The medium rectangle banner ad, clearly created in Tracfone’s CI instead fo Wal-Mart, actually brought me deeper into Wal-Mart’s site, to a special offer page featuring Tracfone.

Kind of a neat Media Sales Opportunity for Wal-Mart. You can sell ad space to your vendors, then use those impressions and clicks to increase visit time and page views within your own site. Tracfone wins because people buy more Tracfones, and Wal-Mart wins because people buys more Tracfones from Walmart and they get paid to promote it.

It’s nothing new for retail in-store, but this is a really cool way to roll that out in the interactive world. [Can't believe I'm saying this, but] Way to go, Wal-Mart!

Allstate, perhaps inspired by CP+B’s VW Crash ads, has really taken that shadow and turned it into a powerful brand message. And because of it, came up with a :30 that really cuts through the “low rates” and “it’s easy” clutter that’s bogging down the industry’s branding.

The last thing any parent wants to think about is, “What if my kid gets into a car accident and dies”. And it’s the last thing any client would ever want to sign off on. But this message on the thousands of teenagers who die in car accidents puts the insurance message in the back seat and connects to parents as people. It’s a spot that doesn’t have to resort to shock or surprise, or even stunty gags. A clean visual metaphor carries the message home in a emotionally touching way.

It’s always nice to see brands take the “boring” briefs and the mandatories, and turn them into refreshing, thought-provoking spots. Nice work by Leo Burnett.

The Alliance for Climate Protection, the global warming watchdog group famously led by Al Gore, released this first spot today.  Credits go to the Martin Agency, though as far as credits go, this one doesn’t deserve much.

Strategically, there’s not much to be proud of here. This spot tries to tap into Americans’ national pride. A sort of “we’ve had the answer before…We’ll have it this time, too.” All in all, it’s about the least realistic message they could have hoped for. It’s reassuring, not alarming. It doesn’t seem to insituate that you’ll have to do anything. You can turn your AC up in your gas-guzzling SUV; We’ll fight global warming. Which is exactly where this spot begins to unravel.

The target audience for this campaign is a joke. The spot seems to speak to Baby Boomers and older. What 20-something you know of is emotionally roused by D-Day anymore? To what forward-thinking American is the Space Race anything other than a curiousity from the past? Advertising 101 insists that if you’re trying to convince people to change the world, people over the age of 50 aren’t going to do it for you. This campaign reaches to an apathetic middle in such a bland way that it’s not going to move anyone to do anything.

Creatively, it’s a mess.

Three examples of how we “didn’t wait,” designed to inspire pride and confidence.
1. America’s policy in WWII
2. America and race relations
3. America and the Space Race

Anybody who knows the first thing about American history knows that these are about the three worst examples you could find to prove America’s quickness to solve problems. America let Hitler ravage Europe for five years while clinging to a poorly-guided philosophy of neutrality. Half the developed world still thinks of Americans as being ass-backwards in terms of racial equality. And we didn’t get anything into space until the Soviets had already gotten two satellites and a dog there.

There’s a small part of you that prays that this is all the joke. That this spot’s not about pride, it’s about shame. With a blandly positive “we can solve this” attitude, it could have just as easily been tagged with a GE “Ecomagination” ending or Chevy’s “This is Our Country”.

Bottom line is this, Al: If you want to save the world from global warming, you’re never gonna do it this way.

This morning, the Wall Street Journal broke the story, and an Ad Age Article that Element 79 lost the accounts that made them who they are: PepsiCo’s Gatorade and Tropicana.

“But wait,” you surely say. “They still have other accounts. They’ll find somebody else who will buy what they’re selling: surprising and interesting creative that shows a passion for the product.” But whether or not they stay afloat, Element 79 has lost an important part of itself today.

Element 79 was born in 2001, the baby of a Chicago agency monolith: DDB. Despite sharing a home with a parent used to the budgets of Capital One and Bud Light (and the lack of creativity that often dogs such deep pockets), 79 somehow stood out as a creative fortress in the thirty-somethingth floor of a high rise.

Practically founded to handle PepsiCo business, 79 made its reputation on famed Gatorade spots. But there were more arrows in their quiver. They found a way to make ladies’ pro golf cool. They finally made ads for Life cereal that made us forget about Mikey (and whether or not he died from a PopRocks-related castrophe).

And today the last bit of its heritage has been carved off and sold away to another Omnicom stepsibling. As the aforementioned cereal commercial boasted, “LIFE is full of surprises.” 79 and Gatorade were an advertising institution. And suddenly it’s vanished in a world where sports drinks are as hotly contested a category as beer. So excuse me if my reports of 79′s loss is a little premature. It’s not whether 79 will continue to live that’s concerning; it’s not the loss of life I’m mourning today: 79 can surely bounce back. But as to its quality of life, only time will tell.

This New Balance anthem, creatively enough called, simply “Anthem,” captures the genre perfectly. It raises a flag with patriotic devotion to the brand. It’s stunningly written and art directed in an eerily postmodern way. And it’s payoff is brilliant. It takes the product name and makes it the brand promise, not unlike a previous NB campaign, which urged viewers to “Achieve New Balance.” But what really sticks out about this Anthem is what surely is the brief behind it. And the one key insight that speaks to everyone who’s ever called himself a runner.

Running is an exercise in masochism. We hate ourselves for what it does to our knees, our sleep, our lives. But we love it so much we couldln’t live without it.

It’s torturous and darker than any shoe commercial has right to be. But so is every runner’s outlook on his sport. And for that, this Anthem perfectly targeted. It nails the brief. And that’s the kind of spot you take your hat off to.

This blog is dedicated to finding great account work. It comes up in the unlikeliest and unglamorous of places–client meetings, briefs and strategy decks. But the best Work is as much a reflection of the AE as it is the CW or AD. And a good AE–a Creative AE–believes in the Work more than anybody else. He (or she) is the last line of defense for an idea –for the client, for legal, for the reality of production, timing, and budget.

Let great account work finally shine.