The abject horror of the Bacon Double Homestyle Melt from yesterday reminded me of another Burger King ad and product, rolled out in 2006, that made my hair stand on end.
It's hard to know where to begin with this one, isn't it? Personally, I'm pretty repulsed by the product itself - just look at the BK Quad Stacker, the burger on the right at the end of the ad. First of all, how do you even get your mouth around that thing? And my God, just look at it. Sauce, bacon, cheese, beef, cheese, beef, cheese, beef, cheese, beef. No one needs a burger this size. Burger King claims it's 1000 calories - and frankly I'm a little doubtful of that math since included in that is the claim that eight strips of bacon are a mere 110 calories - which is already getting up near the halfway mark for recommended calorie intake, and that's before you tack on fries (let's say large, another 500 calories) and a large soda. You're at 1800 calories and it's not even 1 pm. This is definitely the kind of eating behavior we want to encourage in this country.
Of course, the sandwich is bad enough. But it's the attitude behind the sandwich - No Vegetables Allowed, like it's some sort of hamburger clubhouse - that really irks me. It's a fucking tomato, which, to get pedantic for a second, isn't even a damn vegetable. But never mind. It's a tomato. Oh, a tomato? You mean, something that's like 95% water? Hey, how about a few strands of iceberg lettuce? It's not like you're holding the broccoli here. The American use of vegetables in children's diets is so minimal it led the USDA to classify ketchup as a vegetable in the early 1980s, and now you're actively promoting removing all vegetables from adult-oriented food as well? Brilliant. And not just removing them. Vegetables are for wimps. Huge stacks of beef are for "tough guys."
As for why the ad itself is bad, well, how about the casual sexism of "early bun delivery," though at least we didn't get a gratuitous BK employee ass shot. The foreman does get his comeuppance for having said that, but if you're not endorsing the sexism, then you've just made your main pitchman a cretin. Sometimes I wonder if any of the people at whatever agency foists these things upon us even took a marketing class in college.
Showing posts with label go meat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label go meat. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Year's Worst, 1st Entry - Hillshire Farm
I firmly believe in arbitrary rankings, so I'd like to nominate this Hillshire Farm ad for the Worst Commercial of 2007.
This commercial is the advertising equivalent of Gwen Stefani's rock hop anthem "Hollaback Girl." Sometimes commercials try to show a consumer in their target audience being sold on their product. In this case, someone's already eating an Entrée Salad - so, no selling necessary. And yet, when she innocently begins using the product, people start annoying her with a cheer that would make a 5th grade pom squad blush. Some advertisers assume the consumer has a brain; others, including Hillshire Farm, think they speak in monosyllabic grunts:
That salad rocks, the best,
Make it easy at your desk
"Best" and "desk" do not rhyme. They barely near-rhyme. Can a copywriter please spend more than 5 seconds on a script occasionally?
It's second to none,
Just add lettuce and you're done
You know what I have lying around the office? Lettuce. Just bags of the stuff with my name on them in the fridge. If only there were a plastic package of cubed meat I could buy to mix it with....
You hungry, you hungry, yo mama says you hungry
There's nothing ol' Johnny Lunchbox thinks is funnier than white people saying "yo mama," right? This is classic material. Totally not dated, and totally inoffensive to general taste.
When I say Hillshire, you say Farm!
Hillshire! Farm! Go Meat!
When I say BRAND NAME, you say BRAND NAME!
BRAND NAME! BRAND NAME! RETARDED SLOGAN!
It's catchy. Or something.
"Go Meat" is the central campaign for Hillshire Farm, and it's so bereft of any subtlety or art that it may very well have set back advertising several years. Why can't you portray your delicious meat products in an appealing way? Why can't you talk about your delicious meat products like an adult with a sense of taste and a high school-level vocabulary? Remember, you're (apparently) selling this to the 9-5 office worker - you're probably going to have to say more than just "Hillshire Farm -- MEAT! MEATY MEAT! BIG OL' MEAT! YO MAMA! LOL!"
