Enjoy some of Wrigley’s very successful commercials of late- both videos making 2 of top 3 most liked, recalled commercials of the past month (Via Ad Age).

Most recently, they requested 50 Cent to change his name to 79, 89 or 99 Cent for a day to help promote T-Bell’s new value menu. The payoff? A pathetic $10,000 donation to a charity of 50’s choice. Are you kidding me? Anyone with the financial stability of 50 Cent is going to laugh at your offer; they’d rather donate the 10K to charity to have Taco Bell leave them the hell alone.

But this isn’t the first piece of excellent work on Yum’s behalf. Oh no, KFC offered Rihanna and Chris Brown free wings if they showed up at one of their stores.  Wonder what dinosaur thought of that gem. I just can’t believe how that ridiculously prejudicial idea even made it to the editors.

One last beaut, apparently KFC also offered to donate $260,000 to its own educational foundation if an NFL player ‘flapped their wings’ in the end zone during the Super Bowl. Glad to see it takes an act of stupidity by someone else for Yum to donate money to their own foundation.

To Yum’s credit, they did plan one decent promotion of late. During March Madness, if a bottom-seeded team advanced to the Final Four, Pizza Hut would give away free pizza to that campus. Of course, this feat has never been achieved, and likely never will. I don’t love this promotion, but it doesn’t place the brand in a compromising position, and even aligns the brand with underdog teams which I don’t think occurs enough.

I’m all about donating money through creative avenues, and I know you can’t just give all your profits away on a whim, but these acts of stupidity leave me wanting to avoid being associated with their brands.

I pulled the vitals of this post from an article on Ad Age. Give them some love too!

Apple’s new commercial for the latest iPhone doesn’t do much for me, but overall it makes sense. By now, just about everyone is aware of the iPhone and its capabilities, so the new spot focuses more on enhancing the brand and status, but also speedier browsing and the much lower price points of $199(8gb) and $299(16gb).

Valero Energy Corporation

Where the ad fails is its absolute ignorance to the current fuel situation and consumer’s perspectives in America. The voice over states how Americans have a love affair with driving (which is very true, however I don’t think anyone loves driving now with the current gas prices) and how Valero is great because they have ‘quality gasoline’ and ‘pay at the pump convenience.’ Um, duh!? Doesn’t every gas provider say they have quality gas? And show me a gas station today where you can’t pay at the pump, besides maybe in rural areas.

And if that wasn’t enough, just about all the actors in the commercial are young, probably under 30, who the high gas prices should be affecting the most.

Lastly, and this really kills me, everyone is driving an SUV in the spot!

To be fair, I understand their attempt to remind Americans that yes, driving is a great passion and should remain fun, despite high fuel prices. But I think the spot is about 6 months too late. When gas was around $3/gallon this spot would have been more effective and well perceived.

Check out the video here on Valero’s site as it is no longer available on You Tube. Weird.