Byline: Bob Garfield
Dove
Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto.
"Evolution,'' the Cannes Grand Prix-winning viral
about the perversion of beauty standards, was a tough act to follow. So,
naturally, the follow-up is even better. "Onslaught''-which dramatizes the
endless, irresistible barrage of unrealistic "beauty'' images-is not quite
so riveting as "Evolution'' but it's more explicitly indicting of the
culture, including advertising itself.
JC Penney
Saatchi & Saatchi, New York
Kevin Roberts' "Lovemarks'' sounds suspiciously
like the branding of generic ad emotion. Nonetheless, consider us marked. The
lovely spot "Calendar'' casts a magical spell that makes you go all gooey
about the third-best department store in the mall-a spell broken only by
actually entering a JC Penney.
Wal-Mart
Martin Agency, Richmond, Va.
The acting and direction aren't much, and the
heavy-handed placement of logos is obnoxious, but the strategy of putting a
concrete valuation-a Florida vacation, for example-on aggregate savings is
simply brilliant. Save by spending-then spend the savings. Why, it's so ... American.
Wendy's
Saatchi & Saatchi, New York
The ridiculous red "Wendy'' wig as a symbol
consumer defiance, of accepting nothing less than cooked-to-order. Sadly, so
far, the executions have been utterly uninspired. But all but a few of Dave
Thomas's hundreds of scripts were too. No problem. This is a Big Idea.
H&R Block
Campbell Mithun, Minneapolis
What was 2007-the Year of Insights? This one was
probably the best. "I got people'' actually invested the mundane (and
often completely unnecessary) act of consulting with a strip-mall tax preparer
with the prestige attached to having an entourage or network of highly placed
connections. It makes Joe 1040-EZ feel like a play-uh. The poor schmuck.
Sonic
Barkley, Kansas City, Mo.
Thanks to DirectTV, we finally discovered this
4-year-old campaign featuring various pairs of improv comics at the Sonic
drive-thru. The byplay is laugh-out-loud funny yet somehow natural, even though
it is 100% about product features.
Diamond Emerald Nuts
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco.
Around midafternoon, in a work world of soul-sucking
cubicles, everybody gets a little woozy. Fatigue plus boredom plus the
depletion of the post-lunch blood-sugar spike equals Snack Emergency. The
message here: Eat our nuts to stave off drowsiness or else Robert Goulet will
sneak into your cube and mess your stuff up. And there he is, on tiptoe,
committing office vandalism! Hilarious, God rest his soul.
Nationwide Insurance
TM, Dallas
"Life Comes at You Fast,'' this company has been
saying for a while, so be prepared. But finally the right gimmick: to use
somebody who actually has been blindsided by misfortune. Kevin Federline, the
ex-Mr. Britney Spears, sportingly permits himself to be portrayed as fast-food
deep-fryer fantasizing about a solo rap career.
California Horse Track Association
Rubin Postaer Associates, Santa Monica, Calif.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. So says the most
popular tourism campaign ever. But what if it isn't true? That's what the
California racing establishment wonders aloud in a campaign to persuade
Californians to squander their money at home-lest Vegas indiscretions (some
named "Misty'') come home to roost.
La-Z-Boy
RPA, Santa Monica, Calif.
It's not called Varie-T-Boy. It's not called
Val-U-Boy. Anyone entering a La-Z-Boy furniture gallery is looking, first and
foremost, to get La-Zied. It's all about the comfort, as three odd and very
funny TV spots (and one odd and very unfunny TV spot) make abundantly clear.
Also abundantly enticing.
bgarfield@adage.com
Garfield, Bob
r� 6 h pB �?B ion before 1776,
Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2000.
(With Grant Walker and Randall Balmer) Religion in
American Life: A Short History, Oxford University Press (New York, NY),
2000, updated edition, 2007.
Religion in Colonial America, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2000.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: American
Art from the Yale University Art Gallery,
Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2007.
