Damn that Biz Markie, he's so hot right now

Leave it to the advertising machine to unearth another one.



At the risk of making some readers of this blog (and for that matter some authors of this blog) feel old, "Just a Friend" is now twenty years old. Granted, it was a #1 hit, but is one completely out of context line from the end of the song really a sufficient building block for a commercial in 2009?

RadioShack Ad Exec: Okay, we need a popular song for our ad, but we don't want to pay that much. Someone name some one-hit wonders from 15 or 20 years ago.
Underling 1: Deep Blue Something!
Underling 2: Deee-Lite!
Underling 3: Bobby McFerrin!
Underling 4: You're all idiots. The right answer is Biz Markie.
Underlings 1, 2, and 3: Ohhh, of course, you're right, etc.
Exec: Do I know the song you're talking about?
Underling 1: You know, the one that goes "You, you got what I need..."
Exec: Oh, right. So we could use that, and be like, "The Shack has got what you need this Christmas."
Underling 4: No way. We should use the "Oh, snap, guess what I saw" line. It sells cameras without even changing the words!
Exec: There's a line that goes like that?
Underling 4: Uh, yeah. It's only the best line in the song. Why, I heard a group of teenagers quoting it to each other on the street just the other day.
Exec: I guess I'll take your word for it. Run with it, people!

[Later.]

Underling 2: Did you really hear a group of teenagers quoting the "Oh, snap" line to each other?
Underling 4: Of course not. But that's my dad's favorite line in the song. Every time he hears it he gives me a piece of candy. So when this thing runs, cha-ching!
Underling 2: Aren't you too old to be doing things based on the fact that you would get candy?
Underling 4: Hey, there's Kit Kats in this vending machine today!

Note that the things Biz sees in the ad are breakdancing penguins (breakdancing, also extremely timely!) and a rabbit acting as a DJ, because I guess if you use a rap song in your commercial then everything related to it also has to be "urban."

The most unfortunate fact about the Radio Shack ad, albeit something which they probably could not have known about when they decided to run it, is that there's currently another ad using the exact same song, and in much better fashion:



What the Heineken ad lacks in Biz Markie's actual presence it more than makes up for by playing the part of the song that everyone actually knows, rather than some random part that happens to sound a little bit like he's using a camera. Sure, it's at least as much a 30-second ad for the song as it is an ad for anything else - and frankly I could stand Heineken being a little clearer on the fact that this is an ad promoting not driving after drinking - but it's significantly more fun than the stupid Radio Shack ad and well-intentioned to boot.

Say, that's original!

All right, Wieden + Kennedy. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: create a commercial for Heineken Premium Light beer. And do it without ripping off about fifteen other commercials.



No, without ripping off fifteen other commercials! Without!

First of all, there is no excuse for this ad to be a minute long. It's the same goddamn thing over and over again, for sixty seconds. What a waste.

Second of all, does the structure of this commercial seem, oh, I don't know, slightly familiar?



Well, well. It's not just the "circle of giving," either, it's the particular gambit of having the ad start and end in the same place - which is to say, paradoxically. That's a pretty specific choice you have to make - or, in this case, steal.

The idea of "passing the love" is also "borrowed" from about seven quintillion Coke ads. Like this one. Or this one. Or, basically, every single ad in the Coke oeuvre ever. And as ridiculous as that concept is when applied to caffeinated soda, seeing it used for an alcoholic beverage just makes me wince. I'm glad that cigarettes aren't allowed to advertise on TV anymore, but sometimes you have to wonder at the justification for letting beer companies pitch their product in all kinds of life-bettering ways when other harmful consumer products have been banned from the airwaves.

At any rate, I think Wieden + Kennedy can do better than this. Here are some suggestions I have in keeping with their general theme:

* A friendly, beer-drinking clown helps stop the Heinekenburglar from stealing all the beer in GreenBottleLand.

* Two actors portraying Heineken Light and a domestic light beer stand in front of a white background and discuss their differences.

* Lipizzaner stallions tote a Heineken wagon through a snowy landscape.

* A woman runs into a room full of drones watching a dystopian Bud Light ad and throws a Heineken bottle through the screen.

Any one of those should work pretty well.

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.

In Soviet Russia, beer uses YOU to get laid!

There is something seriously wrong with this Heineken ad.



"Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me... a bottle of beer!" Well, unlike the makers of Heineken, I prefer my beer not to be hot. And I mean that both in a temperature sense and a sexual attractiveness sense. Really, did the people who made this ad even listen to the lyrics of the song, or did they just think it had a good beat? (Incidentally, the song itself is one of the worst in history, and that's before we even get into its implicit message, which is "I'm the one skank in town who'll let you put it in her butt.")

It's not just the words, either. How about the "main stage at Deja Vu" light show, and the insane security camera view? This is the best way they could think of to suggest that a beer is appealing, by anthropomorphizing it just so they can sexualize it? It frightens me to think that somewhere out there is an ad agency where this idea was pitched, and the guy who did it was neither fired on the spot nor at least laughed out of the room.