King Cobra Premium Malt Liquor Ad...WTF?

Factual Questions
1

In the subways here in NYC, there are large posters for King Cobra Premium Malt Liquor (a product of Anheuser-Busch). The ad features an attractive young woman standing behind an oversized KCPML label. (The implication being, I think, that she’s naked behind the label…but that makes enough sense.)

The tagline is what gets me:

"Thirty minutes passes so fast!"

buh?

I’ve tried to come up with possible explanations:

  1. It takes 30 minutes to drink a 40 of KCPML, but this stuff is so good that you won’t even notice the time going by and will be sad when you finish the bottle and wish that you had another.

  2. It takes 30 minutes to make love to an attractive young woman (like the one depicted on the poster), who you hooked up with thanks to the effects of KCPML, and it’s so good that you won’t even notice the time going by and will be sad when you finish with the attractive young woman and wish that you had another.

  3. It takes 30 minutes to think up a funny way to say, “Hi, Opal!” for the kerbillionth time, but you give up and just write this instead.

  4. You, the KCPML consumer, are the type of individual who drinks on their lunch break, and a 40 of KCPML makes that 30-minute luch break pass very quickly.

Anyone have a good explanation?

2

Oh good. I thought I was the only person who wondered about this silly ad. I have no answers, I just want to add my support to the OP.

Maybe that’s Opal behind the label, and you’re spending your lunch break drinking with her and then slipping her the business?

She’s gonna kill me.

3

Well, here’s what I’ve been thinking lately…

First off, the first part of the tag line is this:

“There MIGHT
Be SOMETHING
For YOU Behind
My LABEL.”

And you see a head and bare arms and legs sticking out from behind the can. Then it says the “thirty minutes passes by so fast!”

Here’s my WAG: Is it possible that the makers of these ads put a picture of a naked lady behind the can, and wanted people to try and peel off the picture of the can that was covering it? Doing so might take a long time, perhaps even… 30 minutes?

Is this even possible? Could the admakers claim that they never intended the “naked lady hidden under the can” part of the ad to be seen? Could they get away with a stunt like this? If this turns out to be true, will I get a prize for coming up with the idea first? :wink:

4

Well, come on. Just who is malt liquor intended for? Just who is the malt liquor target market? It ain’t Fortune 500 CEOs.

How many times have you heard a gangbanger say, “Hey, that ain’t right. You’ve insulted my intelligence and culture!”???

Ditto KOOL cigarette ads, ditto Colt .45 ads.

If the buyers cared so much, they’d make a stink. Which they haven’t. Are these ads a sick, corporate stereotypical tool that makes fun of its own clients? Yes. But don’t tell them that. They don’t care. Should you?

I find the NBC ads for Friends infinitely more insulting to my intelligence:

[cue totally-cliched Enya song]

For the first time, Joey can’t get it up in a threesome…Will the VERY foundation of FRIENDS be tested?

Please rot in hell.

5

maybe they assume you are waiting 30 minutes for your train - but that ain’t so bad because you are imaging yourself w/ that girl and drinking the stuff.

6

That can’t be it - 30 minutes is so short. I haven’t made love to another woman for less than a couple hours straight for a long time…Jesus, how many orgasms can she have in 30 minutes anyhow? 10? 15, if she’s lucky? Feh - that won’t keep my woman satisfied…

7

It’s gotta aways be about the consumer, huh?!

Self-centered louts! It’s about the ad creation process: It took 30 minutes for some vunderkind in the ad agency to think-up the poster.