Apple ads work best when they follow the brand's traditional spot principle: show, don't sell. Its latest spot for Mac Air adds a pitchy note that suggests a brand feeling the need to remind us it is still "iconic"...isn't it?

Meat makes me big (read: fat) and strong (read: fat). "The Simpsons," all these years later, makes me laugh. I can't conceive of a non-coronary-related or -deal-with-the-devil situation that would prompt me to tire of either. And in a wonderful column-facilitating coincidence, both meat and "The Simpsons" launched brand clips into the online ether this week. In an even more wonderful coincidence, they're both pretty awesome.

Brand marketers need to curb their fascination with young professionals on the go - specifically, comely urbanites zooming past double-parked trucks and yippy unleashed dogs on their well-appointed bicycles. The latest offender: Levi's, which unveiled the first in its series of "Levi's Commuter: The Ride" vignettes earlier this week. The second and third entries, set in London and Oakland, will debut later in the summer.

Walmart. Nobody has a problem with Walmart, not labor activists or margin-pinched suppliers or candidates/organizations on the sad side of its PAC largesse, right? Walmart is good and decent and modest, and the bestest friend any family farmer will ever have, in this life or the next.

What's the official Association For Ethical Comportment In Web Punditry Mislabeled As Journalism policy on graft-solicitation? I ask because I'd like a new Tesla and, in today's exercise, I have an opportunity to hail a Tesla brand endeavor as one of humankind's boldest artistic statements. If the association folks give the thumbs-up, I'm ready to break out the grandiloquent dictionary and start throwing around adjectives like "callithumpian," "xyresic" and "butyraceous."