who was doing the sign language bit at the Nelson Mandela memorial service sure has gotten a lot of attention.

This guy doing sign language
at the Nelson Mandela memorial
really botched it. He blames
schizophrenia.  

People watching said he had no idea what he was doing, that what he was signing was gibberish and the whole thing has turned into an embarrassment in an otherwise rousing, moving tribute to Mandela.

The story got more bizarre this morning when it came out the Mandela sign language guy said he was in the middle of a schizophrenic episode when he was trying to do the signing at the event, which was televised world wide.

According to the Associated Press: "Thomsanqua Jantijie...said he first noticed something was wrong when he saw angels streaking into Johannesburg's FNB stadium. 'What happened that day, I see angels come to the stadium'"

Jantijie said similar episodes have triggered "a lot" of violent reactions from him in the past, a prospect that--considering the number of security guards nearby--made him nervous."

The company that hired Jantijile and the people behind it, appear to be in hiding.

Meanwhile, we have a much more successful sign language event.  A kindergarten kid in Florida was among many performing in a Christmas show for their parent.

One youngster was the child of deaf parents, and didn't want her mom and dad to miss out on the show. So she signed her way through the song, much to the delight of everyone. And of course, she did everything right.

She probably should have signed for the Mandela event.

Watch the adorable video with the little blonde girl doing the sign language and see for yourself:

See? You Can Make Moving, Entertaining Ads And Still Sell Your Stuff

Readers of this blog know one of my pet peeves is how most advertisements are stupid, lame, boring, insulting.

In a rare, compelling ad, this one from Google,
a granddaughter, right, uses Google
 to fashion a reunion between two men.  n

To this day, I still don't know how annoying people want to make them buy your product our service.

So, as I occasionally do, I give props to advertisements and advertisers who actually do a great job.

In this ad, Google is telling us how wonderful their search engine is, how you can find anything and make anything happen. It's so convenient! So that's them marketing.

But like most of the best advertisements out there,  Google manages to tell a compelling story, in this case in just three and a half minutes.

In the video, we have two elderly men who were best childhood buddies but have been separated for decades, and haven't seen each other in decades, due to political problems in their countries.

Now, things have settled down and the two men have young adult grandkids who use Google to great effect in a loving conspiracy to fashion a reunion.

The video is surprisingly moving. As you begin to watch it, click on the "cc" on the lower right so you can get subtitles in English.

Watch it and judge for yourself:

For A Change, A Good Deed Goes Unpunished As Bus Driver Saves Woman

On Oct. 18, Darnell Barton, 37 a bus driver in Buffalo, N.Y. stopped his bus on a tall overpass when he saw a woman on the edge of the span apparently ready to jump off and commit suicide.

 Darnell Barton, a bus driver in Buffalo, N.Y., while on the job,
convince a woman not to commit suicide. For once
his bosses offered only praise, not flak.  

His bus had 20 high school students on it that he'd just picked up, and he told them to wait there.

Barton coaxed the woman from the edge, consoled the woman, and called for help. The woman was saved.

Where this story takes a welcome turn for me is the lack of negative consequences for Barton.

Too often, you see somebody do the right thing and either somebody interferes by criticizing him for their actions,  or their employers say they didn't follow the rules and must be fired.

This time, according to an account in the Buffalo News, everybody made the right move, which is so refreshing to hear. Barton stopped the bus and saved the woman.

Barton said much of the credit went to the kids on the bus, who sat quietly through the whole drama so as not to disturb the woman further. Plus, they all got a lesson about compassion from the bus driver.

Only when the emergency was finished did the kids make noise. When Barton got back on the bus, they gave him a round of applause.

His supervisors at NFTA the bus company had only good things to say about Barton, whose job with the company seems quite safe, thanks.

According to the Buffalo News:

"We are all extremely proud of Darnell's heroic actions," said Kimberley A. Minkel, the NFTA's executive director. "His quick and calm response during a very stressful situation speaks volumes about his character and his unwavering willingness to help someone in need.

I've been reading some of the reader comment sections of some accounts of Darnell's actions and was struck by the number of people who had the same initial reaction as I did. Readers either expected Barton to somehow get in trouble for his actions or were surprised he didn't, because doing the right thing often brings the hero trouble, because he somehow violated company policy.

In other words, he wasn't making money for the company and instead was exposing it to some sort of litigation risk. God forbid!

So it's refreshing that in this case, everybody at minimum acted reasonable, and most went beyond the call of duty.

This is a trend I could really embrace.