Friday, October 31, 2008

I'll take "Tortured Premises" for $200, Alex

This ad doesn't seriously offend me or anything, but it just strikes me as yet one more example of how little most ad writers think about what they're writing.



You can see the basic idea of the ad there - "Guy who works at sub shop prefers Domino's oven-baked subs to his own employer's product" - and you can also see where it totally went off the rails. There's humor, and then there's this, where in taking the easiest possible path to the "joke" the writer(s) conveniently ignored that the path makes no sense.

Why did this guy order the sandwich to be sent to the sub shop at which he works? Why did he order it during business hours? Why did he give his real name? Why did he talk so loudly about it in front of his co-workers, making it thoroughly clear that he did in fact order it? "Why would I order a DOMINO'S OVEN-BAKED SANDWICH?" He even looks back into the shop as he says it! This makes no sense at all. No one would ever do this. The only reason to do something so incredibly nonsensical in your ad is if it's hilariously awesome. This is not hilariously awesome. This is what happens when your script for the ad is so lame that the director of the spot doesn't know to tell his lead actor that his delivery is totally off-base. Either that or Domino's wants you to think that only complete morons who are incapable of even the most basic subterfuge like their product.

Here is a better premise, which it took me ten seconds to think of: the Submart guy gets caught at Domino's by his manager and claims to be "scoping out the competition." Or, you know, anything else that might come close to happening in real life. I guess maybe that's not as side-splittingly hilarious a punchline as "Poor guy was lost!", though. Right? I mean, that's such a hilarious joke that we had to absolutely torture our basic premise just to get to it, right?

Unrelated note: Why are "Mike & Mike" doing the voice-over at the end? What the hell is the point of that?

4 comments:

Quivering P. Landmass said...

Wow, I had no idea that was Mike & Mike. Can't imagine anyone else recognizes that either.

"Money well spent."

Anonymous said...

I thought it was Mike & Mike too but wasn't really sure...still ain't.

Windier E. Megatons said...

I Googled it and a couple of sources mentions that they're doing Domino's ads. The reason it's hard to figure out is it doesn't really sound like Greenberg; he may be putting on a more "announcery" voice or at least trying to. It's Golic for sure, though, and if there's a second voice with him I can't imagine why it would be anyone else but Greenberg.

Anonymous said...

With hair like that would you let 'Steve' make you a sandwich? Thank you for crucifying this ad.