About ten years ago there was a fantastically weird campaign for Rice Krispies Treats that I’m pretty sure I would have caught on Comedy Central (that’s all I watched 10 years ago). The campaign featured all these different things you could use Rice Krispies Treats for but ultimately ended with the tagline “Best When Eaten.”

There was a guy who built himself a girlfriend out of the treats so he could have someone to swim with in his backyard pool, and a couple of others that are escaping memory at the moment. But, the best one was the hair helmet spot (seen below).

For one thing, hair helmets are funny. I knew a guy whose hair highly resembled a helmet, cradling and protecting his substantial melon. Charles Burns used it to great effect on Liquid Television’s Dog-Boy. For another thing, the dance at the end of this spot is one of the all-time best moments in all of commercialdom. Seriously. I think these two have been watching Grill Vogel’s Business Hugs series (also seen below).

The one thing about the web version of the Rice Krispies Treats spot that’s missing is the very end when the tagline came up. In the original version the helmet hair guy took a huge bite out of the product instead of just holding it up to his lips. I remember because I set a still frame of that moment as wallpaper on the discreet flint* I was operating at the time. There was something amazingly copraphagic about that moment (which is why I’m sure there was a re-edit to a less disgusting spot close), but like a fine trainwreck it sucked you in. Didn’t do much for showcasing the product though.

Enough from me. Enjoy “Wig.”

The campaign should be pretty interesting and entertaining to many because it delves into a side of Pete and TJ that is never seen during the course of the regular Sonic commercials. And of course, since it’s tied closely to The Hills, you can be sure that drama is the newest thing on Sonic’s menu.

I designed the site, the Facebook fan page and created the graphics for the television spots.

Today I am proud to say that our campaign was chosen as part of Creativity Magazine’s weekly podcast, Creativity Top 5!

Check out the campaign. I’m sure it will leave some lingering questions in your mind over the next few weeks that you’ll have to tune in to have answered.

With such a distinctive voice, there’s going to be a big, baritone space to fill “in a world…” of television commercials and movie trailers. He will certainly be missed.

Luckily, there was a voice of reason. Deep Focus, AMC’s interactive agency stepped in and helped show the error of the network’s ways. According to a post on Silicon Alley Insider, a Deep Focus spokesperson said that they advised that in this case it would be “better to embrace the community than negate their efforts.”

As I stated yesterday, these profiles represent a community of people passionate about the Mad Men brand, and as such were acting as powerful ambassadors of the brand through authentic communication. To take the profiles down was a mistake, and I’m glad that they were savvy enough (or at least scared enough of the growing negative online publicity) to reevaluate their decision.

I agree with Adrian Ho’s comment on yesterday’s post that AMC needs to hire these rogues to continue maintenance and development of these online personas. However, even though AMC could then control the quality of the content by offering creative guidelines, they need to be very mindful of the fact that the communications need to remain authentic and not commercially forced. If they were to control these profiles too tightly, they could ruin the integrity of what was created and find themselves back at the top of the online community’s shit list.

Finally, I have to tell you that my wife and I had a fantastic conversation about the takedown decision on the drive home last night. She brought the legal side of the decision into the conversation and made a great case for why the decision was made in the first place. I don’t really think we agreed with our opinions on the decision, but that was what made it great.

I really, REALLY wish we had been able to record it as a podcast because there was lots that she had to say that would be of great interest to everyone following this story. I’d be afraid to try to recreate the conversation too much because the spontaneity of the dialogue would be completely absent, but we may try to record something just because it was definitely worth sharing.

Stupid lawyers, why must you ruin everything?

What I’m referring to is today’s discovery that the Mad Men characters that have been happily coexisting on Twitter for the past few weeks have been unceremoniously taken down as a result of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint on behalf of AMC Legal.

These profiles were not being maintained by AMC, but by (semi) anonymous individuals with a passion for the characters and the show.

These profiles were brilliant. They interacted with each other and the Twitterverse as a whole. And they did it in character so convincingly that many marketers I know were pretty convinced that this whole thing was being beautifully orchestrated by AMC and perhaps the writers for the show.

Maybe that’s why AMC had the profiles pulled. Perhaps the rogues behind the idea were doing too good a job of pulling it off, and AMC had a “why didn’t we think of that?” moment. However, I’m thinking that’s not the case.

It’s very obvious by this action that AMC has no clue what today’s age of conversational interactivity is all about and that whether companies like it or not — the user is control of brands now. @soseman said it best in a comment on the original blog post:

Rogues don’t do things the way YOU want them to, they do them the way THEY want to do them. But clearly someone with such a passion for any brand just wants to help.

This was a terrible move on behalf of AMC. What initially started as what many of us saw as the best use of Twitter yet for a commercial property has become a black eye on corporate America’s perception of social media and its ability to stifle conversation surrounding its brands at any cost.

// UPDATE: Here’s another excellent point of view on this issue.

This one, however, tops them all. The folks at Samsung have hired themselves some supernatural packaging designers. I do suspect, however, that the box would smell slightly like miniature horse manure and would taint the overall experience just a little.

But NO…

He also has a hilarious Old Spice commercial under his belt.

You know… if I were going to go gay, it’d have to be for Neil Patrick Harris. You heard it here first, folks.

A long time staple at kitschy chain restaurants everywhere, the death by chocolate dessert comes in many forms, but it’s always super chocolately and rich. It’s this simple concept that we all get that makes this play on words incredibly funny… not to mention a manifestation of many of our mental images of the name. Enjoy.

The spot was for Natural Light, and the first thing that impressed me about the spot was the fact that they didn’t refer to themselves as Natural Light, but as Natty Light, the nickname that has been the ubiquitous choice for brohams, frat bras, and Dave Matthews Band fans for decades.

And of course, the spot was aimed squarely at that group. The tagline, “Now You’re Talkin’,” is simple and perfectly suited for the brand.

I almost turned off the TV a few minutes before the spot ran, and I’m glad I stuck around to see it. This is a campaign that I want to see more of. Hopefully they will take the right cues and not make this campaign overly slick. The TV spot has just the right touch of craptastic to it, and all other media that this campaign touches needs to follow suit. I’m definitely a fan.

Does it make me want to buy Natty Light? Not really, but I’m not their target. Besides, I’m already loyal to Hamm’s, the cheap beer for old men, and the official beer of Das Cöbra.

I’m having a bit of a withdrawal lately. You see, the weekend before the new year I switched from Dish Network to AT&T’s new U-Verse service. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a combination of IPTV and VDSL, and it’s pretty great I think. I’ve read some people don’t like it very much, but I’ve got fiber to the premises (FTTP) rather than fiber to the node (FTTN), so my data transmission is pretty clean. I’m really glad I upgraded.

Anyway, as much as I’ve enjoyed the service and geeked out about the technology behind it, I was quite crestfallen to discover one little hiccup in my perfect plan for media consumption.

I have lost my ability to watch Cutlery Corner Network.

Yep. No more channel 216 to bring the soothing sounds of Tom O’Dell to me on Friday nights. Instead, channel 216 now brings CNBC. Not soothing.

Well, I shouldn’t say that I’ve completely lost my ability to watch CCN. They still broadcast on ION from 3am-6am on Sunday mornings. I’ve set a recording for 2am on our local ION affiliate to see what I get. I’m not going to hold my breath too much.

I’ll be pretty sad if I have to let ol’ Tom slip out of my life. It’s not like the exclusion of that channel’s a deal breaker for me… U-Verse is a superior service even in its infancy. It’s just that it’s been such a big part of my life for the past few months that it’ll be weird to not have it.

I just read that last sentence and realized how pathetic that is. Jeez.