Catherine, Catherine, Catherine, can't you see? Sometimes your words just hypnotize me

I guess this is one way to sell a product.



I'd like her to cover my need at the price I want! Hi-yo!

Seriously, that's actually an ad. "Here's the pitch: Catherine Zeta-Jones is going to kind of explain that T-Mobile can save you money, but mostly the commercial will be about how this nerdy kid wants to fuck her." Pure gold, I tells ya! Wait, though: it gets worse. Much worse.



"Okay, Tim, you're playing the husband. Can you play this as skeevy as possible? You can? Awesome."

CZJ: "So, let's go online and give you a mobile makeover!"
Wife: "Great."
Husband: "I like it when you say things."

First of all, do people really need Catherine Zeta-Jones to come to their house and help them use the computer? Whatever. I'm guessing it wasn't that hard to drag her back onto the set of another commercial when the premise was "Every man in the world thinks Catherine Zeta-Jones is the hottest thing ever, to the point of being horrible in front of their wives."

CZJ: "Right... so, looks like you'll get great coverage and save money with T-Mobile."

Not at all vague information about the product! Back to the creepy dude.

Husband: "And my wife'll like that."
Wife: "I'm right here."
Husband [not looking at her, still staring at CZJ]: "That's my wife Jen. We're married. Technically."

You're not going to be married much longer, pal.

You know what this kind of reminds me of? The Rachael Ray Dunkin' Donuts ad that was clearly at least as much an ad for Rachael Ray as it was Dunkin' Donuts. Here are the messages I took from these T-Mobile ads, in order of perceived importance:

1. Catherine Zeta-Jones is so, so hot.
2. Catherine Zeta-Jones' hotness turns boys into men and brings men to their knees.
3. When Catherine Zeta-Jones is in the room, your wife all but ceases to exist.
4. Catherine Zeta-Jones' breasts could bring about world peace.
5. T-Mobile can maybe save you money, somehow.

The Summer of Condiments

Oh dear.



[Twentysomethings hang out at a party while the announcer talks. Edgy, animated text matches his words on the screen.]
Announcer: "Don't go unnoticed. Don't blend in. Don't be ordinary, boring or bland. In other words..."

Now, if I just showed you the first nineteen seconds of that ad, what would you think it was for? Some sort of hip clothing company? The latest premium malt beverage? Granted, it's kind of a lame ad regardless, but it's when we get to the product that things go completely to hell.

Announcer: "...don't be so mayo."

Honestly, the first time I saw this ad I still didn't figure it out, even after this line. Mostly because I never expected to see an ad for a condiment that looked like an ad for Smirnoff Ice.

Announcer: "We are our own unique one of a kind flavor. We are Miracle Whip, and we will not tone it down."

That's the entire ad. You will not "tone it down"? Someone wanted Miracle Whip to "tone it down"? If the tone on Miracle Whip were any lower it would be sub-zero. I understand the pitch - "Miracle Whip! We're not mayonnaise! We taste different, you guys!" - but this was the best angle they had? The official mediocre condiment of rebellious youth?

You know what this ad is like? Imagine you're a teenager and your dad shows up at a party of yours, dressed in contemporary clothes he can't possibly pull off, and saying things like "I was hoping I could chill with you dawgs for a while," putting all the emphasis on the "cool" words that clearly even he knows he really shouldn't be saying. Now, if that happened, you'd be embarrassed both by and for him, right? Well, that's how I feel after seeing this ad.

You're not cool, Miracle Whip. You're not cool and you never will be. You just make me sad.

Could I be any worse of an ad?

I'll take "attacking things your competitors don't do" for $200, Alex.



Wife: "Hey, did you ever find tickets to Hawaii?"
Husband: "Hawaii Five-O! Book 'em, Dano! Aloha! Mele Kalikimaka! Surf lingo! Brah, I was stoked when I caught that tasty barrel!"

I mean, fine, I guess this is supposed to be hyperbole. But it's hyperbole so extreme that it just means nothing. Go to Google and type in "tickets to Hawaii," not that anyone would ever type in so vague a term when they specifically were looking for airline tickets. The first two results are Cheap Tickets and Orbitz, both of which will sell you plane tickets to Hawaii. In case you meant something else, you're also presented on the first page with other links where they sell tickets for University of Hawaii sporting events. Type in "plane tickets to Hawaii" and you get a bunch of sites that sell you plane tickets to Hawaii. I don't know how far you'd have to go in the results for "tickets to Hawaii" to find "Book 'em, Dano," but I'm guessing it's pretty far. Even if you're the kind of idiot who just types in "Hawaii," three of the first four results are tourism-related.

