Sure, the auto giant’s centerpiece ad (“I was made for you”) gets style points. But its game plan was straight out of the Mark Spitz era rather than the streamlined marketing age of Michael Phelps.

Brand image ads simply don’t work any more. Especially when you’re trying to promote eight different brands under the same tattered umbrella.

Perhaps GM is finally getting the point. It announced yesterday that it’s pulling out of the Emmy and Oscar Awards calling the costs “difficult to justify.” This is the company’s last year as a major Olympics’ sponsor, too.

GM needs to think more like a focused brand manager than a holding company if it wants to succeed. Ask yourself: When was the last time you saw a Procter & Gamble corporate ad? (Exactly.)

Gap has been having a lousy millennium. Same-store sales are down again this year—6 percent through the end of July.

The fashion retailer hopes to pull out of its nosedive when it introduces its first full collection by new head designer Patrick Robinson this fall.

Gap’s new B&W ads for the line are gorgeous. But they look like dozens of previous Gap campaigns—just with a troupe of less famous celebs.

If Gap wants to promote that it is changing, shouldn’t the company change its advertising, too?

“… there are psychology studies, when you tell people that information is incorrect, they forget it is incorrect. They only remember the misinformation.”

If you got a chance to read Errol Morris’s essay on photo manipulation, you may recognize that quote from Dartmouth professor, Hany Farid.

Farid’s point applies to far more than photography. It includes books like “Obama Nation,” the controversial tome that skipped to No. 1 on The New York TImes best-seller list this week.

The Obama campaign struck back swiftly yesterday, posting a terse rebuttal on its Fight the Smears website.

Unfortunately, as Farid’s quote points out, the damage may already have been done, even if only among a small fraction of voters. And, as recent elections have proven, sometimes that’s all it takes.

Obama needs to get off the beach and on the offensive, or he’ll spend the next 80 days merely fighting off his opponent’s punches. I’m already bracing for footage of Obama bodysurfing in Hawaii in upcoming McCain ads.

Seeing is no longer believing.

Burgers are never as big or juicy as they appear on fast-food menus. Celebrities aren’t as fit—or flawless. And, as this Iranian missile test image proved last month, you can’t really trust news agency photos either.

So what does constitute the truth in the Photoshop age? And what do people believe any more?

Filmmaker Errol Morris (“Fog of War,” “Mr. Death”) has written a provocative essay on the subject for The New York Times this week. And if you’re into “fauxtography,” it’s a must read.

Print it out and take it with you on your next business trip—or stuff a copy in your beach bag. If you enjoy the piece as much as I did, be sure to read the essay Morris wrote last fall on Crimean canon balls, too. (Really.)

Friday night’s jaw-dropping opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics made the halftime show at the Super Bowl look like a battle of the bands at a rural high school.

When it comes to advertising, however, the annual American football classic still wins hands down.

With the exception of Coke’s beguiling Bird’s Nest ad, very few ads even stood out on Friday night. And, if there were a public poll, Budweiser’s recycled “Rocky” ad would probably take the gold.

I’m sure this McDonald’s “Victory” ad (above) would score big, too. But is it really the Olympic spirit to depict winners taunting losers, losers scowling at winners, and parents soothing sagging spirits with fatty food?

You gotta’ love the music, however. So thanks McDonald’s for introducing me to Brazil’s Os Mutantes. Say, maybe there is hope for a Return to Forever Swiffer ad after all. 

I guess I’ve always been a long-tail guy. (Long before Wired’s Chris Anderson coined the term.)

So back in college, when other kids were amping out to Joe Walsh, I’d be listening to Weather Report or Tony Williams on my Koss 4As.

Most people call the music jazz fusion. (Although jazz purists call it ruder things.) And tonite, in New York, I’m going to see of the “supergroups” of the genre, Return to Forever.

Dusting off some ragged RTF albums this morning, it’s not hard for me to understand why old songs are such a staple in advertising. Two or three notes of the right tune can evoke powerful memories—and emotions.

While I don’t expect to hear “Sofistifunk” in a Swiffer ad anytime soon, some savvy marketer should be trying to tap into this long-tail (and, sadly, long-in-the-tooth) market. I know there are going to be about 3,000 fusion fanatics at tonite’s show who’d love to hear your pitch.

