“Out of touch” in the sense of failing to communicate: It’s been too long for me to recall the details (especially since I didn’t pay much attention at the time), but I recall that some years ago there was an ad campaign featuring animated talking cars aimed at women. The article I read that talked about it said that studies showed that women liked the ads, but had no idea what was being advertised.
Was that those Claymation cars? I thought that was Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), but my memory ain’t… ummm, what it… zzzzzzzzzzzz
I was just going to say - if you want chicken nuggets at midnight, then you’re having midrats
I think so…or at least they looked Claymation, might have been CGI for all I know.
Mac and Me! ET was ugly-cute, but Mac was repulsive
No, I think they were Chevron, pushing their fuel additive, Techron.
Bobby Darin’s son was not happy about ‘Mac Tonight’ and filed a lawsuit, so McD’s pulled it.
Bobby Darin’s son was also not happy about being contacted by a previously unknown biological son of Darin’s, and thru a lawyer told him (the half-brother) that any further contact would be considered harassment. Gotta say, he’s protective of his dad.
One hell of a lot of ads are like that. I recall many examples of an entertaining story about [whatever], but what were they selling? I have zero clue. Not then, and not now.
But the dramatic mastery necessary to stuff a three-act play into 30 friggin’ seconds is a sight to behold. One of the modern miracles of the 20th Century.
Correct, it was for Chevron. The claymation was done by Aardmore Studios, which also does “Wallace and Gromit.” It looks like the campaign ran from 1995 to 2010; it was revived with a CGI version a few years ago.
There is a large annual 12K race in Spokane, WA called Bloomsday. They had a similar billboard mishap this year:
Did anyone vet that?
It’s actually Aardman Animations.
I think this might be a case where you were out of touch because you weren’t the target audience. To be generous, Taco Bell was advertising to people who were out late having a good time. To put it realistically, Taco Bell was advertising to drunks and pot smokers. People who were suddenly going to have a craving for Taco Bell at 10:00 PM.
Or shift workers. The key message being: “You’re not stuck with just Denny’s anymore.”
But yeah, I agree that it’s sorta unrealistic for anyone here to think that TB management actually expected rank and file America to suddenly decide that e.g. “Letterman’s over, time to go buy some truly crappy burritos!”
Have I ever mentioned that I hate prescription drug advertising?
Anyway, a lot of those commercials, especially for cancer treatments are WAAAY out of touch. I also remember an ad for an Alzheimer’s drug where Grandma, who’s supposed to have moderate Alzheimer’s, is neatly dressed and coiffed, eating off a plate with utensils. Sorry, that’s not how moderate Alzheimer’s presents, even with “treatment.”
Absolutely correct. In addition there are lots of people who because of a very unusual for them circumstance are out in the middle of the night and need food. Like maybe they had to take someone to the ER and they finally admitted at 10:30pm. You just want a little protein before going to sleep and you want it quickly. What’s the first thing that comes to mind? The quesadillas aren’t too toxic.
Absolutely.About 35 years ago, I had to take someone to the ER at 5 or so and was there until 11:30 (when the operation was over - a wait at an ER is bad, but when the doctors decide you can’t wait, that’s not a good thing), and I couldn’t find any fast food place that was open, which surprised and annoyed me (I had some canned soup at home).
I’ve been in that approximate position; needing something to eat after hours. I appreciated it when McDonald’s had all-day breakfast, because for me, an Egg McMuffin is the perfect little thing to get me through.
I thought for many years that the character was supposed to be Stevie Wonder.
They’re damn lucky that Kurt Weill never had any kids…
See, I always assumed they knew exactly what it meant, even if they protested to the contrary. It’s the exact sort of plausible deniability that would get them a bit of publicity without actually making them seem crass.
And, yes, I think that’s exactly what’s happening with the stuff about a single race. They can pretend they don’t know what they’re doing while winking at the disproportionate number of racists in their audience.
And I’ll add that Taco Bell basically pioneered being open late for fast food, and that fourth meal was just a good advertisement for that concept.
Of course, they now compete with McDonalds which went 24 hours, and actually kept that up post 2020, unlike most other places. (Even the local Taco Bell closes for a few hours early in the morning, and only opens at 9am instead of 7 when they started adding breakfast to their menu.)