Wife: "Seriously, did you price out tickets?"
Husband: "How to beat a traffic ticket! Ten proven methods traffic courts don't want you to know!"
Wife: "What are you talking about?"
Husband: "Talk turkey!"
Wife: "What?"
Husband: "Talk live with hot singles in your area! They're waiting."
Wife: "Who's waiting?"
Slogan on screen: "What has search overload done to us?"

Uh... nothing? Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with this commercial? Just for the hell of it, I also typed "tickets to Hawaii" into Yahoo and Ask.com and got similar results to Google - Yahoo even had all of their top results relating to flights. Then I typed it into Bing.com's engine, and got basically the same results (although fewer of theirs seemed to deal with flights, which is vaguely hilarious).

I realize that not everyone in the world is an internet expert; I'm old enough to remember a time without the internet, but young enough that it's been a major part of most of my life (and certainly my entire adult life). But COME ON. If you know enough to access the internet, I fail to see what Bing.com is doing for you that every other search engine can't. It's like they're trying to trick old people into thinking that this is how Google works. "Hey, boomers! Use Bing.com! Did you know that Google will vomit a stream of tangentially related non-sequiturs like a mental patient if you search using it? It's true! Uh, don't bother trying to verify that, it's just going to lull you into a false sense of security with a successful initial search..." Their use of the term "decision engine" only plays this up all the more. "Are you too old and computer illiterate to browse through a page of search results? We'll decide for you!" Never mind that I've used Bing a couple times now and fail to see where it's "deciding" any more than Google when it gives you... a page of search results. At least Google has the "I'm feeling lucky" button.

This ad is the rough equivalent of Burger King making an ad in which they claim that if you go into a McDonald's and order a hamburger, you'll get a bag of diseased muskrats. (Not that I'd put that past Crispin Porter + Bogusky.) It's also exactly as effective. Anyone who knows anything about the internet knows you're full of shit, Microsoft, and this commercial is enough to send me lunging for the remote every time.

You call it: Toyota Prius "Harmony" commercial.

I totally get what Toyota is trying to do with this commercial, and as far as getting the content, imagery and music to be in sync with their product image and philosophy, they knocked it out of the park. Given that my beef is frequently with one or more of these things not hanging together, what could there be to complain about?



Well, that I find this commercial inexplicably creepy. All the undulating and people popping out of nowhere and the idea of the sun being a big ball of folks tied together at the ankle for all eternity... for me, it's just unsettling. There is a second commercial, involving people climbing upwards to create trees, that doesn't bother me as much (potentially because they're clearly people and not unexplained Soylent Scenery™). It doesn't appear to bother either Windier or Quivering anywhere near as much. So let's hear from the readers. What do you say for this one- yea or nay?

Showpigs

White Castle, you have got to be kidding me.



This is just gross. Is White Castle just trying to think of as many different ways as they can to make me not want anything to do with their food? (To be fair, it's White Castle; they don't need to try all that hard.)

First problem: equating your primary ingredient with an exotic dancer. Worse yet, an exotic dancer in a furry costume. Does White Castle know that there is a group of people out there who find women in pig costumes erotic? Maybe that's just the demographic this ad is trying to cater to. "If you like fucking a chick dressed like a pig, you'll love eating our pulled pork sandwich." Natural leap from one to the other, right? Also weird: the mobile, sentient bag, presumably scouting the strip club for "fresh meat."

That might not even have been so bad if not for the way White Castle pours on the comparisons to sex. Maybe I could have dismissed it as a goofy attempt at humor, but no: here comes the seductive voiceover. I like barbecue sauce, but I can't think of anything that makes me less interested in it than describing it as "come-hither" and "oh so naughty." Hey. White Castle. You make food. You do not make lingerie, marital aids or ED medication. You aren't a chain of shady massage parlors, you aren't a gentleman's club, you aren't even a Westin. You sell food. And when I think of food, I don't want to be thinking about how that food wants me to fuck it.

