Hi. My name is Jim and I'm addicted to March Madness. There… I said it and I've taken the first step to recovery. For 3 weeks every spring, I have a lot of trouble thinking about anything else. I'm not proud of it and my wife's not happy about it.

So in keeping with the theme, I've put together an Ad Madness tournament, pitting 32 of the best ad campaigns of all time. Over the next 4 days, I'll break down each region's matchups and pick a winner. Next Friday, I'll narrow things down and pick a winner for the tournament.

Like Jimmy V used to say, "This tournament is about one thing: survive and advance." I've tried to limit entries to one campaign per product. (You could to a whole tournament with just Coca-Cola campaigns.) Just like in the tournament, with a limited number of spots, your favorite ad might not make the big dance. Feel like I've made an unforgivable omission? Did I give your favorite ad the shaft? Want to just lash out while hiding behind the anonymity of cyber space? Drop me a line and tell me all about it at jimdoesntcarewhatyouthink@yahoo.com.

So with that, let's take a look at the first round matchups in the Food & Drink Region, being played in Des Plaines, Illinois, home of Ray Kroc's first McDonald's Franchise:

1) McDonald's "You Deserve a Break Today"
vs.
8) Burger King "Have it Your Way"

McDonald's is the 800lb gorilla in this tournament. Over the years, they have created an entire world of advertising characters led by the redheaded harbinger of high cholesterol himself, Ronald McDonald. They have one of the most recognizable icons in advertising, the golden arches. Their campaigns consistently have smart copy and catchy jingles. (I can still tell you how to make a Big Mac, and that jingle hasn't run in years.) On the other hand, Burger King comes into the tournament with a recent history of scattered campaigns, none of which seemed to gain any traction. (Hootie in a cowboy outfit anyone?) But in the 70's they had a rock-solid campaign with a solid point of differentiation, that they would make your burger the way you wanted it.

Winner: McDonalds in a rout.

4) Coca-Cola "Have a Coke and a Smile"
vs.
5) Maxwell House "Good to the Last Drop"

Mean Joe Greene faces off against The Wicked Witch of the West in this huge first round match up. The Joe Greene spot is a perennial favorite on top ad lists. It not only makes use of a huge sports icon of the time, but gets beyond the pigeonhole of sports marketing with a warm and fuzzy end that makes non-sports fans say "awwwww." On the other side, we have an ad that you just couldn't make today. Ten seconds in, the husband takes a cheap shot at his wife's coffee, in public no less. The pained look on the wife's face is so sad you have to laugh to keep from crying. (And you can almost here her thinking "You think it tastes bad now, wait until I add antifreeze to your mug tomorrow, you bastard!) Fortunately a 500-year-old Margaret Hamilton comes to the rescue with a cup of Maxwell House that makes everything better. And isn't that how every ad should work?

Winner: Coca-Cola in a nail-biter.

3) Wendys' "Where's the Beef?"
vs.
6) Life Cereal "Hey Mikey"

Wendy's had the catchphrase that was on everyone's lips and this ad made them a force in the burger wars. As much as I love a commercial featuring a pair of kids with speech impediments (something think you couldn't get past a focus group these days), not even Mikey liked his chances here.

Winner: Wendy's

2) Pepsi 'Pepsi Cola Hits the Spot"
vs
7) California Milk Processor Board "Got Milk?"

This is one of the best jingles in advertising history. (Pepsi-Cola hits the spot Twelve full ounces, that's a lot Twice as much for a nickle, too Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you.) Pepsi takes a 2 seed in the tournament, but they get matched up against the minimalist genius of the milk moustache and the and the 2 word poetry of "Got Milk." Bottom like: The ubiquitous milk campaign has perfected the celebrity endorsement and anyone who remembers the Pepsi jingle is in their late 60s and probably doesn't read many blogs, so…

Winner: Got Milk?

Tomorrow – The Transportation Region

As any media buyer worth her salt can tell you, political windows are the flu virus of our profession. We're a healthy, consistent, loyal source of income for the stations all year round…then, two weeks of this sickness hits and BAM! The newest Janie-Come-Lately decides she wants that spot you bought. Sorry, health and wellness, you're out! The flu is in!

