You will never EVER see anything on these commercials that suggest Genetic Predisposition has anything to do with the shape of their models.
Bud Light has been doing “Stupid/sneaky people who will do anything for our product” spots for so long, they almost own the category. I don’t think I’m stupid enough/sneaky enough to drink Bud Light.
The new Bud Light Stuntman spots have gone too far.
The worst thing (well, one of the worst things) about those spots: couldn’t they have found someone who looks like he’s over 18?
Oh, word ahem I mean, I agree with my whole heart! I’ve seen loaves of bread for sale with “X-TREME wheat!!!” emblazoned on their packaging. W. T. F.
That must be the wheat grown in the X-TREME!!! state of Nebraska.
The scenario:
A handsome guy and his lady friend are all dressed up in a suit nice dress. She’s even got on her super expensive jewlery. The table is set up so perfectly, a candle, fine china, real crystal. The waiter, in a fancy tuxedo, comes over and asks:
“What will the gentlemen and the lady be dining on this evening?”
The gentelemen responds, “Oh, I’ll have the rosemary roast chicken breasts with the reducded white wine demi-glaze”
“Excellent choice. And for the madam?”
“Oh, I’ll have the rack of lamb and garlic red potatoes.”
“Oh, divine.” Responds our waiter. He brings back the food, looking so perfect. Clearly prepared by a master chef.
Suddenely, a baby screams! Or a dog barks! Or the doorbell rings!
The camera pans out, and OH, how clever! They weren’t dining out! They were just in their own living room, having their neighbor serve them some Lean Cuisine!
The husand will then remark, “Try again next week, Bob?”
To which the waiter goes “Sure.”
Ha!
The same company also manufactures “Extreme White bread.” Isn’t that an oxymoron?
My pet peeve “for all your _______ needs” has already been taken.
But I had to jump in on the blue fluid thing: My brother lived with me for a few years. We were both single bachelors (as opposed to the other kind?). One day a free sample came in the mail of, you guessed it, Supermax Absorbatex.
I looked at my brother.
My brother looked at me.
We raced to the cupboard under the sink to grab the bottle of Windex.
Hilarity ensued.
Is “tired old cliché” one?
In print advertising, I see the same stock photography themes used over and over and over again:
- Corporate types – usually a multicultural group including both genders – circled around a table looking at a chart on an easel.
- Hand shakes. Lots and lots of hand shaking. Now very likely to be a man and a woman or interracial, but almost never both; apparently, in the business world, black men don’t shake hands with white women.
- A man standing in an open plaza surrounded by skyscrapers, gazing up at the future, infinite possibilities, the bull market, excellence, or something like that. An increasingly common version doesn’t have the man gazing up, but he is on his cell phone.
- Gather 'round the laptop! The more, the merrier!
On television:
- “But wait, there’s more!”
- “Call in the next fifteen minutes, and we’ll also send you …”
- Class action lawsuit commercials that are like Powerpoint presentations - all the text shown on the screen is read by the announcer as well.
- People who start a phone conversation with “Hello, [name of business]?”
- Kids getting a bit too excited about the product being pitched in the ad: “Allright! Sunny D! Awesome!”
- “Acclaimed in Europe, [name of product] is finally available in the United States!”
- Anything with a voiceover from an early-twentysomething extreme slacker dood, distorted so it sound a bit flatter. Apparently that makes the voice sound even more extreme., and thus the product as well.
This could launch a very touchy subject that might wind up in GD, but here goes…does it seem that groups of people in commercials are a lot more diverse than in real life? In other words: every wedding party, poker party, Super Bowl-watching party, or group of people moving a couch includes 3 white people & one person of color.
Was your wedding party multi-racial? Has a person of a different race ever helped you move?
Not necessarily. It could be bleached.
“New! X-Treem White Bread! The whiter white bread! For you folks who fear spices, strong colours, and anything that might have a smell or texture!”
From the UK: the pathetic and completely unsympathetic loser family whose (predictably) dumb father “shoulda gone to SpecSavers”.
No. Shoulda gouged your eyes out with a rusty spoon to save you repeating that stupid slogan.
Much more diverse. I do think that’s a good thing, though; it recognizes that minorities are consumers too. Appealiong to a wider audience is also smart advertising.
