Sunday 11 October 2009

How to salvage really, really stoopid ads.


Is it possible for Mr Sub to salvage and recycle the really, really stoopid advertising spots they commissioned an agency to produce for them?

Bruce, who frequently comments at DJ! and posted the contentious advert that prompted an official rebuke by the Canadian Auto Workers (really - who knew?) at his own blog Canuck Attitude, had the following observations:

If the intent is to find humour in provocative yet unlikely situations, then the ad fails on its own objective. It's easy to see the attempt at humour, the idea of a man at the dinner table calling attention to his wife and eight children -- all with biblical names no less -- could be a build-up to a total laugh riot for someone like me. But unfortunately when he delivers his zinger the whole thing falls flat; it's just not funny. ...

The general consensus seems to be that the commercial sucks. Interesting comments about the super, super gay line, personally it made me cringe at the thought of any self-respecting gay man actually saying that. Eeewww. Perhaps they should have stuck to showing the product instead of a scenario that is so unlikely that nobody can relate to it.

It's not like selling a pair jeans where you never see the product at all. When you watch all three commercials, I don't see this one being any worse to gay people than the other two are to straight people. Though I did like the one with the woman beating her husband with a frying pan, but that's mostly because I think men look incredibly silly in fetish leather so he had it coming.

So here's what Mr Sub could do. Have one of their big executive muck-a-mucks show a clip of one of the much derided adverts and pronounce that it's in very bad taste. Then he (Mister Sub - duh!) would point to one of their food products and declare: "But THIS tastes GOOD!"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Since I wrote that I'm beginning to think what Mr. Sub really needs to concentrate on is brand awareness. There seems to be a lot of confusion between them and Subway, like the image at the top of this post. :)

Pale said...

It reminds me of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life when the father comes home from the mill and announces "Ive got no option but to sell you all for scientific experiments..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-L3JMk7C1A

deBeauxOs said...

Why Bruce honey, that's exactly why I posted that pic.

Pale's link, now clickabilicious!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-L3JMk7C1A

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