Effective Advertising Award

Oh my gosh my eldest son has turned into a walking car insurance advertisement.

First, we were driving past the shopping plaza at Ashburn Farms Parkway and Ashburn Village Blvd. We've never had nor dealt with State Farm Insurance before, and I make no endorsement or recommendation with regard to their business.

ES saw the State Farm store front in the strip mall and said, "State Farm is THERE!"

Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Chalk up an Effective Advertising award for State Farm's ad agency.

Then, this afternoon I got home just before dinner and the boys were playing out in the front yard. ES sounded like a broken record. He kept singing over and over and over and over and over... "Nationwide is on your side." Curious, I asked my son if he had any idea what "Nationwide" was. Much to my surprise, he informed me it was a car insurance company. WHY on EARTH would a 7 year old care or retain that information?

So, Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Chalk up an Effective Advertising award for Nationwide's ad agency.

We came inside for dinner, and it only took about 5 incantations of "Nationwide is on your side" for my wife to go nuts and ask him to stop.

[Pregnant Pause]

You'd think ES had the yellow pages in his noggin. He flipped to the next business listing in the category and said, "oooh, how about the Gecko?" He started spouting off some slogans from the Geico ads with the gecko.

So, Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Chalk up an Effective Advertising award for Geico's ad agency.

That one at least makes a LITTLE sense why a KID would remember it. I can imagine a kid remembering a cute gecko, but not the State Farm or Nationwide jingles.

He got bored of the Geico slogans (no catchy tune), so then he decided to take our insurance company, USAA, and started MAKING UP jingles for USAA.

So here's a question for those of you with ad agency experience...

Do they have a summer camp where they put kids to work at ad agencies? How old do you have to be to apply for an ad agency internship?

Another Effective Advertising Award

I meant to post this earlier. I've written a couple of posts about some cases of effective advertising using my kids' off-the-wall comments as the metric.

This one wasn't from my kids, but for the interest of those relatives of mine in the advertising industry, Goon Squad Sarah's son came up with another great example of effective advertising.

Ahhh, Oregon!

We arrived safe and sound in Oregon last night. The boys were great on the flight.

The plane was probably the most poorly maintained commercial airliner I've ever been on. I sure hope they put more effort into the maintenance on the vital systems like the engines and safety systems than they did on the creature comforts.

The in flight movie was "Meet Dave", which looked and sounded like a pretty funny movie... when we could see or hear it. The video and audio signals periodically shut off at random intervals. At any given point in time, we could either see or hear the movie, but rarely could we do both at the same time. It also blacked out three times and took a few minutes for them to restart it. It also skipped forward and backward in the movie a couple of times. We got to see the ending twice.

Even so, I still thought it was a pretty funny movie, and I was surprised when I went to IMDB to see it had such a low rating. I think "Welcome to Old Navy" is going to be a popular one-liner that will work it's way into everyone's vocabulary. (Old Navy sure got their money's worth on THAT investment!)

Tangent

Speaking of Effective Advertising: This one floored me. We're sitting there in the Honolulu Airport waiting for our plane to board. We're watching the planes taxi back and forth outside the window. All of a sudden, ES says, "DELTA! Mommy, that's the kind of plane that Woody and Buzz were going to fly to Japan on in Toy Story 2!"

I had to pick my jaw up off my lap.

Why on earth would he remember THAT particular detail of the movie?

End of Tangent

Okay, so, here are my initial impressions of being back in Oregon...
- It always amazes me how crystal clear, fresh, and clean the tap water is here... and absolutely frigid Arctic polar bear BUTT COLD. Sorry, maybe that was the wrong image to put in your head. It's like there's a pipe from the North Pole to our faucets in the house here.

- It's very weird laying in bed with your wife in the same room you lived in as a teenager. It's a very different room now - a very nicely decorated guest room. Even so, when I lay down and close my eyes, I think my depeche mode and new order posters are still on the wall and it seems like I'm doing something bad being in bed with a GIRL.

- It's weird seeing so many Oregon license plates. ...I know, I know... DUH! It's just that normally we're the only weirdos driving around with the trees on our license plates.

- I've never seen so many Obama bumper stickers on the same street... and not a single McCain sticker. This doesn't come as a surprise mind you, but still, it's an unusual exeperience.

- Now THAT's a recycling bin!

Recycling, Yard Waste, and Trash
Note the recycling bin is like twice as big as the trash bin.

- My wife is happy...

She's addicted to Target.
That was first on her agenda for today.

- The boys are happy...

They've been attached-at-Grandpa's-hip since our arrival and thoroughly wearing him out.

- I'm happy...

See this post.

