Friday, April 08, 2005

Mr. Peanut

Commercial: The ... Represents
Product: Peanuts
Company: Planters
                good

Mr. Peanut wears a lot of accessories, we've seen them for years, decades even. This commercial explains what each item means. The hat, the cane, the monocle each stand for great taste. Suddenly, as the voice over says "the gloves" the scene changes to a colorful sunset in some beautiful, remote, isolated location and the narrator's words describe the image with as much artistic beauty. Quite the surprise! Then the shoes come along, which again stand for great taste, and the commercial ends with the Planters pitch. The commercial is both surprising and entertaining. It makes you pause a moment in whatever you are thinking or doing to go "Huh? What did he just say?", which then has you paying attention to the TV for the end of the commercial. Great tactic.

But then they had to go mess it up and change the gloves to standing for nothing, "Mr. Peanut just likes gloves". That just doesn't have the same impact. It's bland, not surprising, and the word "nothing" makes the mind think "oh okay, this isn't important". The revised commercial doesn't grab the audience at all.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Mind Bender

Commercial: Sheep Boys
Product: Blended Flavors
Company: Skittles
                good

WHAT is the point of this commercial?! It's well acted. Pretty funny when you just accept and not question. But I mean really. How does human heads on sheep eating off a stump equate to Skittles? Other than they talk about how good new blended flavor Skittles are.

Just a very random commercial. "Blend the Rainbow. Taste the Rainbow." I guess it's blending humans with sheep is like blending orange with mango. Not that I have any idea why sheep!