Acura Beak

The high ups at Honda and Acura keep admitting their mistakes.  I like that.
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/06/19/new-acura-design-chief-admits-company-went-a-little-overboard/

The New Nissan Altima Ads

I think these are good.  Watch all four.  Oh, and make sure to watch them in 720p.
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/06/20/nissan-debuts-first-barrage-of-altima-ads/#continued

VW Passat looks just like the old Kia Optima

I noticed this while driving the other day and felt like it should be blogged.  It seems weird that VW designers would copy a Kia Optima that never sold well.  Of course, it is true that VW may not have copied Kia.  I mean, it sure doesn't seem typical of the German automaker to copy the design of a lackluster Korean sedan.  So how did this happen? Coincidence?   

Advertising: The real and the fake.

I like advertising.  Good advertising.  I think most people do.  Take a look at the view counts for Super Bowl Commercials and you will see the interest.  We are naturally inclined to want good products and advertising is the medium used to connect us to those products.  There are advertisements that are comical, touching, fascinating, and memorable.  Then you have the "junk ads" and this stuff drives me crazy.  Junk ads are the reason that so many people install Adblock Plus in their browser.  It is also a reason many people on iOS are willing to pay for an app in order to avoid ads that are distracting and annoying.  I pay $10 a month for an Rdio subscription and the annoying ads in Pandora is just one of the reasons I quit using Pandora long ago.  I decided to open up Pandora the other day and after choosing my station, this is the next thing I saw.  

Let's discuss all the problems with this ad:

1.  It looks shady.

2.  It is completely obtrusive, totally covering what I really want to see on the screen.

3.  It looks like an ad for a site that was designed in 2000.

4.  It is not relevant seeing that I am married.  This same ad would also not be relevant to women or     children.

I'm not exactly sure how advertising should be done on mobile.  It is brand new territory that is going to explode into a huge business.  Apple introduced iAd in 2010 with hopes of capitalizing on profits to be had from mobile advertising.  I don't love iAds myself but they are much better than the ad model used on Pandora.

I'm excited to be entering the world of advertising at such a unique time.  A time when radio, television, internet, and mobile advertising as we know it is changing drastically.  I hope to find a way to produce great stuff and never be associated with the garbage that plagues the sidebar in Facebook or the annoying pop up ads for games like Words with Friends or apps like Pandora.  

Here are a few examples of quality ads.  

The City Creek Project by Struck

Note: I personally believe that the kind of advertising used on the Pandora ad and the examples of good advertising that I listed here are not in the same category at all.  The problem is that many people just see it all as "advertising" and so it is worth pointing out that one type of advertising is going after quality and another is simply just a cheap, "in your face" quantity type ad.  I hope to produce the former and reinvent the later. 

  

Dos Erres: I cried today.

I had the cruise control set to 71 as I listened intently to podcast number 465 of This American Life.  Podcasts are a way to make my commute go by faster and also keep my mind alert.  This is a routine I have formed, however, today was different than most morning drives.  Today I cried.  Episode 465 is titled "What Happened at Dos Erres" and is dedicated to the story of the Dos Erres massacre and an amazing ending to an atrocious event.  Dos Erres was a small village taken over by Guatemalan soldiers called Kaibiles.  An evacuation of the entire village was performed and the soldiers then proceeded to rape the women and murder every inhabitant: men, women, and children.  The bodies were then heaved into a deep pit, some still alive when their helpless bodies were thrown over the edge.  

Listening to this story is disturbing and again makes one's soul scream the question, "How could this happen?"  "How could anyone perform such atrocities?"  Then the part of the podcast came that brought the tears to my eyes.  Tranquilino Castañeda had a wife and 9 children.  He was out of town on that dark night.  When he returned, all was gone: His home was burned, his wife had been raped and killed, and his children had each been slaughtered.  My eyes welled up as I thought of this poor man in the jungles of Guatemala who in a night was robbed of everything.  The kind of tragedy he suffered is incomprehensible to me, to most everyone.  

Nevertheless, out of such a bitter cup comes an amazing story of reunion.  Oscar, Tranquilino's youngest son, was one of two boys whose lives were spared that night by an army commander.  He was raised by the commander's family and later moved to the United States.  After some amazing investigation, and surely the hand of God, it was determined that Oscar was Tranqilino's son and the two were reunited for the first time in 30 years.  Listening to this podcast flooded me with a multitude of emotions but the bottom line is this: We may not understand why such devastation and violence happens but I do know that everything that is unjust in this world will one day be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  

I encourage you to listen to the podcast, despite the mature topic at hand and some disturbing details.  

Below are the following links:

The podcast.

Oscar reuniting with his father.

Wikipedia article. 

P.S. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section after you have a chance to listen to the podcast.