While the National Geographic tells us that “Texas and Mexico brace for Dolly,” the rest of the nation, sadly, braces for thousands of bad “Hello, Dolly” puns, courtesy headline writers and TV newscasters from coast to coast. It could get ugly, folks. Prepare for the worst.

Ooops! Too late - it’s already made landfall.

Sigh.

This isn’t really advertising- or marketing-related in any way, but it’s very cool and adorable nonetheless. Thusly, we share with you:

Feist on Sesame Street.

Our only question: Where’s the Count? This would seem to be right up his alley.

Enjoy.

Today’s award comes courtesy a firm calling itself Mobile Edge, which designs and manufactures TSA-compliant laptop bags and briefcases. The bags are designed to facilitate faster trips through TSA security lines at airports; as frequent business travelers ourselves, we can honestly say anything that helps to make our trips through TSA lines more efficient are welcome, even if we’re dubious as to how effective the bags may actually be.

Where the adventure begins, for us at least, is in Mobile Edge’s tagline. It’s three simple, but we think very misguided words: “Bring it on.” Now, we understand the overwhelming urge to have a little fun wordplay going on here; it can be read to literally mean that the bags are so effective you can bring them on the plane with no hassles from TSA. Where this taglines runs into issues for us, however, is in the weighted and notorious history behind the phrase. Plus, there’s just too much macho posturing behind the whole conceit - for us, at least.

You’d think - and we’d hope - someone somewhere within Mobile Edge along the line thought, You know, something seems off about that tagline. I feel like I’ve heard it before. Instead, by learning about Mobile Edge, the public is reminded of our Fearless Leader exorting insurgents to attack our troops - a challenge they took him up on thousands upon thousands of times. And, for some people, that’s what they’ll think of when they think of Mobile Edge.Â

Comes courtesy our friends at PRWeek:

“Empire State Building hires Edelman for repositioning”

Where, pray tell, do they plan on moving the ESB to? And, if you’re going to reposition one of the world’s largest and most iconic structures, wouldn’t you want to hire, say, an architect or engineer instead of a PR firm?

Or is that just us? Or is it just because it’s Friday afternoon?

OK, we’ll admit: The all-too-common site of someone walking just about anywhere in public, jabbering away loudly on a cellphone, bearing all sorts of details and insights into their personal or professional lives that we need not know about, tends to illicit one of two reactions from us:

1) Indifference
2) Outright hostility 

It most certainly is not happiness. Especially if we’re already in a bad mood to begin with.

Which is why this sappy ad from U.S. Cellular grates on us so much. And we have a feeling we’re not alone. Another part of the problem is that the ad offers no product advantages or differentiating factors to separate U.S. Cellular from its competition. If the mere act of walking down the street will make the world smile, why would it need to be on a US Cellular phone?

Bad ad all around - especially because you will generate active negativity in those who view it (in the form of someone who, oh, feels compelled to go online and rant about it) as opposed to the afmorementioned indifference or even passive negativity.

Harumph.

Apparently, Wired’s Gadget Lab blog likes Nokia’s new smartphone so much, it compared thee to a mullet. Nokia’s response: “Thanks?” Our question: If it is indeed a smartphone, where in the hell do you type on the thing?

If it is not dead already, the commercial as we know it is dying. On life support. Ceasing to be. Becoming no more. Surviving on borrowed time. It’s a death that’s been a long time in the works; the advent and subsequent onslaught of DVR technology has merely sped up the process.

The exponential growth of DVRs can be attributed to two key benefits: the ability to record and watch programming at your own leisure, of course; and, the ability to skip through commercials. It’s this second benefit that’s proven to be quite the challenge for advertisers and marketers. Most are coming up with lazy, ill-thought-out solutions force feeding ads down viewers’ throats.

Case in point: TBS. Who thought it would be a good to pause a show mid-stream to pimp the new season of one of your shows? Here’s what you accomplish when you do this: You anger and annoy the very people you want to watch the show. I’d go so far as to say that, if that happened to me, I’d go out of my way not to watch your new show. I’d probably make sure you knew that, too.

Some marketers get it; some obviously still do not: The challenge today is being less intrusive, not more. This is much more intrusive. And, therefore, much less effective.

You know, not everyone in the our humble little hometown here is a slack-jawed, smooth-brained, mouth-breathing oaf, staring in wide-eyed wonder at a sizzling plate of fajitas. They may make up the majority, but we’re not all like that.

Oh, who are we kidding - it’s just an honor to have them think of us.

…but we tend to think a part of GM’s recent woes in selling cars has to do with its vehicle pricing. Either this particular vehicle is loaded with 70 kilos of high-grade Columbian coke in its underbody, or someone threw in a comma where a decimal point was meant to be.

…it’s not horsing around!

Wait, where’s everybody going? Hello? Is this thing on?