Any ad for Carl’s Jr. for about the last six years, beginning with the whole “If it doesn’t get all over the place, it doesn’t belong in your face” campaign. Those were some of the grossest, most disgusting commercials I ever saw. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought so at the time, because they were prompted to put an ad on radio that acknowledged numerous (must have been numerous for them to respond) complaints and then saying basically “if you are offended by these commercials, you aren’t in the demographic we were aiming at.” In other words, “If you don’t like it, screw you!” :mad:
I determined then that a) Carl’s Jr. ain’t that good anyway and b) if the only place available to get a bite is a Carl’s Jr., I’ll just forego lunch and maybe look a little less Limbaugh-like into the bargain.
Their more recent, “Don’t bother me…I’m eating” series is only slightly less irritating, but they still seem to be putting out the idea that rudeness is somehow cute. The demographic they seem to be aiming at is kids between about 14 and 20.
It’s hard enough for parents to teach their kids to teach their kids a little respect when slick television commercials seem to show them that bad manners are cool.
For your product’s spokesman, hire a former Aussie Rules football player who’s got a crew cut and humongous muscles, have him run around in a manic tizzy, scaring the bejeezus out of ordinary people as he screams gibberish punctuated by the occasional phrase, “GET ENERGIZER OY!!!”
First, there was the Yorkie bar’s “men-only” campaign. We see a young woman dressed in a hardhat and fake mustache trying to buy a Yorkie while the shopkeeper quizzes her on the offside rule, tries to frighten her with a fake spider, and finally catches her out by telling her the wrapper brings out the blue in her eyes. I thought it was sufficiently tongue-in-cheek to be amusing, although there have been complaints that it’s sexist (and Nestle got slapped for trying to give out samples only to men). Silly, but not too bad.
And then there came the Echo campaign, in which we are shown what a world without chocolate would be like. As this consists entirely of women committing acts of violence against men, I’m not sure either gender comes out well here. Plus the candy looks revolting anyway.
But the bottom of the barrel is not merely scraped but positively punched through with the new Kinder Bueno ads. A young man in a shop is seduced by a Bueno bar voiced by a breathlessly excited young woman, who entices him with her chocolate, crispy bits, etc. The voice builds to a fever pitch, uttering such immortal phrases as “Lick my ripples!” and “Bite me! Bite me!”, at which point the young man grabs the bar, rips off the wrapper and messily devours it while the shopkeeper looks on in stunned silence.
And the tagline to this, uttered by the same breathless female voice: "I’ll be whatever you want me to be."
Great - prostitute chocolate. Methinks a letter to the ITC is in order…
I saw a new candidate for this thread yesterday. Actually I only saw the last couple of seconds of it, because I glanced at the TV as I was headed to the computer room.
It was the end of a commercial for a local car dealer. Portland area dopers are likely familiar with Scott Thomason’s auto dealership. Well, apparently he’s got a new gem of a commercial.
The last few seconds of the commercial ended with some text on a black screen. One line said something to the effect of “170 Days Until the Greatest Auto Dealer Commercial Ever”.
So now it seems commercials have been taken to a new level…commercials advertising the premiere of a commercial months in advance.
I want to find the marketing wonk behind this ad campaign and slap him blind.
I actually did see a commercial with a guy (looked like a stereotypical British professor, actually) using a Swiffer that had been strategically placed in a diner. It was the first of the series of Swiffer commercials that I saw.
I actually like that oxy-clean commercial. When the guy says something along the lines of “Powered by the air that you and I breathe, intensified by the water that you and I drink.” He sounds like some sort of Arch-alchemist casting a spell.
