May 10, 2011

Big time loser: Taco Bell's 'Winner'



I am running out of words these days. If anyone can find a better alternative for "annoying", please email it to me. Because I am pretty damn sure I am not alone on this one... this guy is just so (insert word here) - I want to punch him in the face every time this commercial airs.

Besides the good, the bad and the ugly, there is another criteria category that hasn't been fully explored yet - I'd call it 'Repeat Watch-ability', meaning how does a commercial resonate with the audience after multiple runs?

I bet there are some - like Heineken's The Entrance- that you enjoy watching over and over again, and then there are those that make you jump up from the couch, reach frantically after the remote and switch the channel, because they are so damn (insert word here again), such as the latest McD commercial for example.

This "I got a winner" concept is one of those that you, as an advertiser, can run for about a week, before the newness wears off and the powers of advertising turn over to the dark side, and consequently turn the audience against you. Why?

ONE: You, as the advertiser, are announcing some new version of the ever the same fast food fare, just packaged differently. Taco Bell is Taco Bell. It is what it is. Weather or not it will be a winner the consumer will decide. So don't lean out of the window too far, you might come down hard. And yes, we got the message. A winner. Thank you. Now stop it.

TWO: If this version airs too often, the audience will eventually notice how dumb this concept is. Who on earth serves Taco Bell at their party? Seriously?

THREE: There is something strangely sexual about one girl saying to the other "He thinks he's got a winning taco". Again, this happens only if this airs too often. In any case, I am pretty sure the guy went home alone after the filming was done.

FOUR: Can you imagine a guy like this at your summer party? You would punch him, wouldn't you? You'd think he's on drugs, no? Either way, you'd pretty much hate him, right?

FIVE: It shows that this is one of the mass-market-ad-concepts coming out of a mass-market-ad-manufactury, where quantity is chosen over quality. No one thinks it through very much. It just comes out of the advertising machine one after another. No love involved.

SIX: Look at the expression on the extras' faces in the background (at 0:27 for example) - they all feel strangely uncomfortable in the presence of this guy. The poor guys and girls who had to endure multiple takes of this highly annoying dude - I feel so sorry for them.

MAD SCORE: -3

A shorter media buy would have gotten a +2 score, but the annoyance factor is just way too much.

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