Slate.com Table of Contents faith-based A Skeptic's Guide to Passover fighting words ad report card Telling the Truth About the Armenian Genocide Credit Crunch foreigners Advanced Search Why Israel Will Bomb Iran books foreigners Why Write While Israel Burns? Too Busy To Save Darfur change-o-meter foreigners Supplemental Diet No Nukes? No Thanks. change-o-meter gabfest Unclenched Fists The Velvet Snuggie Gabfest change-o-meter grieving Dogfights Ahead The Long Goodbye change-o-meter human guinea pig Big Crowds, Few Promises Where There's E-Smoke … chatterbox human nature A Beat-Sweetener Sampler Sweet Surrender corrections human nature Corrections Deeper Digital Penetration culture gabfest jurisprudence The Culture Gabfest, Empty Calories Edition Czar Obama dear prudence jurisprudence It's a Jungle Down There Noah Webster Gives His Blessing drink jurisprudence Not Such a G'Day Spain's Most Wanted: Gonzales in the Dock dvd extras moneybox Wauaugh! And It Can't Count on a Bailout explainer movies Getting High by Going Down Observe and Report explainer music box Heated Controversy When Rock Stars Read Edmund Spenser explainer music box Why Is Gmail Still in Beta? Kings of Rock explainer my goodness It's 11:48 a.m. Do You Know Where Your Missile Is? Push a Button, Change the World faith-based other magazines Passionate Plays In Facebook We Trust faith-based poem Why Was Jesus Crucified? "Bombs Rock Cairo" Copyright 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC 1/125 politics today's papers U.S. Department of Blogging Daring To Dream It's Over politics today's papers The Careful Exaggerator Obama Dips Toe in Immigration politics today's papers Stress Test Prosecuting the Prosecutors recycled today's papers How To Watch the Masters Gates Overhauls Pentagon Budget recycled today's papers The Two-Minute Haggadah Obama Dreams of a Nuclear-Free World slate v today's papers Obama: The Un-Bush Here Come the Bombs slate v today's papers Well-Connected (Former) Actress No Strings Attached slate v tv club Dear Prudence: Wife-Free Vacation Friday Night Lights, Season 3 slate v war stories Hey, Penny! My Boss Is a Facebook Addict. Gates Follows Through technology war stories Do I Really Have To Join Twitter? How Do You Solve a Problem Like Kim Jong-il? technology webhead YouTube for Artistes I See You Typing television xx factor xxtra Not Funny Crazy Love, Crazy Choices television Everyone's a Critic the big idea What Else Are We Wrong About? ad report card Credit Crunch the chat room The hottest fight in advertising is about credit-report Web sites. Facebook Philandering By Seth Stevenson Monday, April 6, 2009, at 11:24 AM ET the dilettante Bigmouth Strikes Again The Spot: A guy plays guitar in an Irish-themed bar. He's the green lantern accompanied by a drummer and a bassist. All three wear kilts. Are the Yankees Bad for the Environment? "AnnualCreditReport.com," the guy sings, "the one you can depend upon." He goes on to describe the hazards of signing up the green lantern with other credit-monitoring Web sites: "Beware of the others. Energy and Elevators There's always a catch./ They claim to be free, but strings are attached./ Their ads can be funny, so don't be deceived./ Hold today's business press onto your money. There's one site you need." Banks Bounce Back Do-gooder public-service announcements have long been a part today's business press Buffett's Bad Moody's of the advertising landscape. PSAs are often mockably earnest and dorky, but they can serve a useful purpose by alerting you to Copyright 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC 2/125 important information. Consider this piece Ad Report Card's The FTC's videos, which parody the FreeCreditReport.com ads, contribution to the PSA genre. I'm donating this valuable space don't have the same glossy production values. The lead actor is to spread the word about AnnualCreditReport.com—a less camera-friendly. The songs kind of suck—with clunky wonderfully useful Web site that's currently being promoted by a lyrics and boring harmonic concepts. But cut these guys a break: pair of videos produced by the Federal Trade Commission. The advertising budget for FreeCreditReport.com was more than $70 million in 2007 and probably even higher in 2008. The You've no doubt seen the TV ads for a different credit-check annual budget of the entire FTC is less than $260 million. site, called FreeCreditReport.com. Those ones where a sunny- faced, curly-haired dude sings narrative pop songs about the The two FTC spots—which between them cost $100,000 to calamities