Before we go any further, it's important that you know this is not a Parks & Rec webisode, but an American Express commercial starring Aziz Ansari as himself. And a pretty funny one at that. I don't know what this "Jessica's" problem is, by the way. Dude bought a kayak for this date and she isn't impressed? That's gotta be at least number three on the oh-no-no list.
This re-enactment of Ferris Bueller's Day Off starring Matthew Broderick for Honda's Super Bowl spot is an excellent example of advertising. Not that I condone advertising. Or any -ising for that matter. -isings in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ising, he should believe in himself. I quote Ferris Bueller, "I quote John Lennon, 'I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.'" Good point there. After all, he was Matthew Broderick. I could be Matthew Broderick. I'd still have to do commercials for Honda.
Errol Morris’s hilarious new movie Tabloid premiered over the weekend to rave reviews. Morris is best known for documentaries like The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War, but my first encounter with his work (though I didn’t know it) was on TV. Between 1998 and 2005, he directed an extensive series of commercials for Miller High Life, starring “The High Life Man."
Morris himself considers the more than 100 ads, “his most impressive achievement.” All of the spots are available online, and they benefit from serial and even repeated consumption, preferably with a High Life in hand.
(I should mention: they are very effective beer commercials.)
These two Super Bowl ads really show that great commercials can come in all shapes and sizes. There's NBC's "please just watch some of our programs, we're literally begging you" spot, and then there's a Will Ferrell ad only seen in North Platte, Nebraska. On the one hand, you have an entire network of stars doing choreographed singing and dancing to a song from a Broadway show, from Community to SNL. And on the other, just a guy walking up in a field, and taking a cold drink from an Old Mi-
After Alec Baldwin's Words With Friends misbehavior, the supermarket chain Wegmans pulled their Baldwin-starring ads from last year instead of running them again this holiday season. Is that what rock bottom feels like?
Update: Wegmans is back on board!
When Chuck did it, we laughed at them, not with them. When 30 Rock does it, or pretty much every other capital-G Good show on TV right now for that matter, we laugh at them, but with them, too. We've learned to take the licks, and writers have learned to give them: Product placement on TV is as knowing and wily as it is ubiquitous, and it seems to work fine. But what about the Internet?
You could make the argument that indirectly sponsored jokes deserve to be judged on their merit, not their medium. A good argument, actually! But you could make a better one — [...]
Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno are giving Matthew Broderick's Ferris Bueller ad a run for its money with their own Super Bowl ad for the Acura NSX. Well, they say it's for the NSX, but it's really just as effective as an ad for dancing holographic monkeys. Or the professional services of Jerry Seinfeld as a butler and personal entertainer. Either of which I think most of us would pay A PRETTY PENNY for, am I wrong?
More and more, advertisers are looking to comedians to sell their products, says the New York Times. (I knew Melissa McCarthy becoming the face of Ivory soap was important for some reason!) Apparently, it's economy-related: people like to laugh during tough times. Go figure. Fred Allen and Jack Benny did radio commercials during the Depression; Jimmy Fallon and Ellen DeGeneres do TV commercials now.
Beyond the economic factor, comedians give off an image of lightheartedness and humanity, which is valuable for heavy-hearted, faceless, evil corporations. In the words of Charles Torrey, vice president for marketing for the Minute Maid trademark (oh, right, him), “humor is a way [...]
