EV and hybrid vehicle advertising is starting to tempt me

| January 13, 2024

The advertising from Tesla is working on me as the range and charging infrastructure continues to improve. Having driven and watched my son-in-law use his Tesla Model3 (mostly for daily commuting) since 2019 with impressive success, a Model3 might make a great second car … IF the price were lower or incentives better (perhaps a […]

Those TV commercials that trigger emulation #video

| November 4, 2023

Occasionally a television commercial tickles my funny bone and makes me smile every time it comes on the TV. My wife knows that I’ll be emulating the “sometimes all it takes is a piece of pie to bring a little sunshine in their life again” (with a very flawed southern accent). Unfortunately for Fox News […]

Google advertising and Gmail, if you believe it (+AI voice)

| April 28, 2023

Do you trust that Google isn’t using your emails to push advertising to you? Personally I’m thinking this might be a “sleight of hand” considering the cookies and the fact you are signed into your Google account and search are used in advertising. Perhaps they aren’t using the content of Gmail to generate advertising, but […]

The 1986 Mazda James Garner ad was a favorite #TBT

| October 27, 2022

Favorite actors pitching products has been a staple in the advertising business for a long time … probably because it works! Shortly after this Gigi and James Garner commercial came out for Mazda 323 in 1986, we bought a “new” 1988 Mazda 626 turbo that replaced a Volkswagen Golf (MK2 Wolfsburg edition). To this day […]

Tech Friday: Surprised at the recent increase in blog traffic

| December 10, 2021

The surprise increase in blog traffic corresponded to my taking a few more security measures such as locking down more of the personal content to only logged in readers … but I’m not sure that had anything to do with increasing earnings? Still, I noticed upward change (more than doubling) of Google Adsense earnings and […]

A response test, but also an online advertising warning

| October 28, 2021

I noticed that Thursday’s post disappeared from the blog so in a quick attempt to repost the graphic, here we go again. One of the “very small” perks of using the Brave browser on the web is that it offers the option to accept fairly non-invasive advertising and links on the default home page and […]

Another Music Monday TV theme song from an in-my-opinion effective Applebee’s commercial with “Cheers” intro

| June 21, 2021

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Music Monday: a commercial for Applebees, John Sebastian, Television themes songs and Welcome Back Kotter (1975-1979)

| June 7, 2021

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We’ve come a long way from “Reach Out and Touch Someone”

| April 14, 2020

Once upon a time, families who only snail-mailed cards and letters would on special occasions, like Easter, dial their corded rotary phones and pay for an expensive long distance call in order to “Reach Out and Touch Someone” as the marketing jingle would advertise (a 1970s commercial below the break). I remembered many phone calls […]

Music Monday: Pandora streaming on the Brave Browser ad-free?

| April 13, 2020

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New Windshield … but the Facebook advertising is too timely

| December 15, 2019

I’ve often questioned just how much data is being collected by Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc … but considering I’m a relatively light user of FB … getting push timely advertising is a bit creepy. I called my insurance company last week for a windshield repair/replacement for our 2010 BMW X5 35d and handled the entire […]

Do you recycle or think about your environmental footprint?

| July 24, 2019

As a conservation minded “conservative” and as someone who has always balanced the cost vs benefits of decisions, I once thought “recycling” was as simple as “not littering” and cleaning up pollution highlighted by the 1971 ad campaign (Iron Eyes Cody photo above). From an early age we were bombarded by pointing out how careless […]

Learning about the Packard Twelve leaves me curious #TBT

| January 10, 2019

While reading a few interesting older blog posts at Consumer Guide, my Twitter friend Tom Appel (@Car_Guy_Tom) post got me thinking about the strange company that seemed to be trying to revitalize the Packard car brand. The company built a prototype some years ago and by attending a few shows, generated some attention with the […]

What a good looking car – 1982 Mercedes Benz 300D Turbodiesel

| October 13, 2018

A friend from a Facebook group posted a 1982 Mercedes Benz advertisement with a W123 beauty – I thought it looked pretty close to my ‘82 MB 300D Turbodiesel. Nice! When the W123 went out of production in 1986 it had surpassed the Stroke Eight as the bestselling Mercedes-Benz with more than 2.5 million cars […]

Tech Friday: Yahoo and AOL sift through your emails

| August 31, 2018

Tech news this week highlighted Yahoo and AOL brand email services. There are still plenty of users still using them and unknowingly being spied on (including me since I still use Yahoo for "junk" mail — I started with AOL & Yahoo in the early 1990s kept the simple rdc2@ addresses). The search algorithms and […]

