This morning we learned that Microsoft had selected the $10 million spokesman to revive its uncool brand: Vintage Mac aficionado Jerry Seinfeld. The collective response could be summed up as, "Really, him?" But Seinfeld may be just be one small part of the Microsoft coolness project! Fishbowl LA is reporting that the company's ad wizard and diet book author Alex Bogusky is considering lots of other celebrities for the campaign to help convince you that Vista is a smart buy. The (real) list of those purportedly under consideration: Vagina-touting comedian Sarah Silverman!

Congratulations to Barack Obama for finally running a no-holds-barred attack ad against John McCain. It's a masterpiece of the genre (the "more in sorrow than in fearmongering" attack), taking one odd biographical detail as proof of mendacity, with a touch of underhanded smear thrown in. You are poor and broke and the bank is taking away your house, but John McCain? He is so old he doesn't remember how many houses he has! (Narrator: "It's seven. Seven houses.") It's a fun little number. But as you watch our above compilation of some of our favorite attack ads of the last forty-odd years, well, you may notice that no modern candidate can touch the '60s for mean-spirited spite. LBJ will cut you to win reelection. Click to see the compilation, and Obama's modern attempt at the genre is below.

Fast food is essentially made up of low-quality byproducts of better food. Leftover cow parts, ground pig parts... you can use your imagination. So it's best for fast food companies to stick with happy clowns and assorted other mascots in their ads, staying as far as possible from any image that could make you consider what's actually in the food you're buying. And they should especially make sure they never draw any parallels between their product and human flesh. I mean, yuck. So tell us, McDonald's, what went wrong here?:

This video is a sales pitch demo for Image Metrics, a digital animation firm. Notice anything strange? The actress is a fake. Her face is computer-generated. She's a digital freak. Would you have known if we didn't tell you? No, you would have tried to ask her out for a drink later on. The point is, soon all actors will be unemployed. Click to watch the vanguard of your pixellated overlords. [via Adrants]

Is there a word for that movement that fake rich guy Donald Trump makes when he kind of sneers a little bit and jerks his head spasmodically to the side, in an evil remix version of the "what can I say?" shrug? Let's call it a Derk (Donald Jerk). It's on full display in this infomercial clip, which may be the most perfect distillation I've ever seen of both the humiliation of appearing in an infomercial, and Donald Trump's fundamental asshole nature. This actress actually gets choked up simply by being in his regal, sneering presence. What can he do except pull a Derk? It sends the message, "You know, I'm the biggest prick in the whole world." But she likes it baby, yea:

Before it landed Microsoft's $300 million account and hired Jerry Seinfeld as a spokesperson, the admen of agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky met with Fast Company's Danielle Sacks in April 2007. That's when Alex Bogusky explained exactly what kind of computers it uses, and why:

ONE is the big, vague, utopian project to fight poverty with a nice website and Livestrong-type bracelet sales. They do other things too, I'm sure. It's comparable to Al Gore's effort to end global warming with star power and earnest ads. But ONE has better ads, because they're slightly less earnest. The latest, out today, reveals Matt Damon's true inner femininity:

When the "Tom Cruise in the future" movie Minority Report came out in 2002, everybody got all googly-moogly over the futuristic ad technology that recognized people's faces and tailored ads directly to them, instantly, as they walked through stores. Well slowly but surely that's all becoming a reality! The wonders of living in the future. Retailers are working on all types of technologies to "serve up ads based on the consumer's appearance." Hey, ugly: check it out! Dunkin Donuts is putting ad screens on its checkout and pickup areas telling you to buy things and come back soon, respectively. Some stores are sticking video screens on the shelves, which flash ads at you based on what item you pick up off the shelf. Which seems like it would quickly get annoying. But the creepiest is the effort to read your face:

You know Microsoft is hopelessly out of touch when the opening paragraph of the Wall Street Journal article that's supposed to be touting the tech giant's marketing coup starts off something like this: "Microsoft Corp., weary of being cast as a stodgy oldster by Apple Inc.'s advertising, is turning for help to Jerry Seinfeld." Huh? Microsoft is hoping to appeal to the Gen Y demo—people in their 20s—by hiring a spokesman who is 54? Better yet: Seinfeld will be appearing in the commercials alongside Bill Gates himself, who doesn't exactly conjure up an image of cool with iPod-listening, Macbook-carrying hipsters on the L train. The $300 million campaign, which will debut on Sept. 4th, will be promoting Microsoft's Vista operating system, which, company officials acknowledge, has generated a "negative public perception." (That's probably because it sucks.) Why did Seinfeld decide to participate? We're guessing it may have had something to do with the $10 million paycheck.

In an effort to promote its poxy Windows Vista operating system, Microsoft is paying Jerry Seinfeld $10 million for an endorsement, the Wall Street Journal reported this morning. Yes, because if there's one surefire way to convince everyone Vista is cool, cutting edge and not liable to get frazzled by life's minor complications, it's hiring a 1990s sitcom star and professional kvetcher! Who, um, very visibly owned a series of Macs on his show. This is Microsoft's worst promotional concept since, well, since its last Vista campaign, the Mojave Experiment, which decisively proved that people hate Vista but will use it if they are tricked into thinking it's something else, like a stable, functional tool. Here's how Madison Avenue is responding:

Alex Bogusky, the it-boy ad wizard who thinks up all those Burger King commercials, is worried about America's fat ass! So he's writing a new diet book called The 9-Inch Diet. Oh sorry, we see that it's "not just another diet book." This one has added expertise:

The public irritation with Michael Phelps gathers steam! Instead of being on the Wheaties box like a real American champion, Phelps has signed on to endorse Frosted Flakes. Yes: Michael Phelps wants your kids to choke down these sugar-encrusted corn scabs rather than the high fiber of Wheaties. The papers already found some doctors to condemn him. Though we shouldn't be surprised considering Phelps' addiction to Big Macs, the goofy-ass swimmer really should have been smarter in terms of his image. After the jump, five more idiotic celebrity endorsements that can't be explained by mere logic: 1. Wu-Tang Clan endorses St. Ides Malt liquor advocacy is not a positive move for the knowledge gods. On the other hand, Wu-Tang really doesn't give a fuck.

If Barack Obama is swarmed like this in the red state of North Carolina where he's four points behind, how is he going to make it out of Denver alive?? No one even cares that he's gone "quietly negative" with a secret terrorist propaganda campaign against poor John McCain, who complains he was sucker-punched by someone stooping to his level. God, Obama really is just like Paris Hilton. (Photo via Getty Images)

Al Gore's incredibly expensive campaign to solve the climate crisis by enriching the advertising industry is still going strong! The Gore-backed WeCanSolveIt.org is running a new ad, and it unfortunately embodies the traits of its sponsor: off-putting earnestness and a befuddling message in support of a worthy cause. This one features various Americans staring creepily into the camera while slogans flash, informing politicians that we "demand" that they "use the wind" to stop global warming or something. A tenth of Gore's $300 million budget spent directly on lobbying would accomplish much more than these ads ever will. Environmentalists have all the good weed-is this as creative as they can get? Watch the Gore-like spot after the jump:

This Schweppes ad became a YouTube hit. Why? Because its photography is beautiful. It shows something stunning and naturally draws people in. What it decidedly isn't is a crass attempt to "go viral" with some sort of shocking riff on a pop culture moment aimed a specific demographic group. Which is why we picked this clip to illustrate our foolproof theory of "Viral Reality" (not pertaining to disease): The internet is the most meritocratic communications medium invented yet. The bar to entry is low—basic internet skills and the cost of an internet hookup. Distribution is immediate and global. And, as many large corporations have learned, putting absurd amounts of money behind a web project is no guarantee of success. What is guaranteed is that, in the long run, quality things on the internet will become popular. Take our own stories, for example. Sure, we can promote them to a certain extent on Digg, and put them on the top deck. But if they're not engaging enough they're never going to take off. On the other hand, lots of things we toss up and then forget about catch on all by themselves. Quality is the common denominator for things that become popular. The hard part is determining what "quality" means online. If I knew, I would be a rich man, like Richard Blakeley. Sometimes, the big hits are very random. But they rarely are the product of a deliberate attempt to game the system; they usually happen organically. Which is a long way of saying to advertisers: stop making "viral" ads and just make good ads.

Who's on TV more than anybody else? Oprah? Jay Leno? Ha, you fools. The Washington Post estimates that Billy Mays, the bearded, dangerously hyper Oxi Clean pitchman, "could already be the single most ubiquitous figure on television today, measured purely in face time." Despite that, he's getting a reality show this fall, about making ads. Disturbing? Yes. Is there any stopping him? There is not. [WP]

Are you sick of hearing by now how Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories a day to fuel his superhuman championship swimming for the gold? Too bad dude! Because what has not been adequately discussed by the media is how awesomely all-American Michael Phelps' calories are. He eats McDonalds! And you can follow his championship diet, too! Allow one of our nation's most prominent journalists to tell you all about it: NBC anchor Brian Williams gave Phelps some special McD's dining advice before their recent interview:

Running a free monthly magazine about outdoor sports in the New York area is probably not the most lucrative niche in the media, so it's perfectly understandable that a publisher would want to look for some creative ways to sell ad space. But selling the entire front cover for a product placement? That may be the point at which you cease to be an actual magazine. Although that didn't stop Metrosports NY from doing it:

According to NBC research, the Olympics are one of the few televised sporting events watched by as many women as men. Oddly enough, the Times reports this morning, the women are really into Michael Phelps and other swimmers and also into gymnasts like the medal winners pictured on the far left there. Sensing a theme, Chevrolet is targeting women with an ad "featuring a shirtless hunk who irons, scrubs a toilet and makes reservations for an anniversary dinner." Well, that's fairly puke-y. Women aren't tuning into the summer games just for beefcake and male athletes, after all. Some advertisers are running more enlightened commercials: