Many thanks to my friend Kerri for directing me to this story about the 10 Most-Recalled Television ads of 2009, meaning the ads that viewers were most likely to remember within twenty-four hours of seeing them. The data comes from Nielsen,  but the tackiness comes from the people.

To paraphrase Kerri,  the descriptions of the ads tell us everything we need to know about society.

This is AdAge’s Top Most Recalled TV spots of 2009. I think the descriptions of the spots say just about everything one needs to know about American culture.

1
Budweiser
Clydesdale travels to find Daisy (:60). 259
2
Budweiser
Clydesdale fetches a large tree branch (:30). 252
3
Burger King
Burger Shots; women gather and ask to squeeze burgers (:15). 250
4
Doritos
Man throws snow globe into vending machine (:30). 247
5
Taco Bell
Man at ballgame has fake pregnant stomach concealing nachos (:15). 239
6
GoDaddy.com
Friends in dorm room watch Danica Patrick take shower (:30). 233
7
Quaker
People fly in sky with oatmeal jet packs (:15) . 229
8
Febreze
Mother tells son his room stinks and needs to be washed (:15). 228
9
Progressive
Flo shows customer Dave his own aisle (:30). 223
10
McDonald’s
Monopoly Million Dollar Dice Roll for Andrew M. (:30).

The first time I saw this ad for AT&T Wireless, I mostly noticed the actor playing the concierge in the first scene. At first, I was like, “Is that Ty Burrell, star of the rock-awesome series Modern Family?” Then I thought, “No… wait… it’s David Pittu, Tony nominee and all-around excellent actor. Good for him!”

I doubt this ad was designed to make me think about David Pittu, but that’s not the only way it goes off message.

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I don’t think this is quite the message this CEO intendend to send, do you?

*Found near the back of this week’s New Yorker

I can’t bear the thought of any Critical Condition readers missing this commercial for the New York Lottery’s Sweet Million game, so I’m embedding it below. Is it genius? Madness? You decide…

Pardon me. I think I just passed out. When that little bunny in overalls fell over after getting his picture taken in front of his “prize cow” (who was really a bunny in a cow costume), I went into some kind of cuteness overload.

See… here’s the thing. I have an uncontrollable weakness for baby animals. Am I grown man? Yes. Do I consider myself  discerning? Yes. Does a teeny-tiny bunny going down a slide on a burlap sack make me collapse with squealing hysteria? Yes, yes, yes.

Normally, I’m embarrassed by this. Do you remember the ads for Happy Feet? I knew I was being manipulated by them, so every time I went crazy for that adorable little penguin (see right), I also kicked myself.

Similarly, when I get stressed, I sometimes watch videos of cute kittens on YouTube. I don’t think it makes me cool,  but I do it. And it works.

The commercial for Sweet Million seems to understand my predicament. On one level, it shamelessly indulges my taste for wee creatures in cute situations. On another, however, it strokes my ego. By pushing the cuteness needle so far, by giving me bunnies at a freaking fairground, the ad implicitly tells me that I am too clever to be duped by Madison Avenue stunts. It says I’m too hip for advertising that tries to disguise its manipulative aims, so rather than trying to trick me, it’s going to pluck my heartstrings as bluntly as possible. It’s like the ad is saying, “Aren’t I a stinker?” And then maybe it puts its hands behind its back and  twists its foot in the dirt.

Then I can say, “Oh, that rascally ad! I can’t be mad at it for exploiting me! It’s just doing its job!” Then I can coo over the bunnies and feel weirdly loving toward the Sweet Million campaign, yet I can feel like that’s a sophisticated response. Because I’m aware I’m being played, I can chuck the ad on the chin, even as I fall for its tricks.

Man. I feel like I’m in a Br’er Rabbit fable. Is anybody else getting sucked in?

Look, I am a total cat person. Cats are the only pets I’ve ever had, and when I was growing up, my family always gave them Christmas presents.

But there have to be limits. As much as our pets feel like family members, they are not actually people. They don’t have opinions about the color of the sweaters we force them into. They can’t follow the plot of the stories we tell them about our day. And they damn sure can’t differentiate between an appetizer and a main course.

Fancy Feast wants us to think they can, however. It has just launched a new line of gourmet cat food called Fancy Feast Appetizers, which means that for $1.29 a pop, you can feed your kitten 2 ounces of flaked skipjack tuna, steamed tilapia, or white meat chicken and shredded beef. And that’s before she dives into the main course of, I don’t know, boeuf bourguignon or the rodent she decapitated in the field behind your subdivision.

(more on this appetizer business…)

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Over the next year, Yahoo! is spending $100 million (!!) to boost its image around the world. Apparently, they want to revive their brand in countries like the U.S., and they want to gain traction for the first time in other parts of the world.

Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but personally, I think of Yahoo! as a search engine, a place to sign up for instant messaging, and the home of two fantastic pop music columns….

Okay… a quick surf just reminded me that Yahoo! also hosts Flickr. But whatever. Of all the things I listed, the music columns are the only ones I actually utilize on a regular basis.

I guess this makes me the prime target for the Yahoo’s branding revitalization. After the jump, you can see the first commercial that supposed to get me hollerin’. Will it work?

