| Posted 10:45pm, Saturday, November 16, 2002 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.
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:
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.
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