Caught the brand new Gap commercial during tonight’s episode of “30 Rock.” Despite the fact that it features 30 seconds of Claire Danes romping around a soundset unburdened by pants, the commercial is yet another in a long line of marketing missteps taken by the ailing retailer. What the ad wizards out in San Fran failed to realize when they greenlit this campaign is that Frankensteining your way into a marketing strategy is bad business, plain and simple.

What do I mean by Frankensteining? It’s when a client takes the “good” parts of two distinct campaigns and attempts to mash them into one single idea. This frequently happens when clients are either too lazy or too rushed to take the time to work with their agency to flesh out their ideas. In this case, The Gap and their agency tried to Frankenstein a new spot by combining the best parts of two of their most iconic campaigns — their late `90s Khaki spots (you know, the ones scored with Brian Setzer, Crystal Method, etc.) and their early `00s celebrity sing-a-longs. However, what they ended up with here is a lame dance-off (Zoolander stizz) that’s scored to a song that could NOT be any more culturally irrelevant in 2007 (”Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better”, from Annie Get Your Gun).

See folks, this is what happens when you try to Frankenstein your way into a marketing strategy. At the end of the day, you’re left with nothing to show but another in a long line of boring and insipid spots that aren’t likely to drive any extra foot traffic to your stores. Except, of course, if you were aiming at the 65+ demo … rumor has it they LOVE the Ethel Merman. [video courtesy of Catwalk Queen]

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Sunday nights, gotta love ‘em. If it’s after 8pm, more often than not you’ll find your Uncle Grambo comfortably numb on the couch, knocking back a Bailey’s or three from my prized Lismore old-fashioned. Last night was no exception, as The Senator and I spent our evening watching the stars of small and silver screen preen in their best Sunday duds, Golden Globe stizz. But then, something happened that changed just about everything…

You see, I was well on my way to making an 11pm appointment with The Sandman when I saw something that appeared to be the reanimated corpse of Orville Redenbacher flash on my TV screen. Shaking the slumber from my eyes (I’m guessing I was at least 10 fingers deep into my commemorative tin of Bailey’s at this point), I bolted upright and quickly realized that ORVILLE REDENBACHER WAS WAXING POETIC ABOUT THE CHARMS OF HIS 30 GIG MP3 PLAYER! After a matter of seconds, it sank in that I was experiencing a brand-new low in advertising; yes, this digitally-restored version of the beloved popcorn pitchman had even less buzz than the infamous spot where Fred Astaire danced with a Dirt Devil. This zombified CGI monstrosity must be seen to be believed, which is why I busted out my digital camera (not the one stolen by strippers, mind you) and recorded this gloriously bootleg vid for all y’all to watch and mock endlessly. YouTube, whut whut?!?

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