During the Cold War, it was fun to watch Boris Badenov hurl bombs at Rocky and Bullwinkle.

But bombs have been anything but funny in the post-9/11 era. In fact, even joking about them can get you into pretty big trouble.

Casual dining chain Ruby Tuesday has unlocked the door on the TNT shed in this arresting ad that ran in Friday’s USA Today.

While I’m sure the ad offended some, I think it was just good-natured fun. And a creative, attention-getting way to invite readers to watch the live demolition of the chain’s  “last old Ruby Tuesday” restaurant, following a total makeover of its locations.

Hopefully, casual diners will get the joke. With its stock down more than 75 percent over the past two years, Ruby Tuesday can’t afford to have this bomb go off in its hands.

People instinctively deflect messages that don’t synch with their mindsets.

Ask Microsoft. No matter how hard it has tried, the whole world still thinks that “Vista Sucks.”

But what if it weren’t called Vista? What if consumers were asked to try Microsoft’s new Mojave operating system instead?

That’s the premise of Microsoft’s new “Mojave Experiment” marketing campaign and the candid reactions from consumers are really stunning.

Lesson learned: Before you try to communicate, make sure people’s minds are open to the message. For Microsoft, Mojave just may be the “key” to unlock that door. Score one for the PC guy.

Maybe it was all the hype. But I found last night’s season two premiere of “Mad Men” to be, well, maddening. (Sorry, fans.)

Good thing I stayed up to the end. Because Don Draper’s plaintive recitation of a poem from Frank O’Hara’s “Meditations in an Emergency” saved the show like a walk-off home run at the end of a boring ballgame.

If you’re looking for a copy of the obscure 1956 book this morning, good luck. There are still 14 “used and new” copies on Amazon.com. And this $2,000 first edition creepily inscribed “For Chuck, darkly, pastorally, Frank.”

If I were Grove/Atlantic, publisher of the current paperback, I’d be cranking out a special edition this morning, replicating the minimalist black-and-white design depicted in the show.

For an outstanding essay about O’Hara’s poetry, including references to “Meditations,” check out “Alterity and Otherness,” written by Mark Tursi in September 2004.

As it turns out, the poem that Draper read was called “Mayakovski.” Here it is again, if you missed it (or nodded off):

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

Now, of course, the question is to whom was Don mailing the book? I guess we’ll all have to tune in next week to find out. 

Score another big win for social media.

Last summer, Chai Park and Jin Hee Lee launched a modest “Drop the Juicer” web campaign to protest Pinkberry’s sale of these Alessi Mandarin Citrus Juicers.

Talk about getting squeezed. I’m surprised Pinkberry didn’t act sooner.

Washington Mutual reported a $3.3 billion loss earlier this week—it’s biggest loss in history—and yet its stock climbed more than 6 percent. Whoo-hoo!

Wachovia did even better by performing worse. After posting an $8.9 billion loss, its stock soared 27 percent.

It’s not because red ink is the new black on Wall Street. It’s just that these companies and others “beat expectations.”

I’m glad to see the banking stocks up. But I hope this new-found optimism doesn’t refocus attention on stock prices rather than the underlying value of these companies.

There’s never been a better opportunity for a financial services firm to start building a story about long-term responsibility rather than quarterly results. Now that would really be a way to beat expectations—and earn my trust.

Photo by djwudi on Flickr.com, (cc) some rights reserved.

Wow, I never thought that the Republicans could “spin” the issue of high gas prices in their favor. But this new McCain commercial proves me wrong.

Of course, informed people will scoff at the ad—and denounce its oily implications.

But McCain delivers the kind of easy solution that many voters want to hear: The answer to our energy problems is right here in America. Offshore drilling will even help “rescue our family budgets.”

It’s skillful rhetoric. And its punchline couldn’t be better written: “Don’t hope for more energy. Vote for it.” (Count on hearing that hope/vote construction a lot in the coming months.)

The Democratic party needs to start doing a much better job of framing these campaign issues or it will be forced to waste all of its funds merely responding to them. Better get going: There are only 105 days until the election.