One of my many pet peeves in modern advertising is when a commercial adds, for no reason, a newfangled techie element... every now and then, you'll see an actor in a commercial, apropos of nothing, messing around with a touch screen, or utilizing a smart phone app, or, in an annoying new ad for Dannon, texting...
It seems every suburban housewife ever is so enamored of Dannon Pure yogurt that they need to text insipid messages of yogurt "luv" the minute their family cracks into a six pack of live culture dairy goodness. As they ignore their families and sport looks of contentment and relief, the matriarchs of many households bash away on their phone keypads, belching iPhone-like text bubbles into the air with sad little blurbs about how incredible it is that even their "hubby" "luvs" this fucking yogurt. Who are they writing to? Who could possibly care? How tiny have their worlds become?! The conceit is dumb, of course, but it's advertising... I get it. It would be odd if, while their families slurped down cup after cup of Dannon Pure, Mom was texting her pals about last night's episode of "The Good Wife." But why are the characters in the ad texting at all?!
It strikes me as a very Poochie concept... Poochie, of course, being the hip new dog character added to "Itchy & Scratchy" on "The Simpsons" by a committee of out-of-touch corporate a-holes. When the whole premise of your ad is built around the idea of texting, and that's it, it just feels like a bunch of suits with no creativity, humor or intelligence stared at the contents of their pockets until coming up with a text message based spot. No effort was put into the messages and no connection was made between the premise and the product... In 1894, the ad would have consisted of a bunch of ladies typing out stupid Morse code yogurtisms on telegraphs... in 2039, they will be telepathically spreading the hot news of how much their cyberhubby luvs his nanoyogurt. It's just such a time capsule... a weird attempt to exploit something that's part of our lives, but not quite a fad... But, I suppose it's not like most yogurt ads are aiming for timelessness.
Also, the song kind of sucks.
Now excuse me while I text everybody I know, "My whole family h8s this stupid commercial."
