Doug Pray's new movie, "Art & Copy," takes a look at the best ads of the 1960s and the air directors and writers who not only created the so-called Creative Revolution but also had a lot of fun doing it. In this interview with Kai Ryssdal, Pray bemoans the loss of that playfulness and asserts that "98% of most advertising is pretty much garbage" today. "A lot of businesses and certainly advertising has kinda fallen prey to this idea market research and analysis and everything is what it's all about," he says. "And if you can figure exactly what …

Reebok, a division of Adidas, is the official apparel partner of the National Football League, which presented a bit of a dilemma for Nike's new campaign for its Pro Combat padded protective undergarments. That's why you won't see all-pro running back Adrian Peterson wearing a Minnesota Vikings uniform as he scores a winning touchdown in a driving storm by running through and around the opposition. Underneath it all, of course, is Pro Combat gear and, when Peterson removes his uniform in the locker room, it "appears to have morphed onto his skin from head to toe," writes Barry Janoff. …

P&G is paying about 100 "ambassadors" to pitch brands such as PUR, TAG deodorant and Herbal Essences hair products at 50 colleges and universities through a program it calls ReadyU, Laurie Burkitt reports. About 65% of the reps are women; they earn up to $2,500 a semester. Students work about 15 hours a week. P&G and RepNation organize daily conference calls and require ambassadors to file reports every two weeks that include 25 pictures of their academic advertising attempts. Some of them are rather imaginative. Once football season is in full swing, Justin Breton, a 21-year-old senior public …

General Motors ads starring chairman Ed Whitacre will entice consumers with a 60-day money-back guarantee on 2009 and 2010 models from one of its automaker's four core brands -- Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC, Robert Snell reports. There are a few hitches: they must keep the vehicle for at least 31 days, be current on payments and not exceed 4,000 miles. And the dealer will not refund any negative equity the buyer had in a trade-in vehicle. GM vice chairman and marketing czar Bob Lutz will not say how much GM is spending on the campaign, but …

Procter & Gamble CEO Robert McDonald says the company will cut prices, reach an additional billion consumers by 2015 primarily through overseas expansion, and reposition Cheer as a value brand, Ellen Byron reports. McDonald admits that P&G has fallen behind competitors and told attendees at a conference yesterday that it had "a sense of urgency" about delivering profitable market share growth. P&G "has taken the gloves off," according to Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Schmitz. "People thought they had become complacent, waiting for the economy to turn, but this is a change in rhetoric for sure." Shares rose 4.2% in reaction …

Troy Wolverton says that Steve Jobs' appearance at Apple's press event yesterday was the only real surprise and that the updates to its music products were "modest." More notable, perhaps, is what Apple didn't do: It did not introduce a tablet computer, it did not kill the iPod classic, it did not start to sell Beatles tunes in the iTunes music store, it did not introduce a music streaming service and it did not radically update the design of any of the iPod models. As rumored. The biggest update, Wolverton says, was adding a digital video camera to …