The Smarmy Carny

As I mentioned in an August post, Advertising Week held a poll during August and September to vote for your favorite advertising icon and favorite slogan. The winners were announced today and will be inducted into the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame this afternoon.

The two 2006 icon winners were Colonel Sanders and the Kool-Aid Man. The two winning slogans were "Don’t Mess With Texas" and "When it Absolutely, Positively Has to Be There Overnight."

I am not thrilled with the winners this year, but there's always next year!

New Numa!

Gary Brolsma, the guy thrust into online fame via his video "The Numa Numa Dance," is back with a new video and a new dance!

Earlier this month, NewNuma.com appeared. Lo and behold, Gary finally returned at everyone's request to create a New Numa video along with his band, The Nowadays.

The newly released song "New Numa" has Russian lyrics and is performed by Minnesotan Chad Russell. It is reminiscent of O-Zone's "Dragosta Din Tei" (the original song used in the Numa Numa Dance).

Watch New Numa now:

NewNuma.com is also hosting a contest with a total of $45,000 given out in prize money to the top winners. Details will not be released until September 22, but it looks like it will probably be a "make your own video" contest.

Today I was tagged by Jono over at *insert witty title here* to play a word association game.

Here are the five words provided for me, followed by my associations:

• Stick — Post-It
• Bottle — Message
• Mint — Listerine
• Camera — Lens
• Trolley — San Francisco

I hereby dissolve myself from any conclusions anyone might make — trained or otherwise — regarding these thoughts from my subconscious. It's disturbing to me, however, that 3/5 of my answers are proper nouns. Two companies and one city. Perhaps I'm merely a product of television and advertisements. At least my Trolley answer wasn't Rice-A-Roni (the San Francisco treat).

And now, I pass the torch along to 5 more bloggers. Here are the 5 random words for them:

• Kumquat — ?
• Gobbledygook — ?
• Lollygag — ?
• Diphthong — ?
• Masticate — ?

You can always count on me to be less traditional and more eccentric than the rest.

And here are the five bloggers I am tagging:

• Jule Ann - Who is Jule Ann?
• xenomouse - Screaming for Mercy
• Marlene - Buffalo Tales from South Wales
• Abigail - Shotsnaps
• Jim - According to Jim…

Of course, these five wonderful people are obligated to post their responses on their own blog, choose five new words, and tap five other people to play!

OK, so I cheated and picked not-so-random words. All the words I selected were from my list of 100+ Fun Words to Say. So sue me! (Disclaimer: By "sue," what I really mean is "place no legal action against.")

Update: The 2006 winners have been announced!

For most of August and September, you can vote for your favorite icon and your favorite slogan.

Previous icon winners include the M&M Characters, the Geico Gecko, and the Pillsbury Doughboy. Slogan winners include Wendy's "Where's the beef?" and Verizon's "Can you hear me now?" This year, you can choose only one of 26 icons and also one of 26 slogans. Trust me, for fans of pop culture, it's not an easy choice. Next year, I suggest that they allow people up to 5 votes to spread around.

For the third consecutive year, Advertising Week is conducting this poll to determine which two icons and slogans are added to the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame.

On September 29th, you'll be able to head back to Advertising Week to see who won this year.

Do you see any favorite icons or slogans that are missing? The icon I am surprised didn't make the list is Ronald McDonald. The missing slogan that I just can't believe didn't make the list is Miller Lite's "Tastes great! Less filling!"

Do you see any other icons or slogans missing? Comment here and let your opinion be known!

Here's how the monitor chain works:

Photograph this blog post (including your monitor and its immediate surroundings), and post the resulting pic on your blog. Then, the next person photographs your blog post and posts it, and so on. Leave your post URL in the comments so people will be able to follow the chain, and link your image to the post you photographed… this way people will be able to zoom into the monitors by clicking.

Here's the site I photographed: shattering.org [site] [monitor chain post]

I spy . . .

Let's get ready to RUUUMBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLE!!!

It's on now, dog! Lucky Charms and Grape Nuts are battling head to head in the Champion of Breakfasts final!

Who will you vote for? Who will it be — Lucky Charms or Grape Nuts?

VOTE NOW!

No, really . . . why are you still reading this? You should be voting. Yeah, up there . . . and yet, you still read. There's no teaching these kids these days!

I forgot to post the Ate 8 bracket when it started. Happy belated bracket!