But I do like to represent alternative opinions. For instance, what might the meat industry think of this campaign? Here's Hillshire Farm's VP Tim Roush:
There is no escaping the fact that Americans have an unabashed love of meat, and the poll results just reinforce that fact. We developed our 'GO MEAT!' campaign to celebrate and, in some instances, unleash the meat enthusiast in all of us.
Americans. Unabashed love of meat. Leashed meat enthusiasts. Fat, meat-gorging half-wits who love yo mama jokes and cheerleaders. The poll he's talking about? It said that 85% of Americans could not live without meat. Who conducted the poll? Who wrote that clearly misleading paid survey question? Hillshire Farm.
This is why this blog exists. Not only to point out when ads are bad, or when ads aren't doing their jobs, but also when ads operate under the pretense that we're all a huge lot of morons waiting for companies to drill false and sophomoric messages into our heads about shitty products. This is a campaign against bad ad campaigns. Let's send "GO MEAT!" and its like-minded marketing brethren back to the stone age where they belong.
This commercial is the advertising equivalent of Gwen Stefani's rock hop anthem "Hollaback Girl." Sometimes commercials try to show a consumer in their target audience being sold on their product. In this case, someone's already eating an Entrée Salad - so, no selling necessary. And yet, when she innocently begins using the product, people start annoying her with a cheer that would make a 5th grade pom squad blush. Some advertisers assume the consumer has a brain; others, including Hillshire Farm, think they speak in monosyllabic grunts:
That salad rocks, the best,
Make it easy at your desk
"Best" and "desk" do not rhyme. They barely near-rhyme. Can a copywriter please spend more than 5 seconds on a script occasionally?
It's second to none,
Just add lettuce and you're done
You know what I have lying around the office? Lettuce. Just bags of the stuff with my name on them in the fridge. If only there were a plastic package of cubed meat I could buy to mix it with....
You hungry, you hungry, yo mama says you hungry
There's nothing ol' Johnny Lunchbox thinks is funnier than white people saying "yo mama," right? This is classic material. Totally not dated, and totally inoffensive to general taste.
When I say Hillshire, you say Farm!
Hillshire! Farm! Go Meat!
When I say BRAND NAME, you say BRAND NAME!
BRAND NAME! BRAND NAME! RETARDED SLOGAN!
It's catchy. Or something.
"Go Meat" is the central campaign for Hillshire Farm, and it's so bereft of any subtlety or art that it may very well have set back advertising several years. Why can't you portray your delicious meat products in an appealing way? Why can't you talk about your delicious meat products like an adult with a sense of taste and a high school-level vocabulary? Remember, you're (apparently) selling this to the 9-5 office worker - you're probably going to have to say more than just "Hillshire Farm -- MEAT! MEATY MEAT! BIG OL' MEAT! YO MAMA! LOL!"
But I do like to represent alternative opinions. For instance, what might the meat industry think of this campaign? Here's Hillshire Farm's VP Tim Roush:
There is no escaping the fact that Americans have an unabashed love of meat, and the poll results just reinforce that fact. We developed our 'GO MEAT!' campaign to celebrate and, in some instances, unleash the meat enthusiast in all of us.
Americans. Unabashed love of meat. Leashed meat enthusiasts. Fat, meat-gorging half-wits who love yo mama jokes and cheerleaders. The poll he's talking about? It said that 85% of Americans could not live without meat. Who conducted the poll? Who wrote that clearly misleading paid survey question? Hillshire Farm.
This is why this blog exists. Not only to point out when ads are bad, or when ads aren't doing their jobs, but also when ads operate under the pretense that we're all a huge lot of morons waiting for companies to drill false and sophomoric messages into our heads about shitty products. This is a campaign against bad ad campaigns. Let's send "GO MEAT!" and its like-minded marketing brethren back to the stone age where they belong.
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