The anti-smoking people want me to start smoking. That's the only explanation I can come up with for their relentlessly irritating ad campaigns. They're secretly trying to drive me to tobacco use by being preachy, inaccurate, and over-the-top. And I don't even like to smoke. But I would if it would stop smug 20-something "Truth" people from entering my living room and preening about the evils of big tobacco. I'll take evil corporate guys in suits over smug pseudo-hipsters any day.
It was bad enough when they were just being hysterical in documentary format with their little pieces of man-on-the-street performance art. The damned things were ironic about everything except the fact that they were being as manipulative with facts and statistics as the big, evil tobacco companies they attacked. But all of that paled before the new Syke 9 campaign.
Where to begin? Well, there's the fact that most people stopped saying "syke" in the mid '80s sometime. Well, except for my sister. And then they did weeks of ads where they didn't even hint that this is about cigarettes, instead giving us an energy drink that advertises like Axe body spray. If it weren't for the obvious allusions to cigarette smokng in later ads, I'd be convinced that they were trying to warn young men about the dangers of overusing cheap cologne. And a worthy cause that would be.
And all of this in a pathetic effort to make it seem like smoking isn't cool and opposing smoking is. Nice try guys, but you should have had a nice long chat with the anti-drug folks before sinking millions into an ad campaign the primary purpose of which is apparently to get me so annoyed that I throw something at my flat screen TV, permanently damage it, and become so depressed that I skip right past tobacco and start on heroin. It is impossible to make cigarette smoking or drug use appear uncool via commercials, cartoons, dramatic school presentations, or short films. The Force is too strong in them to be affected by the lameness that is the PSA. The only way to really pierce their cool aura is to grab a 43 year-old meth head, complete with missing teeth and oozy complexion, and have her introduce herself to children individually. (While chain smoking Marlboro Reds, of course.) Don't let her talk though--other than mentioning how much she loves getting high and smoking cigarettes. You don't want her sharing about the time she did lines with Keith Richards and undermining the whole project.
Generally, when I'm talking about annoying commercials, I'm speaking of ads that are on TV right now. I suppose one of the benefits of the 30-second ad is that they're easily forgotten. In addition, for some reason I rarely include one of the most annoying genres of commercial: the TV show promo. Like ads for a movie that I never want to see, these are suddenly everywhere and crazy repetitive. At this point, for example, I'm actively cheering for the end of ER--just so that I can never see an ad for the final season again.
But my current #1 commercial annoyance is the new campaign for DiSaronno amaretto, where some smooth, hip guy keeps offering DiSaronno drink recipes for the congenitally retarded. Seriously, I don't need someone to show me how to make amaretto and milk or amaretto and ginger ale. I'm not walking around the house, tearing my hair out in frustration, saying, "I just don't understand it. I have the DiSaronno. I have the ice. I have the ginger ale. And I have the glass. But what in the name of God do I do next?!!"
Yeah, I know that their point is to get us to think about trying easy drinks with amaretto. I don't care what their point is. I just want them to stop grinning at me like pouring milk into a glass of amaretto is a culinary achievement on par with making a 9 course meal for the Queen. I swear, if they do one where he shows us how to make amaretto on the rocks, I'm going to hurt someone.
Credit for this actually goes to Snickers, who sent the link to the best poncho ad ever. Admit it, you're thinking about getting a poncho right now, aren't you?
This is possibly my fault for not keeping up with all the latest Saturday Night Live sketches. Though I think that the SNL sketches also bear some responsibility for being too boring, lame, and unfunny to warrant watching on a regular basis. You know, I'm not one to go on and on about the decline of SNL. I wasn't even old enough to watch it during previous Chevy Chase and Eddie Murray "golden ages." But with the exception of some of its election stuff, it's not even as good as it was a few years ago when I was complaining that it wasn't as good as it used to be.
This is all by way of explaining why I was unaware that the MacGruber Pepsi ad (that I panned in my reveiw of Superbowl ads) was actually from an ongoing sketch series on SNL. Oops. Though my reasons why the ad sucked are very similar to the reasons that most of their current sketches suck too. They're long, unfocused, and have a pointless or anticlimactic punchline. Honestly, the knowledge that this was a pretty good rendition of the sketch format doesn't make me think better of the ad--it just makes me think worse of the writers of the sketch.
What's a little more disturbing is the knowledge that Pepsi and SNL did this as a joint advertising effort and have aired them during SNL episodes--blurring the line between the sketches and the commercials. (An interesting choice when you consider that SNL also has a tradition of doing fake parody commercials right before the commercial break.) Again, I'm not a purist about advertising. I don't ding people for "selling out," and I really have no issue at all with product placement in TV. But this feels a little . . . off to me. And not just because Pepsi always feels wannabe hip. In that way, it's probably a perfect match for SNL. I know that SNL has never exactly been a bastion of purity and integrity, but here they really are becoming everything that they aspire to mock. (Not that they weren't surpassed in both relevence and hipness years ago by the Daily Show and Dave Chapelle.) Then again, I could just be holding on to my annoyance at how lame the ad was.
Well, that was total bullshit. (I refer here to the travesty that was the actual game, and which I can only explain by positing that the Pittsburgh Steelers have signed a deal with Satan.) Of course, the ads were a bit on the disappointing side as well. I know some people get all excited about the Superbowl commercials, but I tend to think there's a bit of a downward trend in ad quality over the last few years. Sure, there were some interesting and amusing commercials, but nothing really stood out as water cooler fodder for me. Still, I suppose we can dub a few of them winners by default.
