it's reasonable to assume that when i was ten i was more susceptible to advertising than i am today. a catchy jingle, some near epileptic-fit-inducing images or some genius boobs might send me running to mother with a refrain of "want" and "need." these days, an ad for taco bell's new cheesy, beefy melt almost induces vomiting. i think the difference, though, is more than just the slow erosion of my naïveté: advertisements were actually better back then. they were much less conceptual, and often trimmed down (especially ads aimed at children) to nothing but other people having a great time and yelling "awesome" while using whatever absurdist contraption they were trying to peddle. these days, you have to be the fucking duke of irony to understand any ad for car insurance. it requires at least a bachelor's degree in pop culture to "get" the commercials for what i think is some sort of keyboarded wireless device. see? i don't even know what the fucking product is! will we ever revert to this time of simplicity? is the nature of advertising cyclical or only downward-spiraling?
here is one of my favorite childhood commercials. it succeeded in doing something that not a ton of advertisements are capable of: it made me desire a product that truly, truly sucked.
you can actually witness the slow but sure gaying up of this ad over the course of a couple of years:
note: these videos are meant for entertainment purposes only. in know way are they intended to help "prove" a "point." i have a job, you know, and i don't really have all day to find fucking video links that show the gradual faggening of my entire television experience. professional bloggers do. also, they like to use fancy words like "caveat" and "ostensible" and "laconic" and "quaff" and "queaf" and they can eat poop like streetflies and sprain their face. but i digress.
About Me
- Evan Rowe
- I'm a shameless dilettant, probably a little more virtuous than someone who doesn't believe in anything should be.
4 comments:
My household's recent grievances lie in the absurd/"quirky" gimmick in which supernatural/pervy events take place without explanation. I'm sure some giant, "progressive" ad firm is responsible.
Examples:
-The Starburst (?) "Berries & Cream Leprechaun"
-The Domino's Oreo Pizza weird puberty/oreo facial hair conversations
-The Burger King "King" appearing in stupid places and/or being poorly edited into a football game or something
-Wendy's dorky middle-aged men wearing Wendy's wigs (esp. the one in the woods, faux trust-building exercise.)
However, not too long ago I revisited some of my favorite commercials which were also from the era which you reference. Including:
-"That's a Blow-Pop!" Commercial
-Bubbletape "6ft of bubblegum for you, not them!"
-"Yikes, Stripes!" for FruitStripe Gum.
Anyway, uh, that's why I have 56 cavities. But all they were doing was talking about how cool and awesome the gum was. Totally worked.
My favorite commerical presently is Eastern Motors, via YouTube.
The decaying of the American advertisement has too caught my attention. (see BGR, 2007MAR25, "The Search for Fresh Toes Ted" ) There are increasing amount of TV ads that are being put on my Mute-List. Whether they be annoying or annoying and overplayed, they get the mute. I am sometimes provided with the idea that I am bowing to my inner curmudgeon and further narrowing what I deem is listenable (see My Grandpa, circa his entire life since the invent of the remote control, "I can't use the mute button anymore because I wore out the fucker.")
But it is becoming more and more clear that advertising firms are just failing. Great songs of the past are getting overplayed in snippets in advertisement. (See Royal Caribbean Cruise use of snippets from Iggy's "Lust for Life") I originally thought that the cool kids from way back when have jobs now and are putting songs they like into commercials. Could I be more wronger? Cool kids don't go into marketing.
Cool kids don't go into marketing.
As for the Taco Bell ad you refer to - If fails. There is nothing appetizing about strings of CGI cheese stretching out of people's mouths. This should be a cardinal rule of advertising food - DONT MAKE YOUR PRODUCT LOOK GROSS! This also extends to Hardee's recent campaign. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIY3gkCUATs)
Every their new sandwich falls from the sky onto the screen, they play a sound that is reminiscent of a sick woman passing a solid hunk of afterbirth. I haven't eaten at Hardee's since they decided to make sandwiches have a gross soundtrack.
All Taco Bell needs to is have in their ads is this: Show a picture of the new item, Say the name Taco Bell, explain the new item. I would buy it. I always buy the new item at Taco Bell.
Another thing I have noticed is the "word" "melty." Taco Bell has been using this "word" for a while in their ads. But lo and behold, McDonalds has started using the fake word in their ads, too. Okay that isn't really a complaint, just something I've noticed.
Onto what E.P. Appleself said... E.P. listed a series of commercials in which there is no sense. I believe I know exactly who to blame for this - The American public for overeagerly swallowing down Napolean Dynamite. These ads are bastard offspring of that idiotic movie. This is supposed to be some sort of attempt at irreverent humor ? The ads even have similar cinematography to the movie!
And in closing -
"At Eastern Motors
Your job's your credit."
you guys are onto something. you know how when you're a kid and your mother tells you to stop touching your sibling? what do you do? you start "not touching" them, which is equally annoying. this is what advertisers are doing!
someone told them that, as a hard and fast rule, "making the audience laugh is good." this is oversimplifying! people laugh for different reasons, and not always because something is funny. these days they have you laughing, but it's the kind of laugh meant to fill a gaping awkwardness. it's not a good laughing.
unfortunately, irony has gotten out of hand, and people don't seem to know the difference between different types of laughing. (i'm really getting crazy with the gerunds, here.) i think i'd rather have newscorp tell me what kind of network al jazeera is before i'll let burger kind and oreos tell me what's funny.
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