Doritos has always had interesting TV commercials, especially in Canada. There’s a new commercial showing here that’s reminiscent of the silliness of past ad campaigns. It’s for the “new” Doritos Collisions product, which combines two different flavors in one bag of Doritos. The first combo is Hot Wings and Blue Cheese, the idea is that there’s a flavor battle in each bag.

The ad is supposed to show in movie theaters in select Canadian cities, but they are actually on TV. It’s also on Facebook and on YouTube. You can see the full version of the new ad below:

Now, a bit of digging through YouTube shows that the Doritos Collisions product has been around for a couple of years - at least in the U.S. In fact, here’s a Missy Elliot commercial for the same product:

Okay, I like Missy Elliot - always have. But the new ad is much funnier, and after several years of Doritos ad silliness, the “battle in a bag” concept is much funnier and more effective. Have a look at one of the ads for the “Indian spice flavor” of a few years ago:

Maybe it’s just me but funny commercials are much more likely to get me to buy something than serious or pretentious commercials. (Car commercials are amongst the most pretentious.) Unintentionally funny commercials don’t count though.

What do you think? Would any of these commercials make you go out and buy Doritos? Or do you prefer to buy two bags and dump them into a single bowl like everyone else? (And has anyone outside of Canada seen the battle in a bag ads?)

One aspect of business marketing is obviously advertising. AdSavvy is a new site that covers the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of specific ads. There’s a fair bit of focus on TV advertising, though print ads are discussed as well.

The contributors are web publishers, and  at least one contributor regularly sells and buys online advertising. They’re all experienced bloggers with a strong presence in the blogosphere, so the opinions expressed at AdSavvy go beyond “armchair”.

Something worth checking out is the new AdSavvy Show, a short online video show, hosted on YouTube, that analyzes advertising in a humorous manner. The first episode of the AdSavvy show has already been posted.

Got a startup business that you’re looking to promote? Whether it’s based in the real world of bricks-and-mortar or the digital world online, there are a variety of ways you can promote your business. Check out 21 Ways to Promote Your Startup Business at Bootstrapper for tips on promoting both new media online and old media offline. The ideas aren’t necessarily new, but the compiled list might serve to remind you of a few promotional methods you’d forgotten about.

Don’t have a business but want to work on the Internet? Many people are taking up blogging in the hopes of a full-time online career, though there are alternatives for earning online.

We’ve moved beyond dial-up, but compared to the rest of the world, America’s internet connection is lagging behind. According to a study by The Communications Workers of America (CWA), our broadband speeds are significantly slower than those in other developed countries. How slow? Compare Japan’s average download speed of 61 megabits per second to America’s 2 megabits per second. Which would you rather have? We’re even beat out by Canada. The Canucks clock in at 7 megabits per second, more than 3 times as fast as America. What’s worse, we pay about 40 cents more per 100 kilobits of bandwidth than other developed countries. So we get significantly slower service, but pay more for it.

What can you do about the bum deal American Internet users have been handed? It’s probably not likely you’ll want to pick up and move to Japan just for the great Internet access. One way we can all help ourselves is for website owners to optimize their pages for ultimate speed and usability. If you can improve the quality and speed of your site, it will be easier for everyone to access. If we’ve got to pay more and wait longer to see your site, at least make sure it’s high quality work.

Another way to fight back against low quality, high price internet is to not purchase it at all. That’s right. Give up on having an Internet connection at home. Wi-fi is a growing phenomenon that many businesses and even municipalities are starting to embrace. Check out websites that can locate wi-fi hotspots for you, then patronize them. Even if you don’t want to buy a cup of coffee for your Internet connection, there are still options. Check out your local library for wi-fi and encourage your city to adopt a free municipal network. Of course, if all else fails, you can always just bum off of your neighbor’s unsecured connection. Even if it is overpriced and slow. [Editor’s note: bumming Wi-Fi from your neighbor is illegal in many places.]

So, you have decided to join the online community. Maybe, just to air your view points or to venture into an online marketing business.But, how to get started? There two main ways to venture forth. Either by blog or by website, the choice is up to you.

But, first we need to define the difference between a blog and website. A website is a internet application that contains web pages, images, videos and other digital assets. It is hosted on the World Wide Web. Whereas, a blog is part of website where entries are made and displayed in a reverse chronological order. It is sometimes known as an online journal.

I will discuss the pros and cons of both. The choice is yours. go on reading »

Burt over at osworld has a wonderful write up on his success with marketing products online during 2006 including some great insights to the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of his money making skills that pay the bills.

It is well worth a read as this is a guy that went $18000 over his target for the year. Here in the UK that is halfed, but it is certainly not a number to sniff at considering he makes most of it via AIS (Automated Income Streams). Catch Burts’ breakdown on his blog.

Oh dear, just was has Mr Michael Arrington gone and done. Without taking sides myself I must say that overall this fiasco (if I can call it that) could see him putting yet another nail in the TechCrunch Coffin. I would hope not as I discover many new sites and get many new ideas from reading the techcrunch site, but sometimes the way he handles things comes across as being quite arrogant or just plain nasty.

In fairness, other times he treats a situation perfectly, though I don’t wish to point to any examples as it is open to personal opinion as is all of this mess.

It is my hope that everything will come up roses from this, but I have a nasty feeling it wont, especially not for the regular readers who have been rubbed the wrong way by this most recent event.

I recently got tagged by George for this blog game, so here are my answers and indeed the people I wish to tag:

1) I used to be a graphic designer before I became an SEO Specialist. During this time I did work for Disney, The BAFTA Awards, Snatch the Movie, and more. It was all very exciting.

2) I saw many parts of Finding Nemo a year or two before it came out as it was having some DVD editing done by the guy next to me at work.

3) I have been racing for over 15 years in karts. I have won many trophys (got a hundred or so boxed up in the loft now) and enjoy it greatly. I now also run kartingextra.com as a community for all the racers from around the world.

4) I don’t like tomatoes. I love ketchup, but just can’t eat the squishy little beasts in their natural state. Horrid!

5) My musical idle is James Taylor. A fantastic song writer and performer. I have seen him live, have all his music, and he helped me meet my wonderful better half, GuinchoGirl. Obviously that is not her real name

So, I guess it is my turn to tag a few people? This has been going on a little while so it may be tough to find people that have not been tagged already… lets see.

MattCutts (lets see if he plays), Dean Hunt, Ewan (great blog if you like mobiles), and Quadzilla (for a little light xmas fun from his side).