BIG THING, little thing

Okay, every other day then. I’m sort of in the groove. I’m getting ready for Japan and it’s been pretty hectic. No matter how much planning and packing I do, there’s always more. But let’s not dwell on that. Let’s dwell on commercials

Yes, commercials are on a high swing if you ask me. A lot of commercials are really really hilarious and creative. Like the Skittles commercials, for example. Those in particular are prime examples of great advertising. I don’t even like Skittles yet I find myself buying them just because the commercials are so amazing. The sheep boys commercial was the first one to catch my eye. It was so off the wall and unexpected, it really made me sit up and notice that Skittles still existed. The most recent commercial, which I consider to the most genius of all, is the singing rabbit. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ve embedded links so you can see these brilliant pieces of advertising. Just watch and see what I mean.

Sheep Boys

“Jibber-Jabbin” is the icing on the cake.

Long Beard

This one is BRILLIANT!

Singing Rabbit

A wonderful example of great storytelling with no dialogue. Greatest ad yet.

Now what about crappy commercials? Commercials that overstay their welcome and really just aren’t that great. We saw it with “Whaaassuup?” and those ridiculous frogs, but more recently, I’d like to rag a little on Geico. Geico used to have great advertisements. They were short, funny and to the point. They were just brief clips like a really big coffee cup to show they stayed up later than other insurance companies, then the squirrels that ran in front of the car and did a handshake. Nothing hilarious, but they showed creativity and genuine effort. Then they had that stupid gecko. The first gecko commercial was okay. “I’m not Geico. I’m a Gecko. Stop calling me. Ha ha. Get it?” But then they just kept using him over and over and he was never funny after that. EVER! They started redeeming themselves with the “But I have good news” series, in which something is set up and you are tricked into an advertisement. Those were very clever at first, but after two or three you were done. Every time you heard “But I’ve got good news” you knew what was coming. Comedy is based on the unexpected, and continuing on that line really screwed everything up. It was at this point that they brought back the gecko with a thicker cockney accent and updated CG. This time however, he simply jabbers on semi-conversationally about nothing. More bearable because of the cockney accent but still a bother. Then came the worst offense of all. The Caveman commercials. Dear…Lordy…Sammiches. I hate those commercials. Again, the first was okay and a nice deviation, but it has just gone TOO FAR now. Caveman in therapy. Caveman playing tennis. Caveman at dinner. They might as well give the stupid Caveman his own show! Oh wait? They did. As if ABC needed another doo doo nugget to drop its ratings even further, they are looking at a pilot of a sitcom version of the Caveman commercials. Let us pray that network executives, in their limited wisdom, will be able to stop this before it starts. Here’s some examples of Geico’s offenses.

Old Commercial

See! Not bad. And it had the old gecko. The man dancing made it funny.

Geico Gecko

This is the new one. As you can tell…meh.

Caveman Montage

This is compilation of all the Caveman commercials. Watch at least the first one. It was funny on its own. Then just watch them get worse…and worse…and more…and more…boring.

I’m still on the fence about Starburst. Their commercials have gotten a lot funnier, but they still seem to lack the creativity of the Skittles commercials. I know this makes them guilty by comparison, but what are you gonna do? They’ve all been pretty funny so far and I hope they keep getting funnier. A true danger stands right in front of Starburst with the Berries and Cream Dancing Lad. Some may find him annoying, but I thought the ad was quite funny and effective in making me remember the product. However, Starburst released a two minute video of the Berries and Cream Lad teaching Internet viewers how to do the Berries and Cream dance. I must admit, it made me laugh, but I fear any other use of the lad beyond this will send Starburst to the crap pits of advertising to meet Geico and myriad of other trite and repetitive commercial ads. Let’s hope this is not the case.

Ernie

Good job Starburst. Keep it up.

Cheryl

So weird! I love it!

Berries and Cream

Very funny, but dangerous if they keep using this guy.

I realize this entry is not particularly funny or entertaining, basically what I accuse the Geico commercials of being. But I just felt strongly about this issue and wanted to comment on it. I’m off to pack some more and in a few days I’ll be blogging about Japan! Weee-hoo! I leave you with a cartoon.