Even if this ad weren't gross, it's a ridiculous overstatement. Barbecue sauce is naughty? Oh shit, barbecue sauce! Man, this is fucking sinful! I can't believe I'm putting barbecue sauce on something! Especially not on pulled pork, which is only served with barbecue sauce by everyone in existence who serves pulled pork, because that's how pulled pork comes in this country! Go to the head of the class, White Castle, because you are some fucking trendsetters.

Right here is where I'd normally do some bit about "what would happen if other food products advertised like this," but just click the "disgusting sexualization of food" tag at the bottom of this post. There's no more need for satire; there are already ads out there far worse than anything I could come up with. And it's not just food, it's ads in general. I understand that sex sells, but aren't there limits? I'll buy using sex in an ad for Viagra, or even for something like a car. But a woman (I assume) in a pig costume getting drenched in barbecue sauce on a club stage is going to make me hungry for the dead, cooked, actual-pig equivalent? How about a guy dressed as a cow getting hit from above with an enormous square of American cheese? A woman dressed as a chicken getting splashed with egg and pelted with bread crumbs? You're telling me your stomach isn't rumbling right now?

You know what this is? It's the food equivalent of Isabella Rossellini's "Green Porno" series. I have never seen a clip of that show and thought, "Man, I feel like having some sex now." And I don't see this White Castle ad and get hungry. It makes me want to curl up in the fetal position and throw out all the barbecue sauce in my refrigerator before it gets any ideas.

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!

We probably need to discuss this

I assume by now you've already seen this one. Let's talk about it.



Before I'm accused of hating fun again, I should note that this commercial is somewhat funny. The first time or two, anyway; after that it just gets kind of tiresome. But, uh, this is an ad for a kid's meal, right? Someone get Clyde Clemens on the line.

To be fair, most of the song is relatively innocuous considering the source material. And then there's this:

Sir Mix-a-Lot: "Now, Spongebob! I wanna get witcha, 'cause you're makin' me richa!"

The original "Baby Got Back" features Sir Mix-a-Lot rapping about how much an appealingly large ass makes him want to fuck a woman. When he says "Oh, baby, I wanna get witcha," that means he wants to fuck her. Therefore... he wants to fuck Spongebob? This = not good. And then at the end of the ad he declares, "Booty is booty!" Sir Mix-a-Lot, you once said of booty, and I quote, "That butt you got makes me so horny!" I don't even want to know what you're thinking here.

Really, what is with the by now time-honored tradition of taking songs about sex and putting them in really inappropriate contexts? It's not like Sir Mix-a-Lot is famous for anything but this song, and the song is coming up on 20 years old at this point, so Burger King - and no doubt the guys at Crispin Porter, masters of subtlety and class - had to really want to use it. In an ad for a kid's meal. So, what other completely inappropriate songs from my youth can Burger King drag into their next ad?

"Relax, no big deal / When you wanna get a kid's meal / Relax, no big deal / When you wanna sponge"

"Like a kid's meal / Burgers for the very first time / Like a kiiiiid's meal / Got your square pants on my mind"

"I don't want anybody else / When I think of Spongebob I touch myself / Oh oh oh, I don't want anybody else / Kid's meal, kid's meal, kid's meal..."

America shuffles heavily on Dunkin'

Hey! Parents! Are your kids watching too much TV? Get them outside and exercising, am I right? Go have a fun day at the park, toss the frisbee around, whatever! But get the family together for a fun outdoor activity!



Or, stay inside the house eating these frosted tori of fatty, sugary starch! Because that's just good parenting.

Look, Dunkin' Donuts. I'm not offended that you would advertise your product. And I like a good donut now and then. But the concept for this ad just bothers me. Really, that's the best way to get the family together? A box of donuts? That's your magic potion? This is going to be one fat, angry family in ten years.

If eating this sub takes longer than four hours, consult a physician

I saw a version of this ad on TV and thought it was dumb, but not horrible. However, I didn't see the version linked by an anonymous commenter on our last post. Dear God.



What is the thinking behind an ad like this? I mean, I guess if you read the YouTube comments there are a lot of people who think it's hilarious, but what awful commercial isn't that true of?

Oven: "Scott, I want you to do something."
Scott: "Not doing that again. That burned."
Oven: "We both enjoyed that."

Hey, how can we shoot this so that it has absolutely no alternate explanation whatsoever? What if Scott were to look down at his crotch as he delivers his line? That should do it.

