Why We Hate This Cinemark Spot

The Cheese Fry's local movie theater is a Cinemark.  It's ten minutes away, so we go to the same one every time.  (We prefer row C, the last row in the front section so there's no chance a noisy talker sits behind us.)

Cinemark's trailer packet before the movie always, always features this ridiculous spot pushing the theater's concessions app.  We hate it.  It's not just because we have to sit through those 30 seconds of hell every time we see a Cinemark movie, although that can't help.  We hated this spot the very first time we saw it.  Let us explain why.

* Why is this idiot going to get snacks towards what seems to be the movie's big ending?  We can understand an unexpected bathroom break, but this guy walks in with a huge tub of popcorn like he just arrived at the theater.  Note also that he enters with that obnoxious empty-cup straw noise.  So he's somehow slurped down the entire drink on his way from the soda fountain to the theater?  Don't insult our intelligence by trying to make a point with a completely unrealistic scenario.

* Look at these people's absurd reactions - in slow motion no less, an accompanied by some kind of aria to further heighten the psuedo-drama of it all - to whatever they're seeing.  Wide eyes.  Slack jaws.  Bouncing and pointing.  Hands over mouths.  Laughter.  Also tears.  The dude who throws up his arms signaling a touchdown.  What a douche.  Can you imagine him sitting next to you?  We don't think audiences from the 1910s who saw a movie for the very time in their entire lives had these sorts of over the top, bug-eyed, cartoon responses.  

This got us to thinking if there was ever a twist or an ending to a movie we saw in theaters that might come close to inspiring this sort of wild reaction from us.  Spoilers below.  Off the top of our heads...

1. The penis reveal in The Crying Game

2. The hair gel gag in There's Something About Mary
3. DiCaprio's shocking murder in The Departed
4. The big ghost twist at the end of The Sixth Sense
Huge, unexpected moments, but none of these inspired us to throw our popcorn bucket in the air.

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"Love Those Lincolns, Man."

We wish it weren't so, but the recent Lincoln car campaign featuring Matthew McConaughey has completely transfixed us.  One commercial in particular offers that perfect blend of slick imagery, decadent mood, and dreamy music (by Amon Tobin).  When it pops up as we do a DVR-fast-forward we always stop and soak it in.

It's called "The Feeling: Night Out" (directed by none other than indie film legend Gus Van Sant) and shows McConaughey going through his evening ritual getting ready for a night on the town.  We understand what agency Hudson Rouge is doing here.  McConaughey's surrounded by plush affluence - the camel hair shaving brush, the walk-in closet full of pressed suits and shirts and neatly folded towels, the expensive watch - and also owns a Lincoln, ergo the Lincoln is the car of the wealthy and influential.

Knowing that doesn't make it any less effective.  Rarely do guilty pleasures extend to a 30-second spot.  It's a fully-realized fantasy world... one we want to be a part of.

Bonus points to that moment in the car when McConaughey reaches to push the ignition button, then gives that one brief hesitation, savoring the quiet before he revs his engine, gives that sly self-satisfied McConaughey smirk, and takes off on some grand Malibu adventure surely featuring champagne and caviar.

Plus the car shines the logo onto the pavement!

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Even zombies need mobile phones

You waited three months for this?  After this long, cold Cheese Fry period of dormancy, yes, this is the post we use for a relaunch.

We love zombies ("The Walking Dead" this season is killing it, as TJ Lavin might say) and this Sprint spot always makes us laugh.

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And our minivan towed the Queen Mary

Tonight we must have seen the Toyota Tundra-pulls-the shuttle commercial about 20 times.  With each viewing, we grow more and more suspicious and skeptical.  That little truck towed that giant, freakin' spaceship?  Baloney.  But Jalopnik explains how it worked.  We stand corrected, Toyota.

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If a jingle falls in the forest

An interesting debate raged at Cheese Fry headquarters regarding the Kelly Ripa commercial for Electrolux washer and dryer:
 


Do you recognize the music?  Is it important that you do?