New World Faiths: Religion in Colonial America, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2007.
Also author of the booklet "Religion and
Witchcraft in Early American Society," Forum Press, 1974. Coeditor of
the series "Religion in American Life," Oxford University
Press (New York, NY). Contributor to encyclopedias and other books, including Mapping
America's Past, edited by Mark C. Carnes and John A. Garraty, 1996; and Myer
Myers: Jewish Silversmith in Colonial New York, by David L. Barquist, Yale
University Press (New Haven, CT), 2001. Contributor to history journals.
ADAPTATIONS:
Awash in a Sea of Faith
was a source for a four-part British television documentary, The Fate of
Faith: Religion in Britain and America, broadcast in England in 1991, and
for the PBS documentary special, Telegrams from the Dead, broadcast in
1994.
SIDELIGHTS:
Jon Butler is the author of Becoming America: The
Revolution before 1776. A Publishers Weekly contributor who reviewed
the book said that Butler "shows that the colonies were developing
distinct ways of spending, building, praying, decorating, and politicking even
then—a cultural revolution that anticipated the political revolution that
was to follow." "This detailed overview brings fresh insight to the
era," wrote Grant A. Fredericksen in Library Journal.
In Religion in American Life: A Short History
(which, at nearly 550 pages, is not as superficial as the title might imply),
Butler and his coauthors look at the impact of religious faith and practices on
a highly diverse population over several centuries. New England Protestant
Christianity figures prominently in this study, as it does in American history,
but is not the central focus of the book. Butler, in particular, turns his
attention to non-white, non-Protestant elements of colonial North America.
Philip Jenkins reported in Books and Culture that Butler and his
colleagues "offer a wonderfully polychrome account, giving the most
extensive coverage I have ever seen in such a general history of Native
spiritual traditions and their interactions with Catholic authorities."
The book also covers African American practices, which often occurred outside
the traditional church setting, as well as Roman Catholic worship as it was
conducted by Spanish and French settlers. Library Journal contributor
James A. Overbeck offered a different opinion of the book, citing scant
coverage of Jewish, Muslim, and Asian religions in American life. Jenkins
expressed reservations about the part of the book that offered commentary by
coauthor Randall Balmer about the more recent elements of American religious
practice (New Age groups, for instance, or the Promise Keepers) and how well
his coverage of potentially transitory movements will stand the test of time. Church
History contributor Peter W. Williams wrote, however, that "in the
realm of American religious history, one can hardly do better than Religion
in American Life." He recommended the book particularly to "the uninitiated,"
adding: "The initiated, however, might also read it for its felicity of
narrative and the moments of illumination that fine scholars can inject even
into stories we have all heard before."
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
American Historical Review, December, 1995, Charles H. Lippy, "Religion in a Revolutionary
Age," p. 1669.
American Studies International, February, 2001, Joel Hodson, review of Becoming America: The
Revolution before 1776, p. 144.
Books and Culture,
January-February, 2003, Philip Jenkins, review of Religion in American Life:
A Short History, p. 19.
Church History,
March, 2004, Peter W. Williams, review of Religion in American Life, p.
239.
English Historical Review,
September, 2001, Simon Middleton, review of Becoming America, p. 968.
History: Review of New Books, spring, 2000, Alan D. Watson, review of Becoming America, p.
109.
Journal of Southern History, February, 2002, Jack P. Greene, review of Becoming America, p.
153.
Kliatt, March, 2002, John E.
Boyd, review of Becoming America, p. 33.
Library Journal,
March 15, 2000, Grant A. Fredericksen, review of Becoming America, p.
102; December, 2002, James Overbeck, review of Religion in American Life,
p. 134.
Los Angeles Times Book Review, January 7, 1990, review of Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing
the American People, p. 9.
New York Times Book Review, April 1, 1990, Jan Lewis, review of Awash in a Sea of Faith, p.
33.
Publishers
Weekly,
February 21, 2000, review of Becoming America, p. 73.