Musings from Brian J. Noggle: Just Watching It For The Commercials

Just Watching It For The Commercials

I've found myself watching YouTube renditions of various and sundry commercials and "viral" advertisements lately. Once a series grabs me, I like to watch a pile of them, which makes them amusing if not effective. Brand awareness and affinity? You bet.

First, thanks to a post on StLRecruiting.com, I started watching the "Making Things Right with Pete and Red series" for Haggar:

These represent an extended version of some television commercials. You can find the HaggarFilms list on YouTube here and on the Haggar site here. And, if you search around on YouTube, you can find others and the 30 second cuts that appeared on television. Makes me want to go out and buy pants.

Secondly, when Carl's sued Jack in the Box for its Angus commercials, I went right out to review the advertisements in question. Here's one:

Using YouTube's related suggestions and search mechanism, I found a number of other of the commercials I liked. I watched some that I'd seen on television. Particularly "The Intern," which I watched again during the creation of this post. Carl's probably made a mistake bigger than hiring Norm MacDonald to voice its star.

So then I went to find an old Bud commercial with the beavers because every now and then I think the tagline Naughty little beavers and want to use it in professional conversation but I cannot without it sounding, well, worthy of a call to HR. But I'll embed it here because the more it becomes known, the less chance I'll have to think of euphemisms for "fired for sexual harrassment" to use in job interviews for "Why did you leave your last job?"

Or the "Willy! It's go time." commercial:

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't drink Budweiser if I was drowning (which, ultimately, makes no sense). However, I like the commercials.

What's my point? Oh, yeah, if you're all slavering to get into Web 2.0 advertising--that is, to save money on actually distributing/running your adverts, you probably ought to spend money on the production of them and make them amusing and funny enough to warrant further watching. Sure, it's cheap, but so's a blog, and if this blog serves any lesson for you it's that you can have a steady Web presence, but just because you put it out there doesn't mean you're doing your clients any favors or garnering any attention. And here's the only YouTube commercial I have ever bookmarked: Folger's Happy Morning:

The last coffee I bought was Folger's, partly because I was trimming expenditures from the $20 a pound stuff but partly, perhaps, because I enjoyed an amusing video that I could watch over and over again for the same set of amusement.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:06 PM