- Did I mention it feels like we've packed for an Arctic Expedition?

This was just our checked baggage.

- All during the flight, I was looking forward to having Burgerville for dinner, but they CLOSED before we got there last night. The nerve! We made it for lunch today though.

One of their advertising slogans used to be, "Burgerville: INconveniently located for most of the United States."

More random observations

Effective Advertising

O... M... G... We're sitting here watching a silly movie on TV (Deck the Halls), and Matthew Broderick tries to back his car out of the driveway and gets his car doors ripped off by the trailer hitches on the campers parked on either side of his driveway. Do you know what my 7 year old son said? "Uh-oh! Better call Geico!" Whatever ad agency handles the Geico account deserves a medal, because that was most definitely the result of an excellent advertising campaign.

Things like this really scare the crap out of me...

We went to the NEX so that ES could spend his birthday money on a new webkinz dog. (He needed another webkinz like I need a hole in my head, but I'm sure you could say the same thing about half the stuff I collect, too). They were having a buy-one-get-one-free special, and ES very generously allowed YB to pick out the second webkinz instead of taking both for himself. Off we go to the car, each son carrying their new webkinz in an NEX plastic shopping bag. We get buckled in the car and start driving away. My sensitivity threshold for plastic bag noises in the back seat was turned way down due to the rustle-rustle-rustle of them getting in the car with their bags and then taking their new webkinz out to play with them, etc, etc, etc.

My threshold was suddenly reset and alarm bells went off in the back of my head when all of a sudden ES yelled, "No YB!!! Take that off your head!!!" Almost immediately after he said that, I could hear YB's muffled voice say, "Look! I'm a snowman!" Yeah, he was pretending to be a snowman by putting a plastic bag over his head. THANK GOD ES saw him and KNEW that was BAD and told him to stop. LW and I each talked to YB subsequently about not putting things over our heads. It just really freaks me out and makes me worry what might happen to one of our kids one day when someone ISN'T watching. I pray the Lord will always watch over and protect my family from such simple dangers that are around us every day.

On a positive note, I've noticed ES maturing a lot lately and taking on more of a big-brother role, watching out for his little brother and helping him out. Sometimes it results in a hissy-fit from YB when he doesn't WANT the help, but still - it's nice that ES is genuinely trying to HELP.

Case in Point: Yesterday I took the boys to Ala Moana Center to run an errand and have some dinner at Islands. We had a birthday coupon for ES for Islands that had to be used in the month of his birthday, and yesterday was the last day of May. LW wasn't feeling well and stayed home. As we were walking through the mall on the way to our errand, YB complained of his foot itching. ES very kindly led YB to a place to sit down, asked him very nicely to sit down, took of YB's shoe, scratched his foot (resulting in much giggling from YB), and put the shoe back on. I was flabbergasted.

ES scratching YB's foot at Ala Moana Center.
(Yes, that's the new Webkinz dog.)

The other highlight of our trip to Ala Moana (besides the AWESOME dinner we had at Islands) was a trip to the family restroom in the mall. We see more and more of these "family" restrooms wherever we go, and it's nice to have a restroom large enough for the three of us to fit in and take care of business without me having to cram into a stall to help YB with his pants while ES is getting in the way of other people in the restroom by the sink.

This, however, is the first time I've seen a family restroom with a YB-sized toilet.

There were two toilets in the room, one regular size and one tiny version.

There was even a second sink that was the perfect height for YB, too.

More Wii Adventures

Before we got Wii Fit, I always thought of people who did yoga as human pretzels. I never would have even tried yoga if Wii Fit hadn't invaded our home, because I don't think of myself as one of those human pretzels.

Up until today, I have rather enjoyed the basic yoga exercises on Wii Fit for stretching and flexibility. However (comma) as I have progressed through the exercises, I have unlocked some of the more advanced positions, and today I felt like I was trying to twist my body in directions that my body wasn't designed to do.

I've been doing the tree for several days now, but today was the first time I fell over while trying to do the tree. It gave me flashbacks to another embarrassing episode of similar body-orientation and physics.

Some of the new yoga exercises I tried today were...

Triangle. It looks so simple doesn't it??? It's the turning your head and looking up at the ceiling and pointing your hand to the ceiling while keeping your balance on the balance board that really makes it challenging.

Dance. This one was the end of me today. I think I pulled a muscle in my palm and my forearm, and pulled or pinched something around my right collarbone. Human pretzel indeed!

Monday Night Food and Fitness

FOOD

Reason #547 I love my wife: She makes me tacos. :-9 She even makes the taco meat seasoning from scratch in order to protect me from the evil, naughty, blunoz-kryptonite MSG in the pre-made taco meat seasonings from the store.

