Here are Ellen DeGeneres' live Toyota spots

Found the two "live" commercials Ellen DeGeneres did on her show for the Toyota Highlander Hybrid. The first is above; you can watch the second by clicking here. From what I read, it was DeGeneres' idea to hearken back to the live-on-tape commercials of old, and at the beginning of the one above, she riffs briefly on all of the old talk show hosts, each of whom would tell viewers "about his favorite brand of cigarettes." In DeGeneres' hands (as long as she doesn't cry about dogs during the same show), the gambit surely works. One, because she's such a deft comedienne, and two, because, unlike endorsers in days of yore, it's more likely that the live pitch-person actually believes in the product. Oh, and there's a third thing--that the commercial is way intrusive. My only question is ... what would David Letterman endorse? Saatchi & Saatchi helped, but make no mistake, this is DeGeneres' show.

'Mediapost' shows product placement in situ

Just noticed this new (?) feature on the Mediapost Web site: a detailed look at weekly product placement, on TV. Compiled by iTVX, the video snippets currently on the site show placements for Visa (shown at right in a scene from "The Dead Zone"), Windex, Bud Light, Cadillac and Breyer's Ice Cream. As the video plays, it tallies up how long the product was on screen, and rates the quality of its screen time at that moment. The only problem—which I hope they work on—is that the interface is way too complicated (anyone care to guess what a dK Factor is?), and not every data point seems to be delivered, like the promise that it will tally the dollar value of the placement as though it were a commercial. Still, it's worth it for the clips alone, particularly if product placement is your gig.