Did You Get My Message About My Yogurt Luv?

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."

Weight Loss And Migraine Guaranteed

There are few things I care about in life LESS than Mariah Carey's weight. Bulgarian politics interest me more. (I can't say that definitively, I guess... I don't know much about Bulgarian politics... it could be less interesting than Mariah Carey's weight, but I doubt it.) But Jenny Craig assumed I, and millions of other potential dieters, would be so interested in it, that they released a teaser ad last year that would whet our appetites to see just whose legs those were busting out of a nylon egg.



The horrible soundtrack composed of noise and the repetitive smash cuts of appendages pushing through fabric amounted to a minute and a half of eye strain and fuzzy headache, which would likewise whet our appetites for the migraine inducing campaign it was launching.

That's right, America, Mariah Carey has apparently lost some weight! And to celebrate, Jenny Craig is inviting you to the worst club in the world, where normal women who have recently lost weight awkwardly dance and the only music, ever, is the worst possible remix of a Mariah Carey song in which her shrill as a banshee voice repeats "YOU CAN MAKE IT... YOU CAN MAKE IT... YOU CAN MAKE IT..." over and over and over again until your ears commit suicide just to escape the pain.



This ad mentions just how much weight some of the poor ladies trapped in Club You Can Make Ad Infinitum have lost. It does not mention how they lost this weight, but I assume being assaulted by this terrible music for hours on end would have such a soul crushing effect on your well being that you'd never want to eat again. Is the Jenny Craig system of weight loss just a pair of headphones and this song? If so, kudos to Ms. Craig for finally solving our nation's obesity problem. It makes me want to preemptively skinny up just to avoid ever having to hear Mariah screech at me again.

Everybody's Laughing... But It's Derisive, Hollow Laughter

In my mind, a crappy commercial that has horrible production values is wholly superior to the well-produced, high budget commercial that still sucks. When a bad commercial looks bad and seems rushed and doesn't make sense, it's at least partly because of circumstance. Local commercials often fall into this trap... a lack of money leads to a lack of resources making the ad, and BAM! It's a suckfest.

But when a national commercial comes on, and it's well done, well directed, looks great and somehow manages to be full of poor decisions, it's a complete failure. The Honey Bunches of Oats' (herein abbreviated "HoBO") "Sunshine Day" ad is one of these ads.



Look at the resources that went into making this steaming pile of maggot buffet. There's a whole cast of dancing actors! Candy colored sets! A licensed (awful) song! This little film is the dedicated result of a whole lot of work by a whole lot of people, and it's terrible. And that makes me so mad.

The concept behind the ad is suspect from the start... something about the community of folks who enjoy HoBO having a sunnier, more positive outlook than the rest of us downtrodden Frosted Flakes lovers, and how they realize that the most important meal of the day can also be the most fun. Sure. I love the idea of some ad dude pitching this asinine idea to the HoBO execs. "What makes HoBO different from all other flake based cereals? Optimism!" SOLD.

Two of the decisions in filming totally stymy me... first, the second actor featured is obviously a horrifying, suburban serial killer sociopath. Look at his dead eyes and his ridiculously frightening grin. Some casting director PICKED that freak to be the face of HoBO. Second: the choir of triplets. That scene had to be story boarded and designed explicitly. "I feel like something's missing from this grating, sugar coated nightmare... I know! Identical triplets!"

But even if you remove ugly Ted Bundy and the Sisters Three, the commercial still presents a grotesque funhouse version of what ad execs consider "happiness." It's over the top, but not in a knowing way or a funny way... more like in a desperate way. Licensing a campy song, like this molding owl pellet from the Brady Bunch and playing it mostly straight seems like a willful act of obliviousness regarding our extremely cynical, extremely ironic culture. It's not sincere enough to be sweet or winking enough to be good... it's trapped somewhere in between. And when you tally up the hours that went into making this suburban freakshow, it's both depressing and enraging.