99 Restaurants satisfies your illicit cravings

The goofy grins and wide-eyed expectation on Mom and Dad's faces in this 99 Restaurants spot from Allen & Gerritsen underscore the odd (unintentional?) kinkiness of the premise. The theme is cravings personified. A fisherman in a rubber smock appears in the kitchen when Pops professes a hankering for panko-crusted haddock. Dad looks like he's landed the catch of the day. Later, Mums discovers a cowboy, complete with lasso, in the closet (what, no Indian in the cupboard?) and chirps, "Hey honey, I found your craving for fire-grilled sirloin." Isn't this supposed to be a family dining chain?

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under 99 Restaurants, Allen & Gerritsen, Food and drink, Gianatasio, Restaurants
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MFS's new commercials great for Halloween

Take the platitude-spitting talking heads of the new Edward Jones campaign, and throw in the "I am" certitude of Microsoft's PC ads. Then add the creepy "glowing eyes" effect of horror films like Village of the Damned. What do you get? Oddly enough, it's Allen & Gerritsen's latest TV spots for investment house MFS. They almost make the frigid Edward Jones commercials look warm and fuzzy by comparison. Here, their eyes eerily alight with blocks from the MFS logo, folks deliver lines like, "I am an MFS fund" and "I am an MFS investment." What they are is possessed, and one guy's admission that "I'm all about the alpha" underscores the "alien" feel. At the end, they seem to "beam" the retinal images toward viewers in an effort to bend our minds to their investment-driven will. Good lord, they're inside my brain! I understand now, and I obey!

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Allen & Gerritsen, Finance, Gianatasio, MFS
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Suburban moms hit streets in anti-drug ads

These new ads by Allen & Gerristen for the Partnership for a Drug Free America strive to empower parents to get the information they need to discuss drug use with their kids. The vignettes show what moms won't need to do: visit dealers and hang out in crack dens. (Where are the dads, tossing back a few at the local bar?) Actually, it's a reasonable strategy, but the execution is so odd, it muddles the message. Why portray the parents as bubble-headed suburbanites who can't identify crack even when they walk into a crack den? Actually, the teens in that spot look more like vampires than junkies, and the scene plays like a goofy outtake from Twilight. I know absurdity's the whole point here, but the "dealers" in the street-corner spot seem to be channeling Scott Baio's Chachi for their tough-guy/urban accents. I feel like I'm on drugs just watching it!

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Allen & Gerritsen, Anti-drug, Gianatasio, Partnership for a Drug Free America, PSAs
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Red Sox fans feel the beat in dead of winter

If you feel the conjunction of music and baseball should be confined to ballpark organists playing cheery standards, this isn't the event for you. But others will relish the opportunity to mingle at a Boston hot spot (if that's not a contradiction in terms) with the likes of Red Sox front-office wunderkind Theo Epstein and veteran baseball journalist Peter Gammons, as various bands wail away. The event is the ninth in a series of annual fundraising concerts under the catchy rubric Hot Stove Cool Music. Boston-area agency Allen & Gerritsen created the campaign for this year's edition.

—Posted by Mark Dolliver

Filed under Allen & Gerritsen, Dolliver, Music, Sports
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Librarians proudly going down with the ship

How long can libraries—repositories for the print pages that become more outdated every day—last in the age of instant information? They're probably already as marginalized as the morning newspaper in terms of usefulness and functionality. Allen & Gerritsen does a good job of putting human faces on the brick-and-mortar neighborhood knowledge banks in a campaign touting the historic Boston Public Library system. The ads star real librarians as "heroes" willing to share what they know with smiles and good humor. (No stereotypical stern-faced patron-shushers here.) The effort subtly celebrates libraries' heritage as a vibrant part of the communities they serve and focuses on the dedication, knowledge and courtesy of the BPL staff. People sharing what they know, rather than Googling until their fingers go numb, is what this campaign is about. Still, I can't help feeling a bit sorry for learned folks whose value to society is cloesly tied to their performances at the local bar's trivia night. The ads ask, almost wistfully, "What do you want to know?" There's no need to inquire about the future of libraries. We already have the answer.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Allen & Gerritsen, Books, Gianatasio
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