It's the theme to the 1964-72 TV series "Bewitched."  The implication seems to be that if you use this product, you'll have the sort of supernatural ability to multi-task household chores that was so common to Elizabeth Montgomery's character on the show.

But who remembers that show?  Or its theme song?

And does it matter?

The key question: to whom is Electrolux selling its product?

One would might assume that it's young adults with small children who might be looking for new washers and dryers.  Kelly Ripa is a youthful 42 with three children, so this makes sense. But would anyone Ripa's age or younger get the "Bewitched" reference?  The Cheese Fry is almost 40.  We watched "Bewitched" in reruns as a kid and has vague memories of it, but it's certainly not filling TV schedules today and winning new fans.  Mrs. Cheese Fry (still comfortably in her 30s) didn't recognize the song until told, then she said she remembered it.  More important to her was the old-school retro mood it conveyed, harkening back to simpler days of nuclear families.

And then we looked at the price.

Those units go for $1600 each.  That could price most 30-something parents right out of the market.

So then maybe this spot really is for the Baby Boomers who know "Bewitched" very well, who have more disposable income, and who know Ripa best from her role in the older-skewing morning show with 70-something Regis Philbin.

What's this all mean?  How should we know?

But someone certainly chose that music for a specific reason.  Often it's very clear to us why recognizable pop-culture song cues are used.  Advertisers like to reference songs that appeal to the target demo, which is why Generation X gets TV spots with Motley Crue selling cars while Baby Boomers get Led Zeppelin selling cars.  They're creating a clear connection with the market, linking the song to the product.  This is opposed to music like in say, iPod spots, that are so obscure that they're more about conveying mood than making a specific pop culture reference.

So we're confused by the "Bewitched" theme because the reference is so specific, so perfectly in tune with the spot's content, yet could well go unrecognized by a good chunk of the viewer.

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Another catchy commercial

Here's another recent TV spot that we find ourselves humming long after it ends. AdTunes (via a quick Google search) tells us the song is called "Chugjug" by a group called Family of the Year.

There's also something hypnotic about the visuals as well. Advertising research shows that one of the best ways to sell a product is to make a consumer think others are already using it - we all want to be a part of the crowd and belong. This spot surely drives that point home with style and warmth.

And yes, the Cheese Fry is a proud Advil user.

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Have a Hyundai Christmas

Amid the brightly-colored noise of holiday ads pushing two-day sales and zero-percent-financing comes a beguiling series of spots from Hyundai. We thought there was something weirdly intriguing about the two musicians in the commercials, especially the female singer's beatific, wide-eyed serenity. If only we could attain such a look of sedated bliss. A quick check of Google confirms that these are no actors, but in fact members of a Southern California indie band called Pomplamoose. Where do they come up with these names?

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"You can get with this or you can get with that"

Another memorable commercial that was in heavy rotation during the NBA playoffs. The Cheese Fry is likely far outside the 20-something demo for the Kia Soul, but that doesn't mean we didn't like the spot.

We're not sure what's more disturbing - the hamsters driving a washing machine or the hamsters trying and failing to drive a cardboard box. What were these ad guys smoking? And where can we get some?

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Our new favorite commercial

When we see this commercial, we have to stop and watch it. Sublime.

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"I'm not missing Happy Pony."

Despite its heavy rotation, this AT&T spot makes us laugh every time. A clever idea perfect in its execution. It's a funny riff on hard-boiled cop-dramas Mexican standoffs ("Drop 'em. Both of you."). But it's also a timely commentary on the way DVRs have changed our household interactions - who hasn't had an argument about a show conflict? - in a way that no one could have imagined just five years ago.