That being said, it does seem strange when you see groupings that have probably never occured in the real world, such as four women around a table - one white, one black, one Hispanic, one Asian, all attractive, and all around the same age.
back to cliches: when I lived in southern New Mexico, television stations in El Paso seemed to produce the worst local commercials I’ve ever seen for a market its size. EVERY commercial for a locally owned restaurant - EVERY ONE – went like this
- Show an exterior image of the restaurant building, either in a strip plaza or surrounded by an empty parking lot.
- Show plates filled with various menu items. Have the narrator say their names as they appear across the screen, in case the viewer doesn’t know what’s being shown is actually called “steak” or “enchiladas.”
- Show servers putting down plates in front of a family of four; thirtysomething husband and wife, and a boy and girl that are usually between ages 9 and 12. The family is usually white, even though El Paso is 70%-75% Hispanic, and the restaurant being advertised more often than not has a name that begins with “El”, “La”, “Los” or “Las.” I think they use the same family in most commercials.
- Show each member of the family eating, while the voiceover talent drones on.
- Show the entire family pause, look at each other simultaneously, all nod and smile in approval, and then resume eating.
- Show the building again. If there’s a pole sign, show that instead. Display the address, and have the narrator say it too.
I see your point, but just for the record, my regular poker group includes: 7 white people, two black people, two Pacific Islanders, an Asian and a Hispanic.
People who smile and nod after they eat a forkful of something.
I dunno, if I eat a forkful of something tasty, I’m going to keep eating.
And people who brush their teeth without getting toothpaste froth all down their chin. And then don’t rinse, but smile immediately afterwards.
elmwood’s description of the Tex-Mex restaurant ads reminds me of the ads we used to get before movies back in the seventies in the UK (advertising space sold by the inimitable Pearl & Dean).
- Plinky sitar music over images of dimly-lit sumptuous restaurant with plush chairs and flock wallpaper.
- Overly made-up woman with Farrah Fawcett flick is ushered to her seat by moustachioed lothario with whom she is dining, seen through matte filter.
- Smiling, be-turbanned man dramatically pulls chrome lid off platter to reveal steaming curry in circle of rice.
- Woman suggestively smiles at moustache man, through glistening lips.
- Close-up of candle in soft focus.
- Deep and rich voice-over: “Come and experience the exotic tastes of the subcontinent…”
Then… - SUDDEN cut to shaky, blurred picture of local 1930s building with restaurant sign outside it. Many scratches on film, which is of entirely different stock.
- Vaguely hysterical voice-over in a completely different voice, very high-pitched, with a strong regional accent: “…at The Prince of India! Just five minutes from this cinema on Upper High Street!”
- Followed by a white flash on screen and a “vvvvvvp” noise.
“See it again… for the first time!”
FUCK YOU! I already gave you my money once- can’t you just be happy with that? How do you get the nerve to advertise and ask me to pretend I haven’t seen it and go see it again? If your movie or play is so successful that everybody has seen it, stop wasting your money on ads.
I hate pretty well all commercials for migraine type products, because almost without fail they can trigger a migraine for me. All the flashing lights and screechy music totally set me off so I have to change the channel. I’m all for drumming up business, but this seems like a cruel way to do it.
Every commercial I can think of with children. Commercial children are not cute. Real children can be very cute. The minute they appear on a commercial, all cuteness evaporates.
As a hijack, on the racial issue - I remember reading (perhaps in Salon) that some black women, somewhere, were pleased that black women now feature as the protagonist in feminine hygiene products because it signals the acceptance of black women as “clean”. It really made my head spin that at some point either a) black women were not considered clean, or b) that some black women think that at some time they weren’t considered clean. Baffling. Perhaps I have had a sheltered life.
Which reminds me of two other ones:
“Coming soon to a theater near you!”
and
“Coming soon to theaters everywhere!” Really? Everywhere? I didn’t know there were theaters on the moon.
FAKE NEWS WILL BURN IN HELL FOR THE REST OF TIME.
Ahem… sorry.
I hate fake news. The Conservatives in the Canadian election have been using it, and I hate it (and them, but that’s another thread).
That damn Kevin Trudeau uses fake news too, with that damn book about cures “They” don’t want you to know about (Who the hell is “they”?)