Brita et al

I criticize advertising a lot.  It's hard not to- advertisers, in my opinion, play the lowest common denominator card far too often, and it's becoming an epidemic.  They seem to assume that if they create a commercial that is not understood by 5% of the people in this country, then they have lost those customers.  What they fail to recognize is that by pandering to the dumbest 5% of the people in this country, they insult the other 95%.  Although, in fairness, I'm sure that people much smarter than me are doing market research and tweaking these commercials to hit on all of the most important notes to resonate with the right demographics.  So the fact that the commercial is inane does not mean that the people who created it are stupid- in fact, it doesn't even mean that the people who created it don't find it as inane as I do.

Without further ado, some comments on current ad campaigns:


Just For Men

I could do an entire blog on these commercials alone, but that might make me suicidal.  They star Keith Hernandez and Clyde Frazier, and feature dialogue so contrived and lame that it would make reality TV viewers wince in pain.  Suffice it to say, it was tough to pick any single commercial, because they are all so unforgivably awful, but putting them all up here would just serve as a no-doubt undeserved punishment to everyone reading this, so I just posted one of them.  What's with the rhymes?  I'm sure there's a logical reason behind it, like how an annoying jingle on the radio annoys you, but it sticks with you (much to your chagrin) despite your best efforts, and again- I'm sure that very smart people make these commercials for a reason, so there must be data suggesting that this is a good advertising policy. 


But I'm left with one lingering thought, and no, it's not "I really want to buy some Just For Men!"  I am left wondering if Clyde Frazier and Keith Hernandez (and Emmitt Smith and Randy Johnson (in another commercial)) are in deep debt to the IRS and will do anything to pay the bills.  Sad...



Brita
Let me start with an apology.  I can't seem to find this commercial on YouTube, which seems incomprehensible because I have probably seen it 1000 times.  Maybe it isn't there because everyone finds it as annoying and weird as I do.  Anyway, here's what it is all about:


For some reason, an obviously suburban woman shows up in Alaska, interrupting an Eskimo man who is drinking clean Alaskan glacier water from a water source.  She yells "yoo hoo!" to get his attention and hands him a Brita water bottle.  Without a word, he begins chugging the water as she explains, in a language that he no doubt does not understand, "it's water from a drinking fountain at the mall".  The Eskimo finally finishes drinking, and shows a wide smile of approval, thereby demonstrating Brita's powers for filtering terrible-tasting water, even to the satisfaction of a water aficionado like this Eskimo.


I've always wanted the commercial to go a little longer, with the following addition:


The Eskimo, in an act of tribally-mandated reciprocation, unstraps a sealskin bladder from around his waist and hands it to the woman.  She sips cautiously at first, then begins guzzling voraciously.  She even stops halfway to dump a large portion of it over her face before drinking the rest.  She loves this stuff!  As she's finishing, the Eskimo man says something in his native language (note: not English), and at the bottom of the screen, a subtitle appears: "It's whale piss!".


Okay, so that won't sell more Brita water bottles, but it makes me laugh, so... there.



Heineken 

Time to finish on a high note.  I saw this commercial over the weekend, and I loved it.  It's expensive, I'm sure, and I still don't like the taste of Heineken, but hey- this is an entertaining commercial!  Best of all, I can't see anyone saying "I don't get it" at the end.  There's no message- it's just fun and cool, with clever Heineken product placement throughout.  You know what is being advertised, but you get some entertainment too.  Win-win!