I’m not sure the country that this drunk driving awareness public service announcement is from, though I’m pretty sure it’s Sweden, not in the least because the username of the person who put this video up on YouTube is “SwedishFuck.” What I am sure about is that the ad flat out rocks. Enjoy!
To my amusement and delight, one of my favorite comedians Mr. Jerry Seinfeld has filmed a number of Microsoft ads with Mr. Microsoft himself Bill Gates which are perfectly Seinfeldian. The first takes place at the mall where Jerry spots Bill buying shoes. The second takes place at a residential home where Bill and Jerry have moved in with a random “normal” family.
As PC World writes, the ads are “all just stuff to make you react. Whether you chuckle, guffaw, scoff or spew, you’re doing something — and that’s ultimately the point of the ads about nothing.”
They are funny to watch and almost like a traffic accident – though I may not want to look, I simply cannot not look. Plus, seeing Bill do “the robot” is quite enjoyable, though English striker Peter Crouch does the robot much, much better.
Over time, the ads are supposed to get more and more “specific” about Microsoft products and service. When that happens, who knows if I will feel the same way about Jerry shilling for MSFT. For now, I will just simply enjoy Jerry swapping George Costanza’s companionship with yet another major icon’s as he goes through the banal moments of life.
First he hung with Superman. Now he’s hanging with the richest man in the world. Sounds pretty fun to me.
Shoe Circus:
New Family:
For the past few months I have seen a very noticeable up-tick in the amount of Arab keffiyehs being worn, especially the white and black style worn by so many Palestinians. While there are tons of Europeans walking the streets of NYC these days due to the weak dollar (and Europeans tend to support the Palestinian cause much more than Americans), that doesn’t totally explain the phenomenon.
It turns out that one of “the” fashion looks this season is to wear a scarf around your neck in a fashion that will make you look to many people either like a Palestinian, a Terrorist, or potentially both. Rachel Ray wore one of these scarves in a Dunkin Donuts ad and now there are lots people who now think that both Rachel Ray and Dunkin Donuts support terrorists.
I know one could consider “Don’t Mess with the Zohan” the first “Terrorist comedy” but does this scarf / keffiyeh look make terrorism “the new black” of the fashion world? And if so, more importantly, why is this cool?
UPDATED ON 5/29: DD has pulled the ad and Amahl Bishara, an anthropology lecturer at the University of Chicago who specializes in media matters relating to the Middle East, said “complaints about the scarf’s use in the ad demonstrate misunderstandings of Arab culture and the multiple meanings that symbols can take on depending on someone’s perspective” and “to reduce their meaning to support for terrorism has a tacit racist tone to it.”
As “Avenue Q” sang, everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes. Did I just prove that point? I’m not so sure. I feel pretty strongly that at least in the West, for whatever reason, if you see a keffiyeh, you think of not so good things…
Via Jessie
Once Led Zep sold the rights to “Rock n’ Roll” to Cadillac I knew it was all over. TV commercials are great in terms of picking and playing great music – sometimes even better than the radio.
Some of the songs are so good they end up in my jukebox. The last song that I bought after hearing it from a TV commercial was Paul Van Dyk’s “Time of Our Lives” a month or so ago – it is featured in the current Jeep commercials. Before that, I fell in love with Royksopp’s “Remind Me” after hearing it in a Geico Caveman spot.
I’m happy that someone else cares about TV commercial music even more than I do as I’m hoping it will prove to be a valuable resource in the future. It took me way too long to track down the Jeep song…
I’m going out to eat at Pinch in NYC tomorrow and the name got me laughing as I remembered a humorous series of Honda Element ads. They starred Gil the Crab who wanted to pinch everything in sight – who doesn’t – and if you know what I’m talking about you are probably laughing already. Of course I went to YouTube and collected and posted them for you. Watch and enjoy.
Video #1:
Video #2:
Video #3: (never aired)
Below is a photo of the great state of Alaska’s new advertising campaign:
I just love how this story has legs, or maybe drumsticks would be the better term.
First of all, if you google “coq roq” this blog is at the bottom of the first results page, which might explain the healthy amount of comments on the first Coq Roq related post.
Second, it turns out that some fellow rocker are offended. The KISS/Gwar combo rockers (who cannot spell) SliPKnot are suing BK because “SliPKnoT fans have expressed confusion and criticism over what they think is SliPKnoT endorsing Burger King.” Get the full legal complaint at, where else, the Smoking Gun’s site.
Thanks once again goes to Todd.
If by just reading that headline you were thinking “I just saved a bundle on my car insurance by switching to Geico,” then you’ll probably agree with the statement that Geico has the most memorable commercials on television right now. Period. I challenge you to present me with an ad campaign that is better. I love how there is no master concept holding them all together yet how that in itself is the master concept of the campaign. I love the randomness and that half of the time you have no clue you are seeing a Geico ad until you hear the tag line. They are short, irreverent and somehow, partly through immense repetition, they stick with you. More importantly, they have become part of every day life. Some examples:
* After my accountant plugged all my info into his PC program to prepare my 2005 tax return, he turned to me and said, “Good news.” I started to guess how much he was going to tell me I was getting back when he said, “I just saved a bundle by switching to Geico.” He is so dry I never saw it coming.
* When I first moved into my new apartment building, I described how I felt about the new place by asking, “Have you ever seen the Geico Tiny House commercial? Its like that.” To see Tiny House, my all time favorite Geico commercial — “I’m just trying to make an omelette!” — click here, then click “What We’ve Done” and “Geico.”).
