Pepsi NEXT - The Newest Mid-Calorie Soda 
Pepsi is making a big move into the "Mid-Cal" cola market with it's newest product called Pepsi NEXT. NEXT will hit the shelves March 26th and promises 60% less sugar with all the cola taste. Pepsi hopes to attract the lucrative market of people who have left traditional sodas for lower calorie enhanced waters, sports drinks and bottled teas. This product comes on the heels of many failed products in this segment including Pepsi's own Pepsi Edge, Pepsi XL, which had both been pulled from production by 2007. There is a renewed sense of hope since the launch of Dr Pepper Ten, Dr Pepper Snapple Group's 10 calorie soda last fall. The Dr Pepper Snapple Group is currently testing a line of 10 calorie sodas they hope to release to the general market. Both Pepsi and it's market dominating rival, Coca-Cola, have had market declines in recent years due to heightened public awareness to health risks related to the high-sugar content in soda. Pepsi, hoping to regain some traction in this market, is rumored that it will invest more than $600 million this year to market Pepsi NEXT.

Pepsi NEXT Commercial : Drink It to Believe It
Advertising agency TBWA/Chiat/Day produced a television commercial that features a young couple and their crawling toddler who is ready to stand and walk at any moment. The video-camera ready couple is prepared to immortalize the moment. The commercial shows the exited couple trying and praising the new drink. At the same time the baby, who feels neglected starts to perform tricks in the background to regain the parents attention. The parents are so enamored with the new product that the mother pulls out the video camera to document the wonderful new Pepsi product instead of the baby. The baby who is trying to get the parents attention progresses from standing to walking on it's hands to dancing and then ultimately playing a Fender Flying V guitar. The Pepsi NEXT loving parents miss the whole thing, but are satisfied with the amazing new drink they have discovered. In addition to the commercial, Pepsi NEXT will be promoted digitally via a Facebook campaign, and sampling efforts to get consumers to taste Pepsi NEXT will take place in more than 800 Walmart stores. The real question is: will Pepsi NEXT deliver the needed boost in sales that Pepsi needs in this segment? Only consumers will answer that question.

Ferris Bueller and Mathew Broderick Take the Day Off the Honda CR-V on Superbowl Sunday
Everyone loves Matthew Broderick. If you grew up in the 80's, you saw the iconic movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which poked fun at the establishment in general. This ad will be aired during the Superbowl this Sunday. In addition to simply using the Ferris Bueller theme, Honda has hidden over a dozen references to the movie in the commercial making it both interesting and viral as well. This is a great creative use of the commercial medium to promote the Honda CR-V to Gen-Xers who identify with the character of Ferris. (Remember Ben Stein: Bueller, Bueller, Bueller, Anyone, Anyone) It was a pleasant trip down memery lane for me. I didn't even feel pandered to. Now that is good advertising; making the target market eager to interact with the product. Great job Honda.

Here is the Link to YouTube: http://bit.ly/xgLEqC

What....Your still here? Don't You Have Anything better to Do?
Go on... Get Going..Go.

The magic of Christmas has come and gone again and left us to contemplate the creative advertising campaigns that we were presented this year.  Here are my picks for Best TV Christmas Advertising Campains of 2011.
The best Christmas Advertising Campaign of 2011 has to go to Chevrolet. Chevy released a great campaign centered around a plump, jolly, white-bearded auto dealer salesperson named "Kris". What I liked about the campaign was that he causes a commotion with the customers without really trying to do so. He is just your local Chevy salesperson, or is he?  Here are a few of the commercials.

The next winner would be Best Buy with its "Game On Santa" commercials. These commercials have upset quite a few people, however, I found them very creative and well executed. The commercials depict women shopping at Best Buy and then laying in wait for Santa to trash-talk about how they already handled christmas this year without his help. a very different take on the usual sentimental Christmas TV ad. Bravo to Best Buy for sticking their neck out this year by going after Santa.

One of my favorite ad campaigns out right now is the Mayhem campaign from Allstate. Allstate helps us love Mayhem as they stick it to GEICO in these ads. Great creative...right on target.

I have always watched the Superbowl for the ads. Yes, the game is always good to watch, but the ads are spectacular in their own right. I have broken my nominations down by catagory for your review.

BEST USE OF ANIMALS - My 2 favorites in this catagory are: "Bridgestone - Carma" and "CareerBuilder - Parking Lot".

Target is back again this year with their brilliant ad campaign for Black Friday - Featuring the high strung and about to crack holiday loving shopper. This year her sister is not present. We get to enjoy her holiday neurosis all to ourselves. What is great about the creative in this campaign is the fact that we all know someone like her, and we all secretly want to like her in some way: devoted to our cause of choice. Hers just happens to be Black Friday. Target included a heavy social media component to their campaign which fetures video, text messaging, Twitter, and Facebook. If last year's campaign was any indicator of this year's success, it will do it job very well: Bring shoppers out in droves for holiday shopping during a bad economic time. 
Marketing kudos to Target. I will be in line at 4am on November 26th.