Visa guy jinxed, misses his first Super Bowl

So much for "the streak." One of the four men lauded in Visa ads this fall for never having missed a single Super Bowl missed the Super Bowl on Sunday due to illness. Robert Cook, 79, of Brown Deer, Wis., a big Green Bay Packers fan, was hospitalized Thursday and had to send his daughters to Dallas instead. "He's depressed," his wife said late last week. "This is sad for him. ... He doesn't want to be there." Perhaps the Visa campaign from TBWA\Chiat\Day jinxed Cook. In many ways, the ads seemed to be an off-putting celebration of football over family. (One of the guys, Larry Jacobson, once gave up the chance to adopt a child because he had to be present at the birth—which fell on Super Bowl Sunday. He ended up adopting two different girls instead—so he literally has different children because of his obsession.) In his Visa spot, Cook says: "I'm going to make it to the Super Bowl game, there's no question about that. No matter what." Sorry, Bob. Maybe next year. UPDATE: Bob Cook died four days after watching (from his hospital bed) his beloved Packers win Super Bowl XLV.

Filed under Nudd, Super Bowl, TBWA, Visa
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Visa lauds men who prefer football to family

With two weeks to go before Super Bowl XLV, expect Visa to ratchet up its "Go fans" campaign, in particular its celebration of those four awful men who have attended every single Super Bowl without fail. Visa has lauded the "Never Miss a Super Bowl Club" almost all season long in ads from TBWA\Chiat\Day. The four old dudes have spent untold amounts of money traveling to and attending the Super Bowl for the past 44 years. At this point in their lives, they should be taking stock of what they've done with their time on this planet. There's no hint of regret over their singular priority. The worst of these malformed men is the droll, self-proclaimed "Mr. Excitement," Larry Jacobson (below), who proudly claims to have missed weddings and babies being born in order to go to games in which his own favorite team was most likely not even playing. (Larry also thinks fans can "telepathically" steer a field-goal kick. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, that Larry.) You'd think he'd be chagrined about his behavior rather than bragging about it on TV. Larry's been taken to the woodshed over at YouTube, where commenters are hoping his funeral falls on Super Bowl Sunday, so his family can justify skipping it. Meet the other three morons after the jump.

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Filed under Finance, Morrissey, Super Bowl, TBWA, Visa
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Visa ad imagines if technology never shrank

Whybin\TBWA of Sydney scores with this fun Visa Debit Card spot from Australia that depicts a world where technology hasn't kept pace with consumer demands. The images of contemporary folks lugging around outdated hardware like fax machines, dial TVs, typewriters and turntables really resonate. I fondly recall the days of unwieldy portables with rabbit ears and even jerry-rigged stereos set up to play LPs and 45s. And you're asking: What the hell are LPs? It wasn't really so long ago that when you left your home or office, you were effectively out of touch with the rest of the world, with no aesthetically beguiling system of tree-wrapped phone cords (watch the spot) to kept you tethered to humanity. And you're asking: What the hell are 45s? Let's just say they're a primitive medium that, at least at my house, often came in picture sleeves with Rick James on the cover. Via Ads of the World.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Australia, Finance, Gianatasio, TBWA, Visa
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New ad for Visa Debit both super and freaky

By all rights, this TBWA\Chiat\Day spot for Visa, with its off-key take on the song "Super Freak," should fall as flat as the notes sung by its geeky, goofy and overly exuberant cast. And yet, I could not look away and immediately wanted to watch it again. It even manages to convey a coherent message: Life's freaky enough without having to worry about every online transaction, so trust Visa Debit. (Note to self: Trot out this post for smart-ass counterpoint the next time Visa Debit is implicated in identity theft.) And the sound you hear under your feet is not Rick James rolling over in his grave. That dude got insanely high on life, music and anything else he could lay his hands on. I imagine he's checking out the spot from the Great Beyond, bopping his head in approval and wishing he could take a hit off whatever those actors are smoking.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Finance, Gianatasio, TBWA, Visa
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Disabled dancer going with the flow for Visa

Saatchi & Saatchi London created this fun new spot as part of its European "Life flows better with Visa" campaign. It stars Bill Shannon, a freestyle dance artist who was born with a degenerative hip condition and has come up with a fascinating way of dancing on crutches. Some are ragging on Saatchi for essentially copying a music video by the band RJD2 that also features Shannon. And that's a fair point, though it's still nice to see Shannon getting a wider audience through advertising. Visa has posted a behind-the-scenes video from the shoot to its YouTube channel. And check out a short documentary about Shannon here.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under Europe, Finance, Nudd, Saatchi & Saatchi, Visa
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Visa vanquishes rivals with 'Go Phelps' ads

If you've been watching the Olympics, you've seen Visa's "Go World" commercials from TBWA\Chiat\Day, in which the impressive feats of Olympic athletes are recounted in gold-tinted slow motion. They made an impressive number of spots (all viewable at the Go World site), but what really struck me were the three executions specifically created for Michael Phelps that aired right after each of his wins. There was the generic, Michael-isn't-a-dolphin spot, which came after the first few, then the specific congratulations on winning more gold medals than anybody ever, and of course, another one for surpassing Mark Spitz's record with eight golds in one Olympics. In the bevy of ads that followed Phelps's wins, Visa stood out as the only advertiser with a relevant message. The spots were given extra gravitas by narrator Morgan Freeman, who was injured in a car crash recently. So, of course, they were recorded far in advance, even though the footage was turned around in less than a day from Phelps's previous victory. What I wonder is what the ad would have said if Phelps hadn't pulled it off. Did they have a special "You're still crazy-awesome, Michael, and we still love you" commercial ready?

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

Filed under Cullers, Michael Phelps, Olympics, TBWA, TV, Visa
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