This water will leave you minty fresh…

ICIO Mint Water

Finally, water that doesn’t leave you thirsty! OK, I’ll admit I know the guys who started this company, but the water really is good. It’s great on a dancefloor and better than drinking plain water and chewing wads of gum to keep the old breath fresh. The bottle is in the shape of a flask. Fits in your back pocket and is fun to hold.

Ask for it! It’s called ICIO Peppermint Water

Perhaps more focus groups…

…or lessons in graphic design. Shot this with my camera phone while waiting for a light to change at Wilshire and San Vicente. When I first glanced at it, all I read was “Coca-Cola Taste Zero.” While I don’t exactly disagree with that statement (Coke from Mexico, despite lead-containing bottles, tastes better because it still contains real sugar, not that corn syrup crap that’s in every American food product), I thought it odd that they’d advertise it. Maybe it was a new (non) flavor? They have Coke Black (Coke with coffee essense) which makes no sense to me since most people I know who don’t like coffee drink Coke or Pepsi as a caffeine substitute. Why make it coffee flavored when you can just have coffee?

Commercials I love…


As I’ve been watching more TV than usual during the Olympics, I’ve also had to watch more than my share of commercials. I watched the Olympics in High Definition and was impressed by the number of commercials broadcast in Hi Def as well. It’s too bad that most of them were unimpressive. The new AT&T needs to find a new advertising agency as they obviously had more money than ideas. GM barraged us with giant SUVs and Volkswagon introduced their obnoxious new “Make friends with your fast” campaign.

On the plus side, Visa’s commercials seemed heartfelt and inspired while keeping the brand message prominent but not overbearing. The best, in my opinion, belonged to United Airlines. Their new animated spots (see the frames to the left) are visually stunning with a very human story.

Commercials I hate, vol. 2

The GM Hot Button commercial. It starts with a shot of the space shuttle with some really cheesy, high school AV quality graphics, intercutting between stock footage of Mission Control. “Five – four – three – two – one – ignition….ignition….ignition.” A big red “ignition” button sits there as a badly dressed mission controller hesitates, then gets up and walks away as the voice-over says “waiting for something really important before pressing the hot button?”

Poor graphics, cheap sets, bad acting and really bad concept. Like you’re not gonna launch a space ship so you can push a GM onStar button?