You
know what commercial I can’t stand? That spot where
the guy takes his uncle from Italy out for some authentic
Italian cooking… Olive Garden!
I
think if you took a guy who just got off a plane from Italy
to the Olive Garden, he would slit your fucking throat.
You
know what? I’m Chinese. When my family gets off the
plane from Hong Kong, I want to make them feel right at
home. So I take them to Panda Express!
Last
week, my friends drove up the border from Mexico, so I took
them out to El Torito!
When
my cousins visit from Maine, we hit Red Lobster for some
authentic seafood specialties!
Where did Old Navy get all the money to flood the airwaves
with that crappy Rugby Bunch commercial during the World Series?
Is it just me or does that thing run about five times every
hour? Do they think they’re being cheeky by using camp?
Wrong!
It just sucks balls.
The Verizon commercials are pretty good though.
No.
They’re not. They suck balls too.
It’s
bad enough we have to listen to that annoying guy repeat
“can you hear me now.” Did you notice that the
fucking client made the agency keep the dumb-ass peace sign/Verizon
gesture?
Some
of their recent commercials feature an idea which does not
involves the “can you hear me” guy. But then
he pops up at the end of the commercial. Then a passerby
flashes him the peace sign/Verizon pneumatic device as he’s
asking someone if they can hear him. That’s THREE
fucking ideas in one goddamned commercial.
They
probably got all huffy and said, “no… you have
to keep the ‘V’ sign… we’ve spent
millions ingraining that into consumers memories. We’ve
got equity!!!”
Clients
love this shit. They just can’t focus. On a typical
creative brief, there’s a section which asks for a
single-minded proposition, the single thing you want a consumer
to walk away with from the commercial. The clients always
ends up saying something like, “it’s the smoothest
butter flavor available, but with a spicy kick!”
“Uh,
that’s two things in your single-minded proposition,”
reminds the ad agency.
“But
we can’t leave out the spicy kick!” says the
client.
“But
that’s TWO things,” the agency protests again.
“Make
it 60-40. 60% smooth flavor and 40% spicy kick.”
Then
the clients internal politics holds up the creative process.
There is massive infighting. Should the creative communication
be 60-40 smooth butter with spicy kick or is it really more
like 80% smooth butter and 20% spicy kick?
This
is what I do for a living.
Working
in advertising, there are buzz words that every client seems
to be required by law to utilize. They are in no particular
order…
Equity
– “We have equity in the flaming tamale character,
so he must be in every piece of communication, even though
the concept has nothing to do with fire, tamales or spicy
food!” Examples include Sprint, who still uses the
pin drop device at the end of every commercial, even though
it holds meaning to almost no one (It was supposed to indicate
clarity: you can hear a pin drop).
Self
Empowerment – “We want the consumer to feel
like our product/service gives them the means to which they
can decide what to do with their time-money-finances-etc.”
Banks use this one a lot. Pharmaceuticals are jumping on
this one too.
Aspirational
– “The lead actor/character in this commercial
must be handsome/pretty. They can’t be ugly, clumsy
or dumb. We want the consumer to want to aspire to be this
person.” This phrase saddles the creative team with
hiring a pretty boy actor to play the lead. A variation
on this buzz word would be the requirement that no employees
of said company be made to look silly in a TV commercial.
They too must appear aspirational.
Hall
of Fame of Dumb Client Buzz Words:
Paradigm
Think outside the box
Well,
Dusty Baker has moved on from the Giants. I say good riddance.
While I think he was an excellent manager, his incessant
whining about being underappreciated was really pussy.
As
Tom Hanks said, “there’s no crying in baseball.”
Welcome
aboard Mr. Alou.
