On commercials
Feb. 14th, 2008 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteI don't drink Pepsi, let alone something Diet, but I love the new Diet Pepsi Max commercial to Haddaway's "What is Love?" Everyone (including LL Cool J) is starting to pass out until they get some DPM, and then they start the old-school head bopping. It's contagious, even at the dry cleaning where Haddaway himself (at least, I think it is... would make sense) goes "STOP IT!" and storms out. Very funny.
Sometimes commercials are considered tasteless and get changed. I remember that happened once in an Axe (deodorant) commercial where a young guy who's wearing Axe gets stopped as he gets in an elevator. The original shows a hand wearing a pearl bracelet and a fuzzy pink cardigan-- you don't get a good look at the hand, but the flash shows an old woman with a devilish grin on her face. They changed it, apparently because some people thought it was tasteless that an old lady would get her knickers in a twist over a young man's deodorant. So they changed it to a young woman, which kind of ruined the humor and made it like every single other Axe commercial.
Now, there was an animated Red Bull commercial where a bird shits on a professor-like character's jacket. In the original, the guy takes a swig of Red Bull, grows wings, and then flies above the bird and starts to unbuckle his belt... it's pretty clear what it implies. Also, it uses the classic "Red Bull gives you wings" tagline. But the new version doesn't have that-- instead, the professor character takes a swig of Red Bull and then chuckles and withdraws a slingshot from his briefcase. He fires a cork into the bird's bum, and the tagline is now "Red Bull also stimulates your mind." Okay, so the original one was a bit messed up, but it was still better than "bird butt plug."
For someone that's not a marketing major or PR concentration, I sure am opinionated about commercials. In fact, there's a lot that I downright hate and think fail to get the point across. All I tend to remember about them is how annoying they are, versus the product and how much I might like to try it.
That said, I'm only being so observant of commercials tonight because of all the repeats-- thus, I'm watching shows I either have never watched (Supernatural) or ones I haven't watched in AGES (Smallville). And it's always nice to get caught up on shows I've just started to find interesting (Without a Trace).
Sometimes commercials are considered tasteless and get changed. I remember that happened once in an Axe (deodorant) commercial where a young guy who's wearing Axe gets stopped as he gets in an elevator. The original shows a hand wearing a pearl bracelet and a fuzzy pink cardigan-- you don't get a good look at the hand, but the flash shows an old woman with a devilish grin on her face. They changed it, apparently because some people thought it was tasteless that an old lady would get her knickers in a twist over a young man's deodorant. So they changed it to a young woman, which kind of ruined the humor and made it like every single other Axe commercial.
Now, there was an animated Red Bull commercial where a bird shits on a professor-like character's jacket. In the original, the guy takes a swig of Red Bull, grows wings, and then flies above the bird and starts to unbuckle his belt... it's pretty clear what it implies. Also, it uses the classic "Red Bull gives you wings" tagline. But the new version doesn't have that-- instead, the professor character takes a swig of Red Bull and then chuckles and withdraws a slingshot from his briefcase. He fires a cork into the bird's bum, and the tagline is now "Red Bull also stimulates your mind." Okay, so the original one was a bit messed up, but it was still better than "bird butt plug."
For someone that's not a marketing major or PR concentration, I sure am opinionated about commercials. In fact, there's a lot that I downright hate and think fail to get the point across. All I tend to remember about them is how annoying they are, versus the product and how much I might like to try it.
That said, I'm only being so observant of commercials tonight because of all the repeats-- thus, I'm watching shows I either have never watched (Supernatural) or ones I haven't watched in AGES (Smallville). And it's always nice to get caught up on shows I've just started to find interesting (Without a Trace).