TechFriday: Circumventing AdBlocker detection websites

| May 26, 2017

Are you tired of more and more sites with pop-ups blocking content and asking your to whitelist their sites from your browsers ad blocking extension if you want to read their content? Then read on. First, I’m an advocate for advertiser supported websites and appreciate readers who occasionally read and click the few ads that are semi-hidden […]

Those Values.com TV commercials strike a chord

| March 7, 2016

Who doesn’t enjoy the short breaks between the hour upon hour of negative news on TV? The Values.com and RandomActsofKindness.org organizations are a worthy humanitarian outreach.

Vistaprint has one of the better television commercials

| February 17, 2015

Vistaprint produced a great television commercial that is currently running on a couple national cable channels. Perhaps I like it because it is “printing” or “entrepreneur” related, but the passing down of a small business does tug at my heart strings. (here’s an additional video on the making of the commercial).

Roll Global Wonderful Pistachios Get Crackin’ ad campaign

| March 1, 2014

I’m intrigued with marketing and advertising when it comes to what makes people tick. We see something and then decide to buy it. My education is not in marketing per se, but I know that I respond just as the advertising agency intended once in a while. Sometimes it is a newspaper or magazine ad […]

Adsense update with disappointing results

| January 22, 2014

This past weekend was “blog cleanup” as I am in the process of optimizing WordPress on my site and updating the plugin that manages Google’s Adsense — at one time I thought they were non-intrusive, but recently have become obnoxious. Unfortunately after tweaking the size and types of ads they seem even worse that before. […]

Surprising what high powered website can do for blog traffic

| April 14, 2012

I noticed a spike in my normal web traffic the other day as a weekend post was mentioned on a high traffic website. As someone who posts to a tiny personal blog, it still amazes me how many clicks and visitors My Desultory Blog generates. Over the years I have also noticed that viewers are […]

Lackluster sales this past year-how about a new marketing plan?

| December 27, 2011

This past week has been a bit more relaxed since selling this time of year is challenging.  I focused on looking back at the past year, but I still tried to connect with a few of my well established customers. In keeping communication light, I asked what would make me more effective and welcomed when […]

Yes it is an ad, but the Rube Goldberg Machine is impressive

| July 25, 2011

Since I didn’t finish a longer winded write up last night that I had planned for this morning, I’ll just include a rather impressive Mousetrap style advertising web video below; it took a lot of creativity and work. This is our Photography-themed Rube Goldberg Machine. We hope you all enjoy the clip! Watch our video […]

A Happy Father’s Day to fellow dads in changing times

| June 20, 2010

We had my dad over to our house this past week and enjoyed celebrating Father’s Day a bit early on Thursday evening. The conversation was great while reviewing photos from our trip to Washington DC and reflecting on what a great example my dad has been for me. He did a great job in a […]

Humor: “Bring a chicken to the doctor” – funny campaign ad

| April 24, 2010

This campaign ad is juvenile even for a Harry Reid, but it’ had me laughing pretty hard. Sorry Sue Lowden, even though I’d comfortably vote for your over your opponent Senator Harry Reid (if I lived in Nevada), it’s just too funny not to share. Hmm, I wonder if my daughter will be able to […]

Advertising that catches fresh attention

| January 31, 2010

Joe Guerrera in the Bronx NY has some great truck advertising to promote his fish wholesale business … Meat Without Feet. His business is based out of the New Fulton Fish Market at Hunts Point (800 Food Center Drive, Unit #99, Bronx, NY 10474). I enjoyed his truck ads so much that I don’t mind […]

Ferris Bueller DirecTV ad

| May 17, 2006

Twenty years after its debute, DirecTV has capitalized on the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with a with a commercial sure to make a few of us grin. Who can forget Ben Stein as the dull … I mean dull … teacher taking attendance — “Bueller, Bueller …” Kudos to DirecTV’s ad agency for nabbing […]

Of Ghosts and Goblins …

| October 31, 2005

A friend of mine is always coming up with interesting ‘car related’ news and emails … he has forwarded me this one for Halloween; its a bit of a stretch to see the ‘ghost,’ but worth ‘scaring’ … I mean ‘sharing’ here. This is a car advertisement from Great Britain. When they finished filming the […]

Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
My Desultory Blog