Warning: Contents May Be Very Hard-Working

This morning, I found myself freelancing in Indiana by 8 o'clock. This means I was awake at 5:45am. I've been unemployed for two months. This is not something I am accustomed to.

I needed caffeine and I needed gasoline. I found them both at a Speedway/Burger King combo near my destination, so I pulled in to refuel. The coffee machine at the BK carried the slogan "Good hard working coffee". BK's positioning their simple (from concentrate, even) morning brew against the foufy coffee made popular by Starbucks, and since adopted by the likes of Dunkin' Donuts and McDonalds. It's not an original position, but it works better for Burger King and its clientele than anywhere else I've seen.


Every customer who walked into the place in the half-hour I had to kill in Schererville was a blue-collar guy in torn jeans and steel-toed boots (except, conspicuously, for one woman in scrubs). They each stepped up, and took their choice of the decaf, normal, or turbo (so powerful it's available only behind the counter) varieties of hard-working Joe. They aren't looking for caramel in the morning, just a good kick in the ass. And apparently drinking bitter coffee just means you're hard. I thought the coffee sucked (though others would disagree with me on that point, it seems), but I'm a big fan of the marketing, and the niche they're serving. Far more convincing than "English, not Fritalian".

Here we go.

I'd been planning on starting a blog with which to chronicle all of my ad-related thoughts for awhile now, but as a part of my "do nothing until you get a job" plan, I hadn't allowed myself to make one. Or exercise.

I'll be aiming for once a weekday, but we'll see how that goes when I start working on all those days.

For now, let's just start with this:


I love this commercial, despite the celebrity endorsement. I think there are just few brands that can get away with it, but Element 79 leverages the increasingly popular celebrity-cameo-endorsement-by-association (somebody think up a better name) technique well for Gatorade. It's pretty entertaining, even if it smacks a little of Nike's Briscoe High Football effort from last summer.