Quick disclaimer:
My friends at our local stations have successfully kept our spots safe…it's my reps in other "more politically attractive" markets that haven't been so loyal. I won't name any names, but those markets are in a bordering 4-letter state that starts and ends with O.

Guess what, stations?!? We have a shiny red kickball in our arsenal and it's called the Internet! Google won't pre-empt my ads! Facebook won't try to make my spots good in Cheaters at 2 am! My blog entry won't be bumped by Mr. Baby-Kisser's blog entry!

So, I'm going to show those stations who's boss! I'm going with the Internet!

In two days, we will officially be entering into my favorite time of year...March Madness. What's not to love for a self-proclaimed basketball freak like me? Basically, there is 12 hours of televised basketball every single day for at least three weekends, followed by two more weekends of buzzer beaters and make-or-break-your-season type games.

What's almost as awesome as Memphis losing last weekend, is that CBS has done some really cool things to promote the tournament. A couple of years ago, CBS introduced their "Free VIP Pass", which allows users to watch streaming video from each game. This comes in super-handy when don't have access to a TV or WLKY is showing Fordham University vs. USC instead of Indiana vs. Cincinnati.

New to the 2008 tournament is a Facebook application from CBS Sports. Greg Gumble and Seth Davis have been endlessly promoting this new application for the past two weeks. The application, which can be saved to your own Facebook page, allows users to watch every tournament game, vote for your favorite and most despised teams, check scores, view and add to team pages, post messages on the "Trash Talk Wall", join fan groups, along with lots of other stuff. This is the best example of a Facebook page, from an advertising viewpoint, that I have come across.

Just for fun...
Top Favorite NCAAB Team Pages
1. Tar Heels (12,188 Fans)
2. Blue Devils (10,313 Fans)
3. Jayhawks (7,271 Fans)
4. Hoosiers (4,323 Fans)
5. Wildcats (4,091 Fans)

Top Despised NCAAB Team Pages
1. Blue Devils (26,739 Haters)
2. Tar Heels (12,386 Haters)
3. Gators (4,390 Haters)
4. Buckeyes (3,397 Haters)
5. Hoosiers (3,041 Haters)

Someone (yeah, I don't know who) has developed a plug-in for Firefox called AdBlock Plus. If you have AdBlock Plus installed, it blocks all advertising that is served to you on the web, including Google keywords. Holy frijoles, Batman, it blocks our ads!

So, you might think as a media buyer, I am against this sort of buffoonery.

Not so!

If a user wants to support a site that she likes, she can override AdBlock Plus and allow ads to be served to her from that site. I like etsy.com, for example. I want etsy to stay around, so they need some ad revenue. I will disable AdBlock Plus so I can see the ads on that site.

Basically, all this does to my job is force me to become a more discerning web advertising buyer. Of course, I will still look at traffic, demographics, click thru rates, etc.; but I also need to make sure content is fresh, appealing and applicable to the audience to which I want to appeal. If my target finds none of these three in a site, it's AdBlock Plus to the rescue!

The good news is that only 17% of surfers use Firefox currently. The real chore will begin when some wiseacre ports AdBlock Plus to Internet Explorer (that's 76% of web users!)

I read an article on adotas.com earlier this week and the basic thrust is that online giants such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook are struggling to make sense of advertising revenue that is (or rather is not) generated by social networking sites.

This article makes a great point that the slower-than-anticipated growth of online revenue may be attributed to escalating economic issues globally.

In addition to that, in the agency world, our clients are worried about things like increasing penny profit at location level, or whether or not they can hang on to their employee base in tough economic times, or if their doo-hickey is going to make it out the door on time.

So, making the argument for online advertising is more difficult than, say, arguing for radio, which has a "proven" track record, at least in the eyes of the client (despite the hard numbers that back up usage decline of that medium in particular).

Luckily, the article ends on a positive note for interactive advertising - the whole world will eventually catch on to this "internet thing."