My favorite of the night was probably the Conan O'Brian Swedish Bud Light ad--mostly for the send-up of foreign celebrity commercials, but the Times Square punchline was nicely done too:
Honorable mentions go to the Hulu Alec Baldwin ad, which was on track to be mildly amusing, but pulled out a score with a good punchline, and the Careerbuilder.com work frustration ad that included punching a koala. I was all set for that to be another run-of-the-mill job search site ad, but since I was already in a koala-punching mood (due to the aforementioned game travesty and the obvious use of dark voodoo magic on the part of the Steelers), this one really tickled me.
So who really whiffed on their million dollar spot? It's hard for me to just pick one because there are so many ways to squander the money and opportunity. Personally, I loathe the Go Daddy commercials with every fiber of my being for 3 main reasons: 1.) It's not actually an internet porn site, but the commercials sure as hell give you that impression; 2.) You know, there are women out there who make web hosting decisions (ahem), and we're not particularly moved by the debate over which skanky chick's fan site has better hosting of her lingerie shots; and 3.) So you've decided to go T&A, but now you're going to half-ass it by using Danica Patrick? I'm not saying that she's not attractive, but she's not famous enough or hot enough to warrant being used solely for sex appeal. If I'm going to be influenced by the opportunity to watch a hot chick shower on the internet, I want someone a lot sexier than Danica Patrick. She's what's known as, "sexy for her particular profession," which coincidentally is otherwise entirely male.
The other big miss for me was one of the Pepsi ads. Actually, I'm not a big fan of Pepsi's advertising in general--they always seem to just miss the mark for me. And I can't be the only one who finds there whole "new generation" shtick lame and tiresome. You've been the, "choice of a new generation," for how long? Frankly, every time I hear the, "new generation," line, it feels a little like the time my mom called something, "phat-with-a-p-h." Anyway, their biggest miss for me this time was their MacGyver spoof--again, mostly for the missed opportunity. MacGyver is some fertile spoof territory, and yet this is all you do with it? Spend the whole time joking about the name? Where's the MacGyver magic? How can you give me a MacGyver spoof where no one actually rigs up any cool gadgets or disarms a bomb with a paper clip or anything? That's the whole point. Make a bomb shield out of Diet Pepsi cans, disarm the bomb with a mixture of Pepsi and toothpaste. I don't care, but do something MacGyver-ish. But they totally missed the opportunity. And that makes for crappy spoof.
Actually, there are far too many commercials that I hate to list them all here. This is just a summary of the ones that are annyong me right now:
There's one that airs on Bravo a lot for a Calphalon convection oven, with a woman talking about how making lasagna for her kids, "feeds her soul." This wouldn't be a problem except for the casting--this woman obviously has no kids and doesn't cook (much less cook lasagna). If she even has a free-standing convection oven (which I doubt), she uses it to heat up frozen Wholefoods meals and bakery croissants.
The Quaker Oats instant cereal one with the cute little kid and the 2 grandmas separately claiming that the little guy likes their oatmeal the best. It's adding hot water to a packet of dried cereal. Why are you competing over who can do that better? The little brat could probably make it himself--it's not exactly rocket surgery.
The Lexus "Best Christmas Ever" commercial with the little girl/woman remembering how jealous her friend was of her pony. What an insufferable bitch. Which, to be fair, fits neatly into how I classify many (but not all) Lexus owners. It also makes me want to point out that I hate everyone who had a pony when they were little.
Alright, the title is a bit of a misnomer, since to my knowledge there are no PSA wars, but I was thinking about the different anti-drug campaigns that are aimed at children and that's the title that leapt to mind.
Back when I was a kid, the big theme was Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No," which I also associate with the "This is Your Brain on Drugs" fried egg commercial and the "I learned it from watching you," kid. I have no idea whether they were all connected or not. Nowadays, it seems that the big theme is "_____ is my anti-drug." (Though this doesn't count the anti-smoking commercials which, even though I'm a non-smoker, make me want to go out and immediately inhale an entire carton of Marlboro Reds. Could they have found more smug and sanctimonious people to be in the commercial? And I love how the campaign is called "the truth" even though they play pretty fast and loose with the truth sometimes themselves. But I digress. I just really, really hate those commercials. If teen smoking quadruples over the next 10 years, I completely blame that ad campaign.)
Anyway, I don't think that any of the anti-drug commercials are all that effective. But they do fascinate me from a cultural point of view. Generally, I give the edge to the '80s drug commercials. Look what they contributed in terms of satire and parody. Hell, you can still crack up a room of 30-somethings by hysterically shouting, "You Dad! Okay? I learned it from watching you!" Whereas the newer Whatever-is-my-anti-drug seem way too touchy-feely. I guess you can make fun of them a little (Unprotected Sex is My Anti-drug; Crime Sprees Are My Anti-Drug), but it doesn't seem to have the same punch to it. Mostly, they seem to me like the kind of thing that advanced placement kids with lots of extracurricular activities identify with. (Being a Goody-Two-Shoes is My Anti-Drug.) No one is going to be looking these ones up to get a laugh 20 years from now. So that's a big fail in my book.
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