LikeTheDew.com

I am not so sure that I understand modern advertising. Back in the old days, it seemed that ads were more persuasive and less obnoxious, as if their purpose was to actually make you want to purchase the product they promoted. How many of you remember the old Hertz advertisement that featured the guy floating down through the air — already sitting in the driving position — and landing softly in his Bel Aire convertible?  Or the DoubleMint twins, that wholesome pair of gum-chewing beauties?  Or even Mrs. Olsen, that icon of coffeedom, common sense, and the American way, even though she was Swedish?  Those pitches were so effective that I spent the first half of my life wanting to sip Folgers coffee and chew DoubleMint gum while driving a Hertz convertible.

These days, however, the only way I can explain Madison Avenue’s approach is to surmise that they are actually trying to drive business away from their clients. Maybe it’s a tax strategy, or something to do with capital gains. But for whatever reason, the bulk of television marketing these days is just plain annoying.

As an example, let us look for the moment at that strangest of publicity personages, the Burger King. You know who I am talking about. He’s the guy in the royal tights and the Burger King plastic head who lurks around in a variety of televised settings making potential buyers cringe. I will tell you right up front that I like a double Whopper with cheese as much as the next guy, and those fries are hard to beat, but each time I think I might swing through the pickup window for a combo, a picture of Burger King the fast food demon, pops unbidden into my head, and then I usually just decide to go home for a bowl of Cheerios, instead.

But as bad as the creepy hamburger monarch is, at least he isn’t a member of a cartoon family of what appear to be humorous pieces of phlegm.  Yes, I am talking about the Mucinex campaign, and all I have to say about that is … well, actually, I don’t quite know what to say about it. We have Dad, the cigar-smoking, derby-wearing patriarch of the clan, Mom the home maker — technically she is the lung maker, I suppose — and of course, the kids.  They live in an unidentified person’s congested chest, complete with furniture and all of the other creature comforts you might expect successful secretions to possess, and life is good for them until their anonymous host takes some Mucinex and hacks them all up.  I know.  Kind of gross.  The only thing weirder than the fact that an ad executive came up with this concept is the obvious fact that some decongestant executive bought it.

Ad Exec: This campaign will be based on a family of mucus living inside a sick person.

Decongestant Exec: Wow. That’s great. Here’s thirty million to get you started. Have your people call my people, and we’ll do lunch.

The above two examples can’t hold a candle to what may be the worst commercial ever made at any time in the history of the world, bar none, no exceptions, end of story. This is the ad that inadvertently answers the age-old question: Does a bear go in the woods? And apparently, yes he does.  I am talking about the Charmin bathroom tissue promotion in which a lovable bear is sitting behind a tree reading the paper, taking his morning constitutional and apparently about to use a few sheets of tissue from the roll of Charmin hanging discreetly on a branch off to one side.  This scenario is so wrong on such an infinite number of levels that it has actually driven me away from Charmin, bears, the woods, and newspapers. I am not a hunter, but if Mr. Whipple were still alive today, I would buy him lunch, a rifle, and a license, and I would drop him off just down the valley from the reading tree. The first time that bear squeezed the Charmin would be the last time, too.

I don’t want you to think that plastic kings and bodily functions are my only two issues with modern advertising. So to provide an example of an ad campaign gone wrong that involves neither, let us turn our attention to Yella Fella. Here we have a middle-aged chubby guy in a yellow cowboy outfit riding up in the nick of time to protect fictional Western locales and uninformed townsfolk from the follies of using untreated lumber. I know you have all seen him, so let’s have a quick show of hands from the folks who went right out and bought treated lumber after seeing this guy ride into town. That’s what I thought. At least in Yella Fella’s case, however, I can understand the mechanism that led to this unfortunate series of advertisements. Yella Fella owns the company, and he can do what he wants. He is traveling down the same primrose path blazed by the likes of Scotty Mayfield of ice cream fame and Jay Bush and his recipe-stealing dog, Duke, of the Bush bean dynasty. You can just imagine how the meeting went when Yella Fella, whose real name is Yellow Fellow, first proposed the concept.

Yella:  I think we should let me dress up like a yellow cowboy.

Toady 1: Great idea, Boss.

Toady 2:  I guess we know now why it’s your company.

Toady 3:  A yellow cowboy?  Wow.

Toady 4:  You’re the man, Y.F.

As Mel Brooks used to say, it’s good to be the king.  As long as it’s not a plastic one in tights.

1. Inego Montoya says:

   June 30, 2009 at 2:05 pm

   C’mon- Burger King has the best ad campaigns of any corporate entity on the planet. Remember Big Cluckin’ Chicken? Those ads were legitimately funny. Other companies would be well-served to follow their example (using humor and not taking yourself so seriously).

   I agree though- the Charmin ads are disgusting. I do NOT want to see little pieces of TP stuck on a bear’s ass.

   But what’s REALLY wrong with ads today is all the pharmaceutical crap. Talk to your doctor about this, talk to your doctor about that. Anal leakage this, erectile dysfunction that. DISGUSTING. And aren’t doctors supposed to tell you what medicine you need? Isn’t that kinda their job? I seriously would support the FCC banning pharmaceutical ads. Some of these companies spend more on advertising than research & development of their drugs.

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2. Terri Evans says:

   July 2, 2009 at 7:27 am

   Shame on Charmin’. I recall being stunned the first time I saw the bear. As to the Mucinex spots, I agree that they are beyond inane, yet I confess they have been effective on me. I would do most anything to get that family out of my body.

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