Oven: "Now I want you to introduce my greatest creation, the new Toasty Torpedo."
Scott: "The new Toasty Torpedo?"

Dude. You are holding one in your hand! You are in the process of eating it! How do you not know what it is? On the other hand, this guy stuck his wang into a 400-degree oven. He's probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Oven: "Yes, Scott. You make one."
Scott: "Me?"

Yeah, pretty stupid. There's no one else around, idiot. And thank God for you there isn't, or you'd probably get fired for ejaculating into a machine used for food preparation.

Oven: "Put it in me, Scott."

Can they even air this? Jesus. This makes that Arby's hat-boner ad look like it was made in 1890s Vienna. Why would you make an ad like this? Most of the people who think it's soooo hilarious probably would have tried the sub anyway; meanwhile, I can tell you that I was tempted to try it... until I saw this ad. Now you can fucking forget it. Because if I'm going out for a sandwich, I don't have any desire to think of my lunch as a surrogate penis. For that matter, I don't want to think of the oven that's heating my lunch as a sentient being that derives sexual pleasure from sandwiches going through it.

Oven: "It's over a foot of Quizno's flavor on slim, sleek ciabatta for only four dollars. Say it, Scott."
Scott: "Only four dollars?"
Oven: "Say it sexy."

God, enough. Real subtle hand pushing the sandwich into the wrapper, also. I'm going to ask again: why do you want me to associate your sandwich with a penis? Is this really going to be good for business?

The version that I saw aired is also the version that you find if you go to the website to "take the test" as the ad dictates. In it, Scott says "I'm not rubbing you with that shammy again," and doesn't look down at his own mangled junk. That's fine. And the oven says "I'm waiting for it" instead, which is still kind of gross but more excusable in context. Even the "say it sexy" line (changed to "say it with passion") might have been forgivable if they'd just done it that way. But no, they had to "get people talking," so they did a whole version in which the sandwich they want you to eat is the product of a filthy, secret relationship between the oven and this dude. No thanks.

That's the money you could be saving by not eating a lousy hamburger

While it's not like we've never featured McDonald's on this blog, they're not usually responsible for commercials quite this... let's say obnoxiously stupid. Maybe it's just a Quarter Pounder with Cheese thing.



Oh boy.

Voiceover: "The Quarter Pounder with Cheese knows you're looking at it."

No, it does not. Because it doesn't have eyes or a brain capable of processing sensory input (much less translating that input into thought). And if it did, it would probably be too busy focusing on the fact that it was getting devoured.

Voiceover: "And it's looking right back at you."

We just went over this: no eyes. At least Geico had the decency to put googly eyes on a stack of money when they ran an ad with what is, by the way, basically the exact same concept as the first 25 seconds of this spot.

Voiceover: "It knows how great it tastes. If you can't help but stare at its 100% pure beefy cheesiness..."

Was this commercial written by a 12-year-old? I must confess I do not understand, at all, this impulse to write such utterly dumbed-down, annoying copy.

Voiceover: "...that's your deal."

Hey, idiot. You're in a McDonald's. You want a fucking Quarter Pounder, dig into your pocket for what, two bucks, go up to the counter and order one. No need to stare at some poor slob who's just trying to choke down an extremely mediocre lunch.

Voiceover: "It's available. You know that."

Yeah, I just said that. Go order one, dummy, if you want it so much. Though I don't know why you would. Look at the burger that guy's holding. He's actually eating it, so it can't be one of the fake burgers they use in promo shots that look good because they're held together with pins, and the grill marks are painted on, and shit like that. It appears to be a real burger. And doesn't it kind of look like shit? Is that damp gray burger and limp, neon yellow cheese really making anyone hungry? I might have tried a little harder to actually push the burger, rather than just be like, "Hey, you know you want one." Because I pretty well know that I do not want one.

Voiceover: "The Quarter Pounder with Cheese. It's cheese, and beef, and cheese. And that's what's up."

First of all, Quarter Pounder sales must really be in the tank if McDonald's felt the need to build an entire ad campaign around a single menu item that isn't even brand new. Second of all, I can see why - is there a restaurant on the planet where I can't get a significantly more appealing 1/4-pound cheeseburger? Third of all, fuck this commercial. If your product really sold itself, guess what? You wouldn't need to advertise. Ads like this make me even less likely to buy something, not that I had any plans to eat a Quarter Pounder regardless.