he's endured as a result of his poor credit. This produce—have been released only on the Web. According to unfortunate fellow is reduced to working in a tacky, pirate- Nat Wood, assistant director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer themed restaurant because "some hacker stole my ID"; buying a Protection, these days it's far more efficient to distribute PSAs subcompact jalopy because his "credit was wack"; and living in online than to try to get them on television. "It's very tough to a basement because of his wife's previous default on a credit get PSAs on the air in prime time, where people will see them," card. says Wood. "Most of what you see in the prime hours are things like 'The More You Know' campaign, which the network These ads have warm, vibrant visuals. (They're directed by produces itself, on issues it chooses, cross-promoting its own Danny Leiner, who's helmed similarly low-key, goofball stars." comedies like Dude, Where's My Car? and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.) They feature an appealing slacker protagonist. I salute the FTC's thrifty, new-media strategy. I also applaud But above all, they benefit from a slew of maddeningly catchy their message. That's why I'm reposting their videos here, in an songs, executed in a wide variety of genres. effort to further their cause. These bouncy tunes were composed by an amateur musician—a And that's … one to grow on! guy at the ad agency whose only previous musical success involved a blistering set at the agency's holiday staff party. In an Grade: B+. Kudos to the FTC for fighting the good fight. e-mail exchange, he told me he wrote most of the songs in one Deductions for severe aesthetic lameness. By the way, there's 48-hour period after "going away with my guitar and a cheap something I've never understood about the bottle of Chianti." He attributes their impact to the notion that FreeCreditReport.com ads: How exactly would the guy's they're written "not from the viewpoint of a company with a circumstances change if he'd known in advance that his credit product to sell, but from the perspective of a character with a was bad? Until he repairs his credit, he'll still get negged on that story to tell. So you don't feel like you're being bombarded with car loan for a "cool convertible." And, unless he's a cold and an ad message; you just feel like you're getting a glimpse into heartless person, you'd expect him to stay with his self-professed this guy's life. Which just happens to involve a recurring theme "dream girl" even after discovering that her credit was less than of regret at not having gone to FreeCreditReport.com." stellar. If I ever get him as my waiter at the local pirate restaurant, I'm going to ask him about this. All fine and good. There can be no doubt that these are terrifically effective ads, which is why they continue to be Is there an ad you love, hate, or can't for the life of you produced and aired. But here's the catch: FreeCreditReport.com understand? Send your suggestions to is nothing less than a force for heinous evil. It lures you in with [email protected]. its offer of a "free" credit check, but its hidden goal is to enroll you in a service that charges $15 a month. (Please wait a moment while I clear my throat, furrow my brow, and look straight into the camera. OK, here goes.) Advanced Search You can get a truly free, no-strings-attached credit report by Friday, October 19, 2001, at 6:39 PM ET directing your browser to AnnualCreditReport.com. I just tried it. It works. (In case you're curious, my credit is unblemished. Though, ironically, I still drive a used subcompact.) You have the right to one free report per year from each of the three major books consumer-credit-reporting services. Which means if you stagger them out, you can check your credit, gratis, once every four Why Write While Israel Burns? months. That should be plenty. Amos Oz's entrancing paranoia. Copyright 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC 3/125 By Judith Shulevitz burdened with bitterness and deprivation, with shattered dreams Monday, April 6, 2009, at 4:43 PM ET and endless suspicions and reservations that, in the way of human wounds, heal slowly and leave permanent scars." Rhyming Life and Death, the claustrophobic new novella by the famous Israeli novelist Amos Oz, takes place almost entirely As visions of political reconciliation go, this is a remarkably inside the head of a famous Israeli novelist, who is named the novelistic one. It casts the nation and its opponents as individual Author.