How many advertisements do you watch with your significant other where one of you absolutely loves it and the other can’t stand? Probably most. But recently, I have seen a few companies that have created ads that both my husband and I find entertaining and creative. The most recent? Volvo’s ’switch’ advertisement.

Creative. Funny. Unique. Very well put together. And appeals to both sexes. Volvo nailed this new creative direction!

What do you think?

Unless you have been under a rock for the last 2 months, you know that Droid hit Verizon stores on the 6th. I was estatic! I was so excited to have a touch screen plus real keyboard, apps and more on the Verizon network (because really, At&T? Get some service!). Anyway, it took me until this weekend to get to the store to go check it out, as I will never buy a phone without playing with it and asking a million questions first. Anyway, onto the 10 reasons that I hate the droid:

1. Their commercials make you want one really badly
2. The screen is awesome, the keyboard kicks ass, and they own the tech
3. It is on the Verizon network!!
4. It runs multiple applications easily
5. It is small and easy to carry
6. There are really cool covers for it in pink!
7. The price point is reasonable for a phone
8. The screen is easy to read and the touch is responsive
9. It shows real version of websites, instead of ‘mobile’ versions
10. The camera on the phone has more megapixels than my current digital camera

So maybe I should explain why these seemingly awesome things make me hate the droid? If you’re anything but a google fiend, you should know the answer.

Verizon took a huge step forward in partnering with google and android and creating the new droid phones. The commercials were awesome. The phone looked great and from most reviews, worked awesome as well. But it had one massive failure – verizon let google monopolize the phone. For example, here is what I learned about the phone while at Verizon:

1. I can’t sync my email without a gmail account
2. I can’t sync my calendar, tasks or contacts without a gmail account
3. Even with an exchange server, syncing doesn’t work well
4. I can’t buy apps without a gmail account
5. The apps you can get don’t run properly without a gmail account
6. Google runs everything on the phone
7. Google doesn’t allow non-google approved applications like ubertwitter
8. Yahoo? Nope, no access to that either.
9. Google and gmail are not user friendly
10. Did I mention google monopolized it completely??

The phone looks cool, the buttons work well, it covered all the things that the iphone can’t do (pics in the dark anyone?), runs multi applications and has both a real keyboard and a virtual keyboard…but it is designed to completely alienate anyone who doesn’t live and die by google.

So, I guess I’ll be waiting until the end of the month for the new Blackberry Curve…

Recently, I have noticed a trend in companies changing their logos and creating an entire advertising campaign around that switch.

Huh?

How does changing a logo qualify a company for a new ad campaign? Especially when the message they choose is: “New logo, same company”.

Basically they are saying “we spent a ton of money to get a new logo for absolutely no reason”.

So, how can a company capitalize on a new logo?

They can create an ad campaign that talks about what else is new with the company. A new logo means nothing to the consumers. They don’t care that you spent gobs of money to come up with something “cutting edge”. They do care about how you treat them, the quality of your products and the value you provide.

A new logo is not a reason to spend huge money on billboards and TV commercials.

Improved service, more stores, better products PLUS a new logo? Now that is worth advertising.