It is Super Bowl week. There are lots of ads. Several of them feature celebrities. I'd like to talk about marketing-evasion.

Pity is the one emotion I don’t allow myself to feel, save for exceptional circumstances - when in the company of hopeful Jets fans, for instance, or when my soon-to-be-divorced friends start frantically posting photos of their kids on Facebook. Empathy? Sure. I’ll empathize until the cows come home, especially if said cows had an emotionally distant relationship with their bovine daddies. But nobody likes to pity or be pitied. It’s the saddest form of regard. Well, I pity Pepsi. In the wake of its relentless torrent of “Hyped For Halftime” brand puffery, I am genuinely concerned about every …

Which brings me to Newcastle Brown Ale and its second annual self-deprecating attempt at deflating the pomp and pageantry around Super Bowl beer ads. I loved the first one, which was understated and dismissive in ways that approximately zero percent of event-centric marketing usually is. This time around, however, the brand has gone the bigger-concept route - and, in the process, surrendered all the low-key charm that made its first dip into the anti-marketing marketing pool so appealing.

Hire The Onion - or, more specifically, its Onion Labs creative services arm. Because if its people can refashion Get Covered Illinois into a bona-fide original web brand with just a handful of subtle satirical bits, imagine what they could do with the crates of cash deposited on the loading docks of established brand-ad firms.

Y’all know that I rarely traffic in sordid vulgarisms like “darn,” so you’ll understand just how profound a statement I’m making when I say that 2014 has been a darn fine year. The family unit got bigger, crises involving attic invaders and personal physical decay were handled with uncommon grace and I found some really comfortable new underwear. Indeed, in ways big and small, 2014 was very good to me. Since there’s nowhere else to express my gratitude, let me do so here: Thanks! That sure was swell of you! On the brand-video front, things were no …