What if we just grossed everybody out?

You know, it's funny. I went to YouTube to find a new Arby's Roastburger commercial that I thought used some particularly clumsy sex appeal. Instead, I found an Arby's Roastburger commercial that uses some particularly repulsive food appeal. Observe:



The commercial starts off strong -- it's a simple, to-the-point explanation of the new (liberally-named) Arby's "burger" versus the competition's fried burger. That's called "product differentiation," and it's a good way to use your marketing dollars, especially in a competition-clustered industry like QSR. But then at the 15 second mark, Arby's goes awry -- by showing this:


I don't care how good that Roastburger looks in the last couple seconds of the ad, all anybody is going to remember from this commercial is the weird teen noisily slathering the grease from a piece of food into his hair. It's like somebody at Arby's just doesn't understand that showing disgusting shit in your commercial isn't a great way to sell food.

Also, who thinks that Roastburger is really grease-free? Arby's is just a giant grease trap, really -- just walk into one sometime, your clothes won't smell the same the rest of the day. Their potato cakes? Curly fries? Mozzarella sticks? You know, if Arby's employees need to grease themselves up, they don't have to wait until their manager brings in a burger from McDonald's -- they've got plenty of oily crap sitting around.

So, roast beef, bacon, melted cheese, Arby's service staff with a hamburger freshly-rubbed into their coifs... I'm thinking maybe I'm not so hungry after all!