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Some commercials warrant thoughtful analysis. Others, like this ad for Baskin-Robbins’ ice cream cakes, need only three words: Shit. Is. Awesome.

When was the last time you had so much fun in fifteen seconds? (Don’t count that thing you did in the back seat on prom night.) The song “Ice Cream and Cake,” by future poet laureates the Buckwheat Boyz, would be obnoxious if it were full length, but at a quarter minute, it’s a masterpiece of chants, beats, and fun.

And don’t get me started on the plastic cake toppers dancing to a hip-hop beat. All they do is bounce around, but they do it so enthusiastically that you have to admire them. I especially love the dinosaur, who looks like he’s ecstatic to be rocking on top of a cake.

Really, who wouldn’t be happy dancing on an ice cream cake? Picture yourself doing it right now. You’re smiling right? Because you know it would be incredible.

Maybe that’s why I like this ad so much. It dramatizes a fantasy I didn’t even know I had.

The phrase “maximum awareness through unease” certainly applies to this billboard. It seems possible that a speeding driver might not notice it in the haze of the pouring rain, but maybe the people who do see it will be reminded to slow the hell down.

On the other hand, it could just create an “Aw, cool!” or “Aw, sick!” reaction. If it generates fanboy attention, is a billboard like this doing its job?

Also… does anyone have a clue how you’d make a billboard like this? Where does the blood come from? And does it ever run out? And why does rain make the blood start pouring?

That last line could be the opening to a Marilyn Manson song.

Forget the pall bearers wearing spangly gloves. Forget the crowd inside the Staples Center. The real evidence of Michael Jackson’s power over popular culture is in the lightning-quick appearance of tacky goods memorializing his death. I saw “RIP MJ” t-shirts less than forty-eight hours after he passed, and now, on page 53 of the July 10, 2009 issue of Entertainment Weekly, I’m greeted with a full-page, color ad for the Michael Jackson commemorative plate. (See above.)

Yes, we all thought the Bradford Exchange had disappeared, but apparently, they’ve just been waiting for the right moment to surge back into tacky, tacky life.

Let me repeat: Tacky.

And it’s not just the existence of a collectible plate that’s tacky, though that’s a factor. No, the truly audacious elements of this ad are the “selling points” that the Bradford Exchange thinks will make us buy this thing in order to salve to our grief.

I know that picture up there isn’t very big, and I know that not everyone is holding page 53 of last week’s Entertainment Weekly (with the Michael Jackson cover), so let me break down the key elements of this ad.

• The copy running along the top promises that this is the “only collector’s plate art personally approved by Michael Jackson.” So… what? There are going to be thousands of other collectible dishes out there? Cheap t-shirts, sure. I’m expecting new truckloads by the day. But plates? Will there be so many that we need to make sure we’re getting the one that Michael himself approved? And when did this “approval” take place? If it was anytime after Bad, then I’m dubious.

• The left sidebar announces that the outer rim of the plate is enhanced with “gleaming platinum, in honor of Michael Jackson’s multi-platinum album sales.” Really? Is that an honor? Does a platinum rim enhance the airbrushed, androgynous eyes staring at a shadowy figure shooting glitter out of his finger? Isn’t it hypocritical to present such a bizarre image and then try to pretend that the plate is really about MJ’s sales? Granted, Jackson himself perpetuated this kinds of contradiction, but doesn’t it belittle his complexity to try to represent it on a dish?

• The tear-out coupon in the bottom right corner of the ad assures us that we don’t need to send any money now. Which implies that the Bradford Exchange is waiting to see how many people want these dishes before it spends the money to make them. It implies that even they know it may not be the tribute that people want hanging on their walls.

And that’s maybe the tackiest thing of all. This plate is such a cynical cash-in that it hasn’t even been made yet: The idea is just being dangled in front of emotional fans like a rabbit in front of a racetrack dog.

But like I said: It takes a genuine cultural force to create this kind of insanity. I’d say this plate is just the harbinger of a thousand velvet paintings to come, and even though it sounds like a joke to say it, every single painting will demonstrate what a true icon Michael Jackson became in this country. It’s hard to imagine another living entertainer whose death will provoke this kind of weirdly honorific merchandising.

Those of you who follow my Twitter feed are aware that this afternoon, the German public television station ZDF is coming to my apartment to interview me about the rise of ultrasound technology, as pioneered by a company called Holosonics. 

Since most of you don’t have access to ZDF—unless digital cable is a lot more inclusive that I realize—I want us to talk about this stuff, too.

Here’s the deal: Ultrasound technology tightly focuses sound so that it can only be heard by a limited number of people in a given environment. When a sound is played from normal speakers, everyone in a room can hear it. When a sound is played from a Holosonic system, you might hear it, but the person two inches away from you might not.

There are many uses for this sort of invention. Artists have already created installations with it, and in a recent display of contemporary fashion, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts gave each collection it’s own soundtrack. The collections were inches apart, but the music supporting them didn’t overlap. 

And unsurprisingly, advertisers are all over this thing. After the jump, check out a video of an A&E promotion using the technology:

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