If you read our Super Bowl recap, then you may be aware of our distaste for the manic spectacle that is the SoBe lizard commercial campaign. Sadly, SoBe didn't just create the lizard spots for the Super Bowl, no -- they're hellbent on continuing the onslaught of visual diarrhea and disturbing CGI for the foreseeable future, if not forever.
Their latest ad isn't much different than the Super Bowl one -- except that there's no Monsters vs. Aliens tie-in -- but it's especially stupid for several reasons, which I'll get to after I make you watch it with me:
Now, in the Super Bowl version, you had three NFL players performing ballet. It was clear they were NFLers because it was during an NFL game, and the guys were big, and Ray Lewis was in it. Now you just have Matt Light who, and I'm sorry if anyone is a big football fan here, just isn't a household name. He's a Pro Bowler, but on his own, and donning a white spandex suit instead of a jersey, he just looks like a stupid fat guy spazzing out. It's taken completely out of context, and it looks weird. I can't decide if it hurts more to watch Light dance around like a buffoon, or to watch the agonizingly bad animated lizards.
And then the last scene shows Light pouring a milky liquid all over his face and then suddenly metamorphizing into a freaky lizard that looks like it was animated in PowerPoint. Is this included just to scare children? Or does some part of this equate into increased demand for Life Water?
Hopefully this lizard business will stop. We've seen enough. We've shoehorned in enough weird properties and celebrities into the lizard ads, and we're certainly had our fair share of low-grade computer animation. I would love to see SoBe do something decideded un-lizard for their next campaign. Maybe something that has to do with a health drink? Oh yeah -- being relevant. That's kind of important in marketing.
3 comments:
http://advertisingwizards.blogspot.com/2007/07/silliness-or-laziness.html
The good ol' days now?
Two Boston sports related posts in a row. Hmm, must be something in the water. (Okay, that was awful.)
To Patriots fans as myself, Matt Light is a highly respected and popular player, and a likable guy who'll do stupid, self-deprecating stuff like this for fun. That said, I wouldn't expect anyone that isn't a Patriots fan or who lives outside the greater New England region to have the first clue who the hell he is, and this commercial does him and its viewers a disservice by having him jump around like a moron with no context whatsoever.
Of course, when the Patriots win another Superbowl this upcoming season, Matt will probably be a bit more recognizable.
Ah, yes the infamous SoBe Super Bowl commercial. A couple of weeks before the Super Bowl, my strat. comm. professor showed a video that was the making of the commercial. Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct5Iy9saNu8
After watching this pointless video, with dancing lizards and professional football players prancing around in tutus, my class was utterly dumbfounded. We were completely confused at the time, but decided the concept of the commercial (and finished product) would possibly make sense when it aired. The Super Bowl came, the commercial aired, and again I was left baffled. Sure it was "3D", had a somewhat catchy tune, and a professional football player, but it lacked relevancy. Isn't that what advertising and marketing is all about? Yes, there are some cases when an ad is completely irrelevant and works, but not in this case. Rather than selling the drink, SoBe is selling dance lessons to football players.
SoBe just wasted a ton of money and humiliated professional football players and lizards. Poor lizards, someone should call PETA.
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