* When I provided tech support to my friend Greg a few weeks ago, I said that something was so easy “a caveman could do it” and then we both made sure there were no caveman’s around who would be insulted by that statement.
One day, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon Geico to do a favor for me by saving me up to $500 in 15 minutes on car insurance. Until then, I will just get a nice laugh by watching their ads.
Now this is getting just plain silly: First the Subservient Chicken, then the Sith Sense and now Coq Roq – damn I wish I worked on the Burger King interactive account! Coq Roq is the web site for a made-up band called “Fowl Mouth” – its a great flash site that advertises BK’s new Chicken Fries (I can feel my arteries clogging just having typed that). Check out the gallery area; I think it’s neat how it switches from picture to picture.
Thanks Todd for sending this to me – and to think I thought Coq Roq was a gay band…
UPDATE:
What kind of messages does this site send out, especially when it’s backed by a huge corporation? Ultimately, what it’s doing is sexualizing fast food” is just one opinion out of many about this campaign. After the jump, read about all the controversy Coq Roq has kicked up.
From AdAge:
BURGER KING’S COQROQ.COM TRIGGERS CONTROVERSY
Some Sexual Double Entendres Removed From Site Overnight
July 26, 2005 by Kate MacArthur
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) — Even though it has suddenly removed sexual double entendres from its new Web site, CoqRoq.com, Burger King today denied it had received any complaints from consumers or other outside groups.
This screen grab was taken in the ‘Gallery’ section of Burger King’s CoqRoq.com site yesterday. Today, the ‘Groupies Love the Coq’ caption was removed. The company denies it made the changes because of outside complaints. The CoqRoq.com site is linked to Burger King’s main Web site and is promoted in a new Burger King TV commercial.
Crispin Porter
CoqRoq.com, created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Miami, the agency that created Burger King’s Subservient Chicken site, is designed to look like the kind of crudely outrageous Web site created by a rock band.
The Web site’s double entendre name, along with the lyrics, demeanor and the sophomoric presentation of the fictitious heavy metal group, projects the illusion of something designed to offend the sensibilities of mainstream adult America.
Among other things, CoqRoq.com, which is linked directly to the main Burger King Web site, includes photo galleries with Polaroid-style shots of young girls with the handwritten captions “Groupies love the Coq” and “groupies love Coq.” Since the site went live yesterday, those captions and others have been erased from the online materials. AdAge.com took screen shots of those removed materials yesterday afternoon.
“Nothing on the site has changed because of any reaction to the site,” said Edna Johnson, senior vice president for global communications for Burger King Corp., which is owned by private equity firm Texas Pacific Group. Mrs. Johnson said photo cutlines were written and then assigned randomly by computer software that as since been disabled. She said malfunctions in the Flash and XML programming were responsible for putting the “Groupies love the Coq” on the photos of the young women.
No complaints
Ms. Johnson said neither the marketer nor its agency, Crispin Porter, had been contacted by any groups. “We haven’t had any complaints. The site launched slightly more than 24 hours ago and the changes are typical of a new Web site that is being tweaked.” She added that a misspelling of Burger King had also been fixed.
But even industry insiders were surprised by the gaffe of the CoqRoq site, with some noting that the bar, first raised first by Burger King’s subservient chicken and later upped by the Paris Hilton erotic carwashing spot for CKE Restaurants’ Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., has pushed the limits of what fast-food marketers will do for attention.
“There’s a fine line between getting the attention of the core target and risking offending the masses,” said Chris Carroll, senior vice president and director of marketing for Subway’s Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust.
The lead singer of Burger King’s fictitious rock band CoqRoq is named Fowl Mouth.
Ralph Norman Haber, partner, Human Factors Consultants, an expert on subliminal perception and subliminal advertising, said there’s nothing subliminal in the site or its advertising and that both males and females appear to be targeted equally.
“As far as I could see both sides of each one of these comes in for being the target,” he said. “Everybody is picked on and it”s kind of fair game. I think it’s probably an effective ad. From my point of view I thought it was very creative.”
However, outsiders are asking how a corporation of Burger King’s stature could have approved the use of such a concept.
‘Offensive in general to families’
“Just the name Coq Roq in general is offensive to families,” said Aliza Pilar Sherman, an authority and author on women and the Internet and founder of cybergrrl. “I can’t imagine if parents of a smaller child saw this. They’d say they don’t want their child exposed to this. Where do we as responsible individuals draw the line? Of course there’s freedom of speech but does that mean Burger King should be perpetuating stereotypes, negative attitudes and demeaning behavior to the market.”
“Burger King is perpetuating a crude type of stereotype,” agreed Dr. Martha Allen, director of the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press. “They’re serving junk stereotypes degrading and harmful to women.”
The fact they adjusted the site indicates “they’re crossing the line and they know it in some sense,” said Pat McGann, director of outreach for Men Can Stop Rape, a group that works with young men to foster healthy relationships with women. He called the entire site an example of material that confuses men about what it means to be a man.
Sexualizing fast food
“What kind of messages does this site send out, especially when it’s backed by a huge corporation?” he asked. “Ultimately, what it’s doing is sexualizing fast food.”
Challenge Darth Vader to a game of 20 questions he likes to call The Sith Sense. My object was an radish which he guessed on the 17th question. Once again, the agency handling the Burger King account has developed a seriously cool viral concept. I especially likes the effect when Vader shakes your screen.
Cool stuff.
Thanks Scott