Plus there's all of the little details. The fearful look on mom's face as she dares to pull her remote on dad. The assertive way Billy stands up into the frame to get the drop on mom and dad - mom may be scared, but he's not. The way grandma dismisses the whole thing with a disgusted wave of her hand; DVRs are not a part of her generation - she can't possibly understand the dire, urgent showdown she's stumbled onto. The deadpan money line "And I'm not missing Happy Pony" delivered in a slow tracking shot that would be right at home in a cheesy 80s action movie. And for those with, ahem, DVRs, there's the fun of freeze-framing the shot of the TV as it scrolls through the details of the programs our family has presumably been arguing about: "Kung Fu Island," "Wheel of Fun," and - of course - "Happy Pony."

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The Most Interesting Post in the World

Sometimes, television advertising can be more entertaining and well-made than the show you're watching. Case in point is the hilariously deadpan Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World" campaign.

It's not just the concept - you should drink Dos Equis because the world's most manly man "prefers" it. It's also the execution. Funny one-liners matched with oddball mockumentary footage of the Most Interesting Man in the World in all sorts of ruggedly worldly adventures: playing jai-alai, rescuing a fox from hunters, arm wresting a banana republic dictator (in black and white archival footage), leading a vote at the UN, splashing down in an Apollo space capsule, playing a back alley game of craps with what appear to be Pacific Islanders.

Seth Stevenson at Slate took an in-depth look at the spots.

Below are our ten favorite one-liners describing the Most Interesting Man in the World.

1. His blood smells like cologne.
2. He has never lost a sock.
3. If he disagrees with you, it's because you are wrong.
4. He can speak French in Russian.
5. He lives vicariously through himself.
6. Even his enemies list him as their emergency contact number.
7. He once had an awkward moment... just to see how it feels.
8. People hang on his every word... even the prepositions.
9. He'd never initiate a conversation about the weather... even in a typhoon.
10. He won the same lifetime achievement award twice.

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The 1-800-Dentist lady

It could be another of those love/hate things or some people, but the Cheese Fry is strangely intrigued by the oddball chatterbox woman in the recent batch of 1-800-Dentist spots that take place on the world's biggest office elevator. You know the ones.

If you share our interest, you may want to know that the 1-800-Dentist people have actually created a whole YouTube channel that features this campaign. (It also features a lot of corporate office party type videos that don't seem designed for public consumption.)



Our investigative team have discovered that the actress in the spots is improv comedian Suzi Barrett. You'll find five long "outtakes" on the YouTube channel, which allows Suzi to riff in all kinds of tangents and play up the sexual tension between her and Fred the 1-800-Dentist guy.

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"The world's biggest toy store"

Us Generation Xers all grew up with this TV spot. Images of Star Wars action figures dancing in our heads. Happy holidays!

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Progressive Flo

Is it just us, or is there is something strangely beguiling about Flo, the chatterbox spokesperson for Progressive Insurance with the "tricked out namebadge"?

Just us, then?


Just us and a reporter at WSBTV in Atlanta, apparently. They tracked down the actress who plays Flo... Stephanie Courtney.

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Another reason to hate advertising

Earlier this summer the Made to Stick dudes, Dan and Chip Heath, wrote a column in Fast Company about the way advertisers manufacture social stigmas to sell products:

A classic TV commercial for Wisk detergent opens with a housewife closing a suitcase she has packed for her husband. Suddenly, the suitcase springs open, and we hear, seemingly from within the suitcase as if it's possessed, a chorus of devil children shrieking, "Ring around the collar! Ring around the collar!"

Another Wisk ad of that time shows a man on a cruise. He is approached enthusiastically by the female cruise director, who tugs playfully at his collar -- you know, in the way cruise directors are always playfully tugging at your collar. But then she spots his Ring Around the Collar. She recoils, disgusted. Ad Age ranked the Wisk campaign No. 62 in the 100 top advertising campaigns of the 20th century. It's also despicable.

People are incredibly sensitive to social stigmas. The most serious forms -- aimed at a particular race, ethnicity, class, or sexual orientation -- are pernicious and destructive. Others, less serious but more plentiful, govern our day-to-day behavior. Think of the way you quickly judge a person who sneezes on a crowded bus without covering up. The Ring Around the Collar message creates an everyday stigma of this kind.

