The Best: After I screwed up as a kid and everything cooled down, my dad would always try to look for a lesson to be learned. It was a . . . → Read More: The Best of Times and Worst of Times: Nike Golf’s “Earl and Tiger” Ad]]> I have two takes on Tiger’s first new ad with Nike Golf after all that’s happened over the past six months. It’s a pretty even split for me.

The Best: After I screwed up as a kid and everything cooled down, my dad would always try to look for a lesson to be learned. It was a way to allow me close the book on messing up, dust myself off and move on. It’s powerful to listen to Tiger’s dad doing that same thing for him after he’s gone.

I also think it’s good that Tiger Woods finally looks human. Kind of tired and a little sad. He is no longer the tenacious winning machine of a few years ago in these 30 seconds.

The Worst: Earl is dead. Tiger messed up. Really, really badly. I know…let’s mash those two things together to pull on the ol’ heartstrings so we can keep selling Nike stuff!! I wouldn’t fault anyone who gets that “lawyer chasing after an ambulance” feeling from this ad.

The latest burst of inspiration from the folks at PETA is the attempt to re-brand fish as “sea kittens.”

Apparently, the core of this campaign is the thought that fish got dealt a lousy hand at the PR Beauty Card Table. If our watery brethren weren’t slimy and didn’t have pointy heads, we all . . . → Read More: Would You Eat a Sea Kitten? I Sure Would!]]>

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The latest burst of inspiration from the folks at PETA is the attempt to re-brand fish as “sea kittens.”

Apparently, the core of this campaign is the thought that fish got dealt a lousy hand at the PR Beauty Card Table. If our watery brethren weren’t slimy and didn’t have pointy heads, we all would be filled with warmth and feel bad about making fish sticks.

The About Our Campaign page from the site seems to track the bum rap for fish…I mean Sea Kittens…back to Mr. Spielberg and Jaws.  Make one shark the villain in a blockbuster movie and the whole sea has to suffer.

Granted, I am blogging about the campaign and talking about Sea Kittens with my friends and co-workers, so PETA is getting the concept out, but COME ON! Junk like this just further alienates the people who PETA is trying to persuade. This campaign is a boatload of evidence for the skeptics who think PETA is a bunch of wackos without any connection to real life here on Earth.  The bedtime stories for kids come across as something I would see on Stephen Colbert’s show. But I am fairly sure they weren’t kidding.

One of the first things you need to do if you want to persuade me to do something is make me feel like you understand me. It’s all about me. Start with me.

Once you’ve established some rapport and I feel like you get me, then you can start to explore what I think about pre-owned cars or Nike shoes or Adam Sandler movies or about food and how I feel about eating other creatures. This campaign jumps right over any chance they may have had at me taking them seriously and splashes into the water, right next to the shark.

And his name is Bruce.