This is the Great Gazoo. A minor character from The Flintstones, capable of magic.

This is Eli Manning, quarterback of the Super Bowl Champion New York Giants, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the Great Gazoo, and is also occasionally capable of magic, although not enough magic to get Mortar to do a Super Bowl Ad Recap on time. The man was busy last week, as were we. Sorry. Let’s get right to it.

Three We Liked:

Toyota – “Reinvented”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9L-8372A3w

“Reinvention” as an idea is more beaten-to-death than the New England Patriots’ hopes and dreams. (Yeah, we said it.) But in this spot, we can almost hear the creatives saying, “You want “reinvented?” Oh, we’ll give you reinvented…” and off we go into a magical land where curtains are pizza and Toyota Camrys are actually interesting. Well done.

Chevrolet – “Camaro/Happy Grad”

User-generated stuff usually makes us insecure and bitter. Like the New England Patriots. (Pow!) But this Chevy spot is an exception. The (amateur) actor’s beautifully over-the-top reaction equates owning a Camaro with ridiculous amounts of joy, which is never a bad idea when you’re selling a completely impractical muscle car these days.

Side note: We had more than one viewer ask us if it bothered us that the kid was getting a mini-fridge for graduation. Wouldn’t you give that to the kid when he was entering school? Just sayin’.

Volkswagen – “The Bark Side”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ntDYjS0Y3w

There is almost nothing good about this spot. Kinda like the Patriots’ defense. (BA-ZING!) It employs the same level of creativity as The Singing Dogs’ version of “Jingle Bells,” which is universally recognized as the Most Hated holiday song.  But if you can watch this without smiling, we’ll pay you $542 bucks.*

Two We Hated:

Go Daddy  – “Body Paint”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG2qU7x4Djo

We love gratuitous nudity as much as the next shifty-eyed person in a raincoat, but the on-purpose tastelessness of Go Daddy’s schtick was bad the first time, and has somehow managed to get worse.

Career Builder – “Business Trip”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYJ9EW50h1I

Recycling. Good for the planet. Bad for ideas. And it’s even worse when it starts to affect the credibility of the Mortar Monkey Theorem, i.e. “Monkey=Funny.” So this recycled idea that was only moderately funny the first two times, is really getting stale at this point, which annoys us. What we’re saying is – “Don’t use chimps in sucktastic ads, you hacks. You’re ruining it for the rest of us.”

And One We Really Loved That You Probably Didn’t See Because…Canada.

Our goody-two shoes brother Canada, all jealous because they get a stupid Grey Cup instead of an awesome Super Bowl, went and did this wonderful Budweiser spot that you had to live in Canada to see. We are not crying because there is no crying in hockey, but…look. Just give us aboot a minute, eh?

(Whatever, Canada. You’re perfect. But we’re still behind America bald eagle percent.)
Honorable mention to Chrysler, who you’ve probably heard enough about by now.

E*Trade and Coke, even the Great Gazoo can’t save you dum-dums from lame overuse of characters. (And if there’s anyone who should know from lame characters, it’s him.)  See you next year. Probably about a week late.

Congratulations, Giants.

 *By “we,” we mean “Mark.”

So we’re reblogging this from Eat24’s Tumblr (which rules, go follow them,) because we absolutely love the fact that their customers are not only getting into the brand, but getting into the act.

P.S. Charge your phone, eh?

Finally. Finally. FINALLY. Yes, it took us three years to finish, but here at Mortar we like to drag things out as long as possible to build up maximum excitement for their arrival. (And to drive Jojo up the wall. Girl does a mean sideways cartwheel.) We’re thinking about creating a supplementary site to our new site, called “What Life Was Like When We Started Our Website Redesign.” Swine flu was poised to decimate us all. Ricki Lake was running for president.* Michael Jackson was still alive (RIP, PYT). Alexa and Sylvie weren’t even born yet.**

But no more dwelling in the past. Be here now. Allow us to present The New Mortar Website. Cleaner, meaner, and glistening with bacon-y goodness.

Why bacon, you ask? It’s our way of communicating what Mortar’s goal has been all along – to change the conversation. Everyone else talks about ads. We prefer to talk about love. Love of bacon. And Miles Davis. And good conversation. Because when you talk to your customers like people, rather than customers, they tend to like you a lot more.

In fact, conversations are what drive our whole approach. The conversations your customers are having about your brand now, and the ones you want them to have in the future. So instead of starting with Flashy-Expensive-TV-Spot and working backwards, we start by identifying the right message. (Plus, walking backwards makes us dizzy.)

Today, we’re considered a rare breed of agency that does advertising, branding, research and PR all under one roof – but we don’t see any other way to do it. Maybe one day, our approach will be the norm. We can’t understand why it isn’t already.

Pray tell us what you think of our (extremely) late and great site. Direct all comments to Mr. Butz.

 

 

 

 

*Not really, but how would you remember? It was eons ago.

**Also not true, but those youthful complexions will fool you every time.

When we first discovered Eat24 – an online service that allows us to order food without having to deal with human beings – we wept tears of joy.  When we found them sitting in our conference room, a certain copywriter who shall remain nameless burst into the meeting and said, “You guys are Eat24? I f#*!ing love you guys!” …and the business was ours. A few months later, new work is beginning to break. Work like this right here. Enjoy.

 

In which our hero grabs some well-deserved me-time. Mmmm. Hero. Wonder where you could
order one of those for takeout and/or delivery?

 

Sloths are not lazy. They’re just conserving energy. We’d tell you to write that one down, but the
pen and paper are way…over…there.

 

We’re not saying you should order Eat24 for every meal, but if you did, you could make every shelf
in your refrigerator The Beer Shelf. 
 The more you know.