Reason #547 ½ I love my wife: She makes her own sort of pico de gallo by dicing up tomatoes and onions and putting some seasonings it. I need to go back to my 7 random things post and just add one:
I LOVE ONIONS. I have this bizarre obsession with onions, or... more particularly, the aftertaste left in my mouth after I've eaten fresh onions. Especially red onions. Call me crazy. Wait... why are red onions purple, anyway? Sorry, getting off topic.

Effective advertising. Having two family members who work(ed) in the advertising industry raised my sensitivity to things like product placement in movies, made me do a double-take when someone says a phrase or sings a tune from an advertisement, and taught me the phrase, "that was effective advertisement."

Tangent / Aside: The last time I remember hearing that phrase from GMJ was when I said, "Man, I wish I had an Easy button." She just about busted up laughing and immediately wrote an email to the Staples management and congratulated them on the success of their ad campaign.

Okay, so all that being said, and in keeping with the "food" topic of this blog, I had two "that was effective advertisement" moments this week:

Effective Advertisement of the Week Award #1:

Okay, to say that our children are picky eaters is like saying they are casually interested in Star Wars (mild understatment?). I have never been able to get either of our boys to so much as LOOK at a bowl of soup much less actually TRY a spoonful. LW made that awesome chicken tortilla soup again this week. As a force of habit, she offered some to ES - fully expecting him to turn up his nose and say, "yuck." Although we were not surprised by his refusal to try some, he floored us both with his statement, "There is a type of soup I would like to try." Oh yeah? He said he saw it on TV. We asked him what type of soup it was. He said, "It was called Campbell's soup." He didn't understand that Campbell's is a name brand, he thought it was a flavor.

Effective Advertisement of the Week Award #2:

Have you seen the Goldfish Cracker advertisements where they swim around in this little community under the bed in the kids' room? On the one hand, I think the concept is cool and the ads are cute and funny. On the other hand though, the thought of a bunch of goldfish crackers under the bed in my boys room with all the dust bunnies, toys, boogers, and dirty underwear just grosses me out and makes me absolutely NOT want to eat Goldfish Crackers. Apparently, I was not the target audience for the ad though. No sooner does the ad finish on the TV screen then YB chimes in with, "Mommy! I want some goldfish crackers!"

FITNESS

It was a pretty darn good week for me fitness-wise, especially considering how it started out last Monday. If you recall, I tried going running last Monday for the first time following a nasty head cold. I couldn't run more than a mile and a half and coughed the entire time walking back home.

There was some bizarre alignment of the planets that occurred on Tuesday though. I felt much better than I did Monday. I got home from work and tossed out my usual offer to take the boys for a bike ride, but for the first time in a long time, they said YES! So I put the boys on their bikes with their bike helmets and their camelbaks and we headed out. It was the first time I've taken YB out on the bike path on his new bike - a two-wheeler with training wheels. We made it out to Best Buy (1 mile out) and turned around. We got about half way back and YB refused to ride his bike anymore, got off and started walking. I would've broken my back if I tried pushing his bike back, so I ended up carrying it back the last half mile. Even so, it was a good workout for me. I ran some sprints to the next telephone pole and back to the boys again, so I think I probably did about 2.5 miles from the doubling back.

Wednesday, I was bummed I couldn't go to Command PT with the PT Nazi (we do interval training Wednesday mornings at Bloch Arena with a personal trainer who really kicks our butts). I had to be on the boat for a walkthrough with the shipyard commander. Talking to the guys who went to Command PT though - ouch! They were all absolutely drenched in sweat as they came back from PT. She had them do spinners on the exercise bikes, and whenever anyone stopped pedaling, they had to get down and do 40 pushups. I've heard spinners is pretty intense, but I've never actually done it before.

When I got home that afternoon though, the boys were all excited and wanted to go for another bike ride. So I got them geared up and we went and did the same route again. This time, YB stayed on his bike the entire ride. However (comma) I don't think he pedaled at all. I basically pushed him with my hand on his back the entire ride. As a result, it was by no means a FAST run for me, but I sure had my heart rate up.

Thursday I didn't ask the boys if they wanted to go because ES and I had to bake and decorate our cake for the Cub Scout Blue & Gold dinner on Friday night.

Friday at Command PT we did our usual warmup, stretches, and calesthenics in the gym. Then we went for a run from Bloch Arena down South Ave along the perimeter of the base next to Hickam. We ran all the way to the end of South Ave at the water's edge and then turned around and came back. It came out to 3 miles.

But alas... I was a lazy slug all weekend and didn't do any PT.