Thursday, November 1, 2007

Suspension of disbelief required

Commercials don't always have to show situations exactly how they would play out in reality. Some advertisers, however, take this license too far. They appear to live in an alternate reality where the little bothers of daily life simply don't exist:



Anyone ever been to a bar? Ever ordered a drink? Ever been a regular male human trying to order a drink? You don't just make eye contact with the bartender from 50 feet away in a packed bar and use gestures to get yourself another beer. You saddle up next to the counter and you scream for about 5 minutes until you finally get his attention. Oh, yeah, and then you have to do this thing called paying. I guess maybe this dude has a tab open, but that bartender has somehow remembered his name among all those other people's?

Also, since when did popular bars become baseball stadium stands? This guy didn't order a dog and a Malt Cup at a Mets game, he got a Heineken at some semi-chic watering hole.

Tagline: It's all about the beer.

It's not the most pretentious ad I've seen, but it's pretty obnoxious. I guess Heineken people live in a special, rarefied world where everyone at any given bar conspires to facilitate your import beer drinking (except the guy who steals it, of course). This ad thinks its pretty clever, pretty hip. But the joke is played, and poorly thought-out. Also? You guys are hardly the first to use that "Tempted" song in an ad.

1 comment:

Windier E. Megatons said...

Pretty much every Heineken ad is like this, isn't it? I loathe the one where the guy steals the draft keg and acts like he brought it to the party. Or how about the guy who steals the Heineken off the woman's car roof? Heineken drinkers live in a world where the only rule is "Obtain Heineken by any means necessary, with the possible exception of buying your own."

Also, aside from the one dude who appears to be holding a pint of Guinness, doesn't it look like everyone in that bar is drinking a Heineken? How is it even likely that this one guy ordered something else (what is that even supposed to be parodying, an Amstel Light?) and didn't immediately get his ass kicked, because you don't pull that kind of shit in a Heineken bar?