Some companies subscribe to the idea that if you create a commercial that's weird enough, then people will remember it and, by association, your product. The data to support this theory is inconclusive at best, and oftentimes what you see is people remembering a particular commercial but not the product. We've even seen examples of people reaching this site by searching for a particular ad with the wrong company (i.e. a description of a Toyota ad with "Honda" in the search string.)
That "memorability factor" is the only reason I can think of for the creation of this Sierra Mist ad:
(A man walks into a bar where everyone is drinking Sierra Mist. The bartender slides a plastic bottle of pop down the bar.)
Must be one of those wild cowboy saloons in Salt Lake City.
Man: It's a crazy world.
Apropos of absolutely nothing.
Man: I knew this girl who would do anything to get married.
Everyone else in the bar is paying rapt attention. And, why, exactly? Is this such an audacious statement?
Man: I call her, "the Wedding Girl."
Oh man, okay. Now I'm interested. Now that you've given her a self-evident identifier? I am putty in your able storytelling hands! Go on....
Scenes of the Wedding Girl at a reception where the narrator was apparently a bassist. She's beating up the other girls in the bridal party to be able to catch the bouquet -- doing anything to get married.
I guess if you find this particularly hilarious -- if you're a big Three Stooges fan, say -- then maybe you're going to remember this ad. But is there anything that make beating up girls at a wedding unique to Sierra Mist-brand lemon-lime soda pop? Anything?
Man: It's a crazy world. Drink Sierra Mist. It helps to refresh your mind.
Not until the end of the commercial does any of this ad make sense. Apparently Sierra Mist will help you cope with the craziness of phenomena like the Wedding Girl.
The big question is -- will Sierra Mist refresh my mind after seeing its own horseshit commercials?
This goes hand in hand with what I was talking about yesterday. The writer of this ad came up with something that seemed vaguely funny - a girl who would do anything to get married! - then fucked it up thanks to lousy execution (we go from "anything to get married" to "anything to catch the bouquet, itself not actually a guarantee that you'll be getting married," and of course there's the fact this scene is not actually funny even though it's clearly intended to be) and a tedious bookend. It doesn't help that "refresh your mind" is a lame tagline that seems more appropriate for coffee. Really, I get the feeling that the only reason this ad was even made was that they could get Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite to do it.
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