Marketers deliberately construct stigmas for the sake of selling you a solution to the ensuing embarrassment and disgust. They smack you on the head so they can sell you an aspirin for the headache. Why do we put up with this?

If Ring Around the Collar seems laughably old school, a relic of a more naive time, then consider one of the 2008 variations. A commercial in Visa's Check Card campaign shows a deli where people move through the line with elaborate, precise choreography, like a Broadway production number. Customers complete their transactions by swiping the check card, and they all seem delighted to be part of the capitalistic clockwork. That is, until the moment when one misguided schlub pulls out some cash. Then everything comes to a crashing halt. No more dancing, no more delight. The cashier looks disgusted.

Yes, Visa and its ad agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, are trying to make you feel embarrassed for paying for your lunch with cash.

Folks, that takes gall, since for most of the past 30 years, it has been the cash people who have waited patiently for the credit-card people. Remember the guy in front of you a few years back who was trying to buy a 79-cent Fanta Orange with his Visa, and the clerk used the card-imprint machine to grind the raised digits onto the carbon, but the machine didn't work right, so he pulled out a Bic and began microscribing the 16-digit credit-card number into those tiny preprinted boxes? And then he had to call for an approval code. Sheesh.

Sadly, Visa isn't alone in making shame one of our leading exports. Get a load of this astonishing statement in a Strategy + Business article that advised companies how to grow faster in China: "Too often, companies focus on understanding only the current demand of the consumer," wrote Edward Tse, a VP with the consultant Booz Allen Hamilton. "A better course is to anticipate or even create demand. Through smart marketing, Procter & Gamble, for example, created the perception that dandruff -- traditionally a nonissue for the Chinese -- is a social stigma and offered a product (Head & Shoulders antidandruff shampoo) to 'solve' the problem."

Well played, P&G! And, quick, let's get a team from Gillette to solve the Arm Hair Problem in Ecuador! Other marketers should take notes on how to demonize the ordinary. Here's a suggestion for Coca-Cola: "Because who knows where your water has been." For Hallmark: "So he wrote you a love poem. Guess he couldn't afford a card, huh?"

You may be asking, What's the harm? A thoughtful paper from two Columbia University professors on this topic addresses that question. In "Conceptualizing Stigma," Bruce Link and Jo Phelan point out that while stigmatizing certain groups can lead to direct discrimination -- for example, against people regarded as "mentally ill" -- it can also have subtler effects. A depressed woman, for instance, who is aware of the negative perceptions of the mentally ill, may begin to act more cautiously for fear of the way others may respond to her. Stigmas breed self-censorship.

This is precisely the response that the sleazy Visa campaign wants to elicit. Picture yourself in a crowded checkout line. You reach for the cash in your wallet. At that moment, the folks at Visa and TBWA\Chiat\Day hope you'll feel a whisper of shame. The people behind you are cursing under their breath.

That's icky. Stigma should be reserved for people who violate community standards, like people who willfully park in handicap spots. It shouldn't be used as a too-cute-by-half way to peddle some dumb new product.

This is why we need one more stigma: a Ring Around the Collar for badly behaved marketers. Then the vast majority of people responsible for selling products wouldn't use tactics like these. It's time for the marketing community itself to be the first to turn up its nose at people who shamelessly use these techniques to sell creams and detergents and credit cards.

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Cootie Queens and Lint Lickers

Following in the footsteps of Mac vs. PC ("I'm a Mac." "And I'm a PC.") and the Geico cavemen comes another ingeniously oddball commercial that demands repeat viewing.

We're talking, of course, about Orbit Gum's campaign to suggest that its gum is so refreshing that it will clean the dirtiest of mouths. The dirt-eating secretary was funny, yes, but the grand prize surely goes to a spot called "The Affair." You can find it here, here, and here.

Funniest Lines from "The Affair"1. "Who are you calling a cootie queen? You lint-licker!"
2. "Stinky McStink Face."
3. "What the French, toast?"
4. "Pickle you kumquat!"
5. "You Hoboken."

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Geico cavemen are people, too

Slate's Seth Stevenson takes a look at the genius of the Geico Insurance cavemen ads, which may be turned into a television sitcom this fall. The therapist-speakerphone spot is good, as is the balcony party spot ("Tina's here - we're getting back together"), but the best is surely the moving-airport-sidewalk spot.

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UPS pitchman unmasked

You've probably seen the ads. A scruffily charming guy with the swept back mop of hair standing at a whiteboard making squeaky drawings to illustrate the power of UPS shipping. Who is that guy? Adweek has the answer. Sometimes it's the quiet, simple ads that work best.

UPDATE: More analysis has been provided by Slate's Seth Stevenson. Maybe Andy Azula should have a fan club.

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"Apply Directly to the Forehead"

The Los Angeles Times' Dan Neil recently took a look at one of the more surreal TV ads running now: HeadOn. If you've seen it, you know what we're talking about.

Theoretically speaking, there is no bottom to the pop culture barrel, particularly as regards TV advertising. There will always be an ad that will sink lower and annoy more, always another commercial that will manage to limbo under our lowest expectations.

Wait . . . no . . . there is a bottom of the barrel! And welcome to it. I give you the ad for HeadOn, which has to be the worst, most irritating TV commercial ever made, that ever could be made. Compared to HeadOn, the awful Realcore diet pill ad ("Get rid of stubborn belly fat!") is a soaring aria to the nobility of Man.

The ad is simplicity itself, if simplicity reminds you of North Korean propaganda. A woman rubs her forehead with what appears to be a roll-on deodorant while a female voice shouts: "HeadOn, apply DIRECTLY to the FOREHEAD! HeadOn, apply DIRECTLY to the FOREHEAD! HeadOn, apply DIRECTLY to the FOREHEAD! HeadOn is available without a prescription at retailers nationwide!" This is the 15-second spot. Because of the economics of basic cable advertising, the ad will often run back to back, so you get 30 seconds of "HeadOn, apply DIRECTLY to the FOREHEAD!" etc.

This is the sort of thing that sends people into bell towers with rifles.

When I first saw this commercial, I thought I must be missing something. What, exactly, does the product do? It appears to be a balm of some kind, but for what ailment? How many people suffer from forehead pain? Perhaps it was for headaches. And then I began to spy a certain kind of genius about the ad. A headache remedy ad that causes migraines. Brilliant!

Indeed, I began to wonder if it wasn't maximally schlocky on purpose, the TV ad equivalent of outsider art. It has, after all, the surreal vertigo of some crazy piece of installation video or a Japanese blast ad, the kind accused of producing seizures. I also suspected the ad was supposed to be funny. For instance, there is this big yellow animated arrow pointing vigorously at the woman's forehead, next to the words "apply directly to the forehead." Wait, I'm confused. Where do I apply it?

This had to be some sort of spoof, some piece of carefully calibrated irony like the Old Navy or the Enzyte (natural male enhancement) campaigns. Perhaps it was a viral anti-ad that escaped the confines of the web somehow to reach legitimate TV. At least I wasn't the only one baffled. A quick google of "Apply directly to the forehead" returned hundreds of pages, with many bloggers howling for medieval tortures to be applied to the person responsible.

He was easy enough to find. HeadOn is made by a company called Miralus Healthcare, which has offices in Canada and Florida (the actual product is manufactured in Chicago). With a couple of calls I managed to contact Dan Charron, vice president of sales and marketing. I asked if he was aware of the buzz.

"We first knew something was up when we found all the web pages devoted to the commercials," he said. Did he also notice people saying it was the most awesomely awful commercial they'd ever seen? That surprised him. "Nobody in the focus groups said the ads were annoying," he said, a statement that made me feel very sorry for focus groups.

But, come on, this is some kind of postmodern gag, right, a parody of the hyper-hard sell? Alas, no. "We didn't intend it to be a joke," Charron said. "The idea is that all our competitors are pills. Our product you apply directly to the forehead. That's what makes it different. We wanted for people to remember it. It's the only product that you apply directly to the forehead." He kept saying that. This is the ad you get when Rain Man is your VP of marketing.

What about the peculiar anti-style of the commercial? The ad—which cost "almost nothing," said Charron—is actually an edited version of an earlier advertisement, recycling the same footage of the head-rubbing woman. At the request of the Better Business Bureau, HeadOn removed claims that the product provides relief from headaches, migraines and headache pain with sleeplessness.

Thus expunged of any claim of efficacy or benefit, what remains is, I think, unique in advertising: a commercial that says nothing about the product except how to use it. And this is where it gets weird. Because of its strange and evocative emptiness, the "apply directly" sound bite is catching on. There's now a web site that has laid it down behind a hip-hop dance mix. Another has converted it into a ring tone. How soon before we see T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase, above a picture of a frosty mug of beer? It's a tribute to pop's alchemical power that the most uncool commercial in the history of TV has somehow been rendered, well, cool.

Meanwhile, Charron and his company are working on the next round of HeadOn commercials. If you want me, I'll be in the bell tower.

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That's $66,000 a second

What’s $2 million buy you these days? About 30 seconds of TV airtime last Sunday.

The Best

1. FedEx – An instant classic. A caveman gets fired for using FedEx, even though it hasn’t been invented yet. Typical lazy-boss reaction. The spot comes with two extra jokes at the end: the caveman takes out his frustration by kicking a little dinosaur, then gets squashed himself by a big dinosaur.

2. (tie) Burger King and Hummer – These two spots are mesmerizing if only because they’re so fearlessly weird - like that deeply odd Snickers spot where a guy's called out at work for using Snickers bars for a toupee. Here, an elaborate Busby Berekley musical number with dancers wearing the ingredients of a Whopper is like a fry cook acid trip. And the disturbing union of two Japanese 60-foot-tall monster movie archetypes – the evil robot and the angry lizard – yields an unexpected baby: a red Hummer. Huh?

4. MasterCard – Dipping into 1980s nostalgia is a pretty familiar tactic at this point (the Cheese Fry thinks it heard Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” used in children's back-t0-school ads last fall), but recruiting actor Richard Dean Anderson to reprise his MacGyver personal to sell credit cards really is priceless.

5. Bud Light – There’s always a screwball beer spot and this is it: an employee’s decision to hide Bud Lights around the office turns the workplace into Lord of the Flies. Love the one guy punching holes into the drywall with his bare hands.

6. “Lost” – Another dip back into the 1980s pool, this one tweaking the lyrics to Robert Palmer’s hit so it sounds like he’s singing “Might as well face it you’re addicted to Lost.” Cheesy, yes, but it’s a clever valentine to fans of the show.

7. V for Vendetta – This buzz on this movie suggests it could be extremely kick ass. Consider yourself warned.
The Worst

1. Gillette – “Are those scientists unlocking the secrets of quantum physics with the use of a particle accelerator, colliding blue and green energy?” “No, they’re making a razor with five blades.” “...Oh.”

2. Pepsi – The continued inexplicable anthropomorphization of Pepsi products continues. First we had the New England Patriots “drafting” a Pepsi machine and now P. Diddy is turning a Pepsi can into a hip-hop star. The "brown and bubbly" tagline sounds just like the kind of thing a 55-year-old executive would think is cool and trendy.

3. ESPN Mobile – For the first few seconds, it was kind of fun to see this guy on his phone being passed on the street by all kinds of sports activities, showing us what ESPN’s new service provides. But then the commercial goes on. And goes on some more, without a trace of humor, just smug seriousness as if they were selling something important, like a five-blade razor.

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