Beyond Urban Branding

I'll admit it. Intel has better ads than I've been aware of. This one here is pretty funny. Its funny because the message is delivered clean and nobody had to try too hard to make it. They just made plain what all real tech people know: We have our own rock stars. I can't tell you how many times I've been at an event and somebody taps my arm and says "Theres the dude from Adobe who made the so-and-so". Or "Theres the guy who changed coding forever!" And we watch them with awe as they go down the hall. Only real tech dudes and chicks feel it. This is differentiation at its highest. Essentially they are saying " We're REAL tech people. We get you." They are in a good zone here. This should actually be a recurring theme in Intel ads. They could do this one forever. Talk about speaking to the core demographic!!

I forgot about this ad. Its from the Super Bowl. Very well done. They kept the pace of the ad moving, kept it funny and still hammered their core message home. -Beyond Urban Branding beyondurban@gmail.com

This ad is amazing. Not in a good way. I'm amazed that it was made. I lost count of the stereotypes shown in this Metro PCS commercial. Who is this ad intended for? Are people from India supposed to be inspired to get on the Metro PCS bandwagon? C'mon son. So its not creative. Its culturally insensitive. We've got poor messaging. Add that together and you get a big fat FAIL. -Beyond Urban Branding beyondurban@gmail.com

I was watching CNN and TJ Holmes just said Apple can't keep up with the orders. Kindles got real competition. I have no idea what the HP Slate will be able to do, but, I hope its at least as cool as this! This iPad commercial (kinda long) is pretty exciting though. I just feel like the game is about to change on all levels when things like this start to evolve. No matter who wins or loses the brand battle, the people are going to win cool new stuff to engage their minds and greatly enhance their entertainment experience with. I'm looking forward to all of it. -Beyond Urban Branding beyondurban@gmail.com

I don't ever remember seeing this one on TV. I just found it online. But man, what an ad huh? I can't imagin how much it cost to make this ad. But the messaging throughout is solid as well. -Beyond Urban Branding beyondurban@gmail.com

Red Steel 2 Launch Trailer - Watch more Game Trailers Who can argue with an adventure game thats half western gunslinger, half eastern samurai?

Boost normally does solid ads when it comes to Hip-Hop. This however was just average. It actually kinda sucked. Why does it suck? Two words, Mickey Avalon. When the ad opens up you get a bangin' beat by Jermaine Dupri, he flows a bit. Then you see Young Jeezy flow (who was just coming up so it made him look extra large). Then they force fed Mickey Avalon into the ad and it was just funny. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-Mickey. I'm just anti-Mickey in this ad. He is not connected to the Hip-Hop demographic. To close the ad with an outta place White guy just so you don't make your ad "too Black" is never a good mood. Not to mention there are so many White rappers and athletes that could have been used. We're not even going to mention Eminem ('cause its so obvious). But I'm thinking Ill Bill, Cage, MC Serch, Okwerdz, Copywrite, Everlast, Slaine- I could go on. The "urban" lifestyle lover, can see far beyond race. But you can't pla...

Here is a great ad by Lucent Technologies (now Acatel-Lucent). Its fast paced, very authentically themed for a classic kung-fu film and ends with a comedic punch. The only real critique I have is that, they don't convey what they do. For the record Alcatel-Lucent is the trusted partner of service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. . The thing you cannot deny is, they do hammer home the priceless edge of having a solid partner with you when things get tough. -Beyond Urban Branding

Beyond Urban Branding opens Tech Week with a true banger of an ad. We'll look at tech ads from time to time on our blog. But this week its gonna be all tech brands, all the time. We will begin with HP's ad featuring Serena Williams. When we did the first soft launch, we reviewed the precision HP crafted their ad with Jay-Z . It's easily one of my favorite tech ads. I actually feel like HP and a lot of other well done ads don't get their proper recognition because Apple gets so much props for their ads. OK, so this ad is actually better than the Jay-Z ad for one reason in particular. Strategic co-branding. In one commercial Serena craftily pitches, her video game (never played it but apparently shes got something going on with EA Sports) her designs with Nike and most importantly- her clothing line Aneres . Now, I don't know why or how Andre 3000 and Uno were able to get shout outs in the ad. Was she just giving them props or did somebody have to pay to get them i...