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I’m tired of all these viral marketing campaigns and too-clever-by-half ads where you don’t even know what the ad is for*. There’s no reward for me in figuring out what your weird puzzle ad means when I know that at the end of the day all it means is you redesigned a pack of gum, or whatever. I’m even tired of this supposedly “banned” Sprite ad that is going around today. Admittedly, that is not a puzzle. Or if it is a puzzle, it is a very easy puzzle. SOLUTION: Sprite satisfies your thirst for a torrent of semen. It’s called branding, and Sprite is really smart about doing it.

Enough, Don Draper! Just show me something that I want, and make it dance.

Haha. Yes! That is how you do it. One ice cream cake and one fork, please. (Via AdFreak.)

*I am sure that within a few days I will write about some neat viral ad that is obtuse and overly-clever, because obviously sometimes those ads are fun, and then people will think that they have got me. Well you have not got me. I am Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” when it comes to my feelings about advertisements. Maybe you should stop trying to catch me in a contradiction and start putting some ice cream cake in your face.

Comments (39)
  1. Gabe, you are getting paranoid. When you write footnotes like that, the Crankheads win.

    • He’s definitely reached that circle of blogger hell where you try to stave off every possible negative response to anything you write, covering every level of irony possible.

    • Selena  |   Posted on Jul 30th, 2009

      “Whoa, Deja Vu!”

      *said in my best impersonation of Keanu Reeves*

  2. Strangest Mad Men commercial yet…

  3. -Knock knock.
    -Who’s There?
    -NSFW sprite ad.
    -Seriously? Because I didn’t have any advanced notice that you would be here on my computer screen. This is going to be really awkward when my boss glances over and sees that you’ve arrived.
    -Yeah, sorry. Gabe was supposed to phone ahead.

  4. bob loblaw  |   Posted on Jul 20th, 2009

    the subtle YAY! at the end of the commercial was what got me.

  5. I am doing the ice-cream and cake.

  6. Anonymous  |   Posted on Jul 20th, 2009

    Side benefit of more ice cream cake: Sometimes when you go out to get ice cream cake, you