Kevin Rothermel

From the "no-shit" file:  this was widely considered to be the best ad that was made last year.  If you're reading this, there is a good chance of your being American (or Canadian), which means you never saw it.  Well, unless you are in advertising … in which case you're just going to think that I'm lame.  Whatever.  I still love it, and I feel like I must post it even if it is way old news.  Maybe this concession will break the curse and get that god-damned song out of my head.

In the key of GRR

My life will never be the same … nor will my gums ever be tickled quite so hillariously. 

Howard Stern is off to satellite radio now and went out with a huge bang (or so it sounded like on CNN.com.).  So the big question is whether or not this is going to bring satellite radio into the mainstream, and I'm not so sure about that.  This will be a test to see if his fanbase was really that fanatical or if it just happened that he was conveniently on the radio during their morning commute and now they'll just listen to something else.  Is twelve bucks a month plus the cost of upgrading the stereo in your car worth hanging onto a morning show that you just kind of like?  I doubt it.  So I think that Sirius will see an increase in subscribers but I don't think its going to be enough to usher in the age of satellite radio. 

Also, I can't help but think about Family Guy when I'm thinking about this.  The difference between the TV show and the movie that they released is actually quite pronounced.  On the movie, because they weren't subject to FCC restrictions and could do whatever they wanted, they could just be as blatently offensive as they desired.  Which is fine, I'm not one to be offended by offensiveness.  I think the problem was that when they didn't have to worry about restrictions, they weren't forced to be as smart with their writing.  So while the movie is funny, the TV show is much funnier and I think that can be attributed to the writers actually having the think harder, to get to the more clever ideas.  It's easy to talk about shit and racial slurs all day, but its much harder to have to write those same kind of jokes in a way that will get past the censors and still be funny…

…which leads us back to Howard.  I never thought he was very funny, apparently some people did, but I wonder if the Family Guy principle of funnier when under scrutiny will apply.  Additionally, for the listeners that love Howard, I wonder how much of their enjoyment of his jokes stem from the fact that when he's talking about boobs they get excited that he's pushing the established rules for radio.  Once he's allowed to say whatever he wants, will there be a level of excitement about his content that will be missing?  You know, like when you turn 21 and drinking loses a little of the excitement factor.  Time will tell my friend…time will tell. 

Having an iPod at the gym has opened my eyes to just how drastic a
soundtrack can impact your surroundings.  Nothing has done it more than
Radiohead though.  There's something about Radiohead that makes people
at the gym look creepy and futuristic.  I guess it highlights the fact
that we no longer have to use our bodies to stay alive, but because of
that we have to simulate doing work to keep ourselves healthy.  It's
scary to think that we've become so incredibly docile that we actually
have to take time out of our days to trick our body into thinking that
it's doing work.

Anyone who has ever walked into a class to be met by one of the legends of their industry raise your hand.  Last week we were greeted by the smiling face of Dan Wieden, of Wieden + Kennedy.  This is the guy whose agency pretty much built Nike.  All of that great Nike work that has been done over the years has come across this mans desk on its way to your eyeballs.  We had a really informal question and answer session with him, and along the way the story of how the legendary "Just Do It" tagline came about was revealed. 

Apparently it was nearing time to present some new work to the client, and they still didn't have an endline.  It was then that two incredibly different people impacted advertising history without even knowing it. 

There was a man executed by firing squad in Utah in 1977 by the name of Gary Gilmore.  Gilmore murdered two people, and then impacted advertising history when asked if he had any last words.  He responded with "let's do it."  So one of the most recognized taglines ever could have been "let's do it." 

Luckily for Nike, Nancy Reagan was telling kids to "just say no."  The first lady's message was merged with the last words of a double-murderer and then Nike made a lot of money and high school football teams were motivated and fraternity event t-shirts were made. 

Thank you Gary Gilmore.