Category Archives: Adtacular

Adtacular

The Quizzical Quizno’s Self Censorship

quiznos.jpgQuizno’s has a history of questionable ad campaigns. Their most recent one featured a commercial in which a sentient oven with a voice akin to HAL9000 commanded a chef to build a Toasty Torpedo. It ended with a perspective shot from inside the oven, and the HAL-oven saying “Scott, put it in me.” Scott shot the oven a baffled/horrified look. And…scene.

And that’s just the condensed variation shown in my market. For a truly horrifying experience, check out the full-length commercial. In this version, Scott is totally on board with humping a red-hot oven.

This ad generated a lot of buzz. And by “buzz”, I mean “vomit”. Google “creepy quizno’s commercials” and you will be treated to a plethora of WTFing over this ad. Quizno’s must have decided it was a bad idea for a restaurant to nauseate potential customers. So they altered the voice-over, but the results aren’t any less weird.

Now, instead of the innuendo-filled line quoted above, the oven says “Scott, I’m waiting for it.” I suppose this could be interpreted in the same dirty way as the original line, but you’d have to stretch pretty hard to do so. And you probably wouldn’t have dirty connotations in your mind unless you’d seen the original version.

All Quizno’s did was alter the line. Everything else about the commercial is the same. So Scott the Chef still gives the oven a terrified look, which is just baffling. Why does the line “I’m waiting for it” frighten him so? It’s disjointed and bizarre and unreal. It’s been transformed from creepy-in-a-weird-German-porno way to creepy-in-an-Eraserhead-way.

I think Quizno’s should’ve stuck to their guns and kept the original. Because now tons of fast food franchises have debuted their own dirty slogans:

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Adtacular, Life In These United States

Half-Hearted Marketing Schemes Theatre Presents…

My place of employ provides free soda. I appreciate this, because I wasn’t doing enough on my own to destroy my body.

Since I’m trying to shed a few lbs, I opt for a diet sodee pop with my lunch. But Diet Coke is a hot item in these parts, so I’m usually left with Diet Dr. Pepper as my only option. Which is fine, because the commercials are true–it really does taste like Dr. Pepper!*

* Which, by the way, has to be the most idiotic ad campaign ever. Wow, it tastes like the thing it says it tastes like! Praise Jesus! Next up, we’re working on steak-flavored steak!

When I first began this job, the Dr. Pepper cans were all emblazoned with the characters from the last Indiana Jone movie. Actually, they must have only had a partial marketing deal, because every can I ever got had Mutt on it. Try to eat lunch with Shia LeBoeuf staring at you. Go ahead, I dare you.

But the Indiana Jones cans ran out, and were eventually replaced with a seemingly generic version. The only difference between this version and a totally unadorned can is a row of laces between the Dr. Pepper logo and the nutritional info.

I literally drank this soda for months before it occurred to me, “Wait, what the hell is this supposed to be?” I can only assume they’re supposed to be football laces, except for two things:

1) They are the fattest, ugliest football laces you’ve ever seen, and
2) There is not a single mention of football anywhere else on the can.

No famous football player. Not even a silhouette of someone doing the Heisman. There’s no football related contest or giveaway or anything. The only things football related at all are the ugly, ugly laces that look more like they belong on some morbidly obese dowager’s corset.

My guess is, the Dr. Pepper people wanted to attach themselves in some way to The Exciting NFL Season. However, not only did they fail to land an NFL endorsement deal, but their creative department was filled with people who had never actually seen a football.

So they went to Modell’s and bought one and brought it back to the office. By that point, a whole half hour had passed and no one was really hot for this idea anymore. Still, they spent like 15 bucks on that football, so they might as well put it to good use.

If you look closely, you can actually see everyone involved in this project losing interest in it.

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Adtacular

Confusing Ad Campaign Theatre Presents: Budweiser!

I wasted at least a dozen people’s time this weekend discussing the bizarreness of this ad. So allow me to waste your time, too, won’t you?

Perhaps you’ve seen Budweiser’s latest ad campaign. In it, a man who appears to be a Bud employee schools various beer consumers on the finer points of Bud’s brewing process. “Lager Lessons” if you will. Which you will, since that’s what Bud is calling them.

I’m not sure who this ad campaign is intended to sway. Beer snobs will poke holes in their claims. You know, like how Bud brews their beer with rice, not because it adds any unique flavor, but because it’s stupid cheap.

Everyone else won’t give two doodies about their brewing process. Budweiser’s slogan should be, Hey, you’ve been drinkin’ it since high school–why stop now?

But there’s one ad in particular that has me scratchin’ me noggin. In it, we see two schlubs bring their beer purchases to a convenience store checkout. Their six pack holders have no names, but based on their color schemes, we’re meant to understand that they’re Miller Lite and Heineken.

The Loyal Bud Employee says, “Oh, it’s 3 o’clock. You know what 3 o’clock is, don’t you?” He then rattles of Bud’s impressive daily inspection process, which shames them into changing their beers for Bud. Because as well know, Budweiser is the only brewer who actually inspects their beer. Every other brewing company lets rats and dogs swim around in their vats.

But as the two schlubs leave the counter to exchange their choice of beer, the convenience store clerk/owner/whatever says “You’re veddy good!” (because of course the convenience store guy is Indian)

My question is, Why does the convenience store guy care what beer the schlubs buy? Maybe if they were going to buy smaller craft brews he’d care, since presumably he’d make less of a profit on those. Poor guy probably loses a couple cents every time he sells a sixer of Sierra Nevada.

But since the schlubs originally intended to buy other Big-Ass Beers like Miller Lite, what’s the difference between that and Bud to this owner guy? It should mean pretty much the same amount of dough in his pocket, unless he owns stock in InBev.

It’s not even that horrible a commercial, particularly by Budweiser standards. I just don’t get it. Am I missing something? If so, please inform me, gentle reader.