NYCAers created a garden at Horton Elementary School in San Diego on January 17-18, 2008. The garden will be incorporated into the students' curriculum so they will have the opportunity to grow! a garden while simultaneously growing as individuals. This video shows the before, during and after footage of the building process.

Why one of TV’s top-rated programs is a bust for advertisers

By Michelle Edelman

According to Nielsen, 91 million people saw the Super Bowl last year, compared to 39 million who watched the Oscars. Still, the Academy Awards is one of the most tuned-into TV events every year. And ABC charges for the commercial time dearly: $1.7 million for 30 seconds. That’s not a huge bargain, considering Super Bowl advertising spots sold for $2.6 million on CBS last month.

If you do some quick math, Oscar viewership is about 43% of what Super Bowl viewership was… but Oscar advertising time cost 65% of what Super Bowl viewership cost. A logical assumption might be that Oscar viewers are more attentive, making them a more valuable audience, commanding a higher price per impression.

Realistically, we all know in our guts that this isn’t at all the case! Super Bowl ads are watched, critiqued and are an event in themselves, gristed over for days afterwards, while Oscar commercial breaks are less talked about than the actresses’ gowns. It’s simply an advertising non-event. In fact, common advice to hosts and hostesses of Oscar parties: when the commercials come on, it’s a prime time to do something other than watch them! The best Web-given advice on what to do during the Oscar’s commercial breaks:

o         Play movie trivia games

o         Take a cigarette break

o         Talk (because you really should not talk during the Oscars)

In fact, one well-trafficked site simply stated, “Commercials can drag down an Oscar party.�

Spike Lee’s commercials advertising the Oscars were far more interesting than any of the commercials that aired on the show itself. His vignettes of real people reciting famous movie lines were funny and poignant, reminding us why movies are important and, therefore, why the Oscars are worth watching. Seek them out if you haven’t seen them.

Looking at the commercials on the show itself -- even as a fan of advertising -- I suppose I would advocate talking through them as well. There were some launches like iPhone, and some ads with big build-up, like the consumer-generated Dove Cream Oil. But in terms of entertainment, memorability, and even some attempt at the theatrics of the subject matter of programming? Completely absent. It was a night of everyday advertising. For $1.7 million a pop!

Next year, let’s throw down a gauntlet. Let’s have a two-sided experiment: for the industry to create unique communication that plays to its environment and for the networks to charge appropriately for the time. Maybe then consumers will reward us with their attention.

February 18 2007

To the editor:

I read in the newspapers and also saw on the news that the Snickers TV commercial that was shown on the Super Bowl was pulled off the air because it offended gays and lesbians. I’m glad because, although I am not gay, that Snickers commercial really upset me and my co-workers (who are not gay either). To see two guys kissing is one thing I don’t need to see again in my life but that’s not what bothered me as much as when they realize what they are doing, then recoil, and to prove their manliness they tear out their chest hair and scream in agony. Stupid, right? I thought so and so did the guys at the shop and we’re not talking about the gay part because none of us are gay.

We are mechanics and we wouldn’t do that – the kissing or the hair pulling part. It’s dumb and retarded.

But there it was for the whole world to see -- on the Super Bowl of all places. My wife, my son,  my two daughters and my mother saw it as we have seen it before – mechanics made to look dumb and dirty. Why is it always the mechanics are the ones made to look like idiots? Always with the bad fitting dirty uniforms and ignorant expressions and bad haircuts. Is it because we work with our hands and not in fancy office buildings? Is it because we work with tools and cars and not books? (By the way, computers are one of the most important tools we use to diagnose engine problems.) Can you see lawyers working in that Snickers commercial -- or airplane pilots??  Never happen - it’s always the guys who work their hands, ‘grease monkeys ‘who are humiliated in front of the world.

The gay and lesbian population demanded the Snickers ad be taken off the air but in my mind it should have been the Auto Mechanics union – because it made us all feel ridiculed and disrespected. And it has to stop. Do you have any idea of the education and the hours of study and text-book reading that is required to stay up on today’s sophisticated cars?   

I am right with you gays and lesbians who were upset by that commercial – but you have to get behind us mechanics first because it is we who are owed the apology.  Remember, Snickers commercial makers and the rest of you image makers, we can pour sugar in your gas tank and irrevocably corrode your engine in a second’s time, we can tell you your valves need to be replaced when they are fine and you wouldn’t know, we can triple charge you when you have no recourse and we can hike your gas price whenever we want – so next time be sensitive with your stereotypes just to sell your candy.

Best regards,

Stan the Mechanic

AKA Michael the grow! guy

Our own Jon Dupuis was on KUSI’s Morning show discussing Super Bowl commercials.  Click HERE to hear what he had to say.