Remember Harry and Louise? I don’t, but apparently they were a fictional couple in an early-90s TV commercial, produced by the insurance industry to help sway opinion against the Clinton health plan. Now banks and other financial companies may be pooling resources to create a new “Harry and Louise” style ad to convince Americans that Obama’s proposed agency to monitor abusive financial practices will limit choice and ruin lives.
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Dan Hesse, You Can Keep Making Commercials Forever
By 3.13.09
Tonya emailed us a video clip of a cute little piggy with a robot voice complaining about being trapped on hold. We appreciated the rant, but were even more fascinated with the technology that allowed her friend to turn a long, written diatribe into an instant cartoon. You know who needs this? Dan Hesse, shunned pitchman and CEO for Sprint! You’ll never have to stop making commercials now. Also, we’ve decided to make you British.
FTC Launches Own Singing Credit Report Commercials
By 3.10.09
As we’ve said repeatedly, AnnualCreditReport.com is the good website to go to when you need to pull a credit report, because it’s actually free. The others, including freecreditreport.com, use the promise of free the way an angler fish uses its forehead-worm-thing to trap dumb little fish. The FTC has decided to fight fire with fire by releasing its own jingles. To be honest, we’re not 100% sold on them—they have kind of a squaresville, PBS vibe, which is gonna really hamper their viral power. Check them out below.
Tivo Says E-Trade Commercial Was Most Watched Super Bowl Spot
By 2.6.08
Tivo has announced that E-Trade’s talking, trading, barfing baby was the most watched ad by Tivo subscribers during the Super Bowl, followed by the Pepsi spot where Justin Timberlake got hit in the crotch, followed by the Doritos ad where a giant mouse wailed on a man eating chips. Tivo “sampled 10,000 households using anonymous, second-by-second audience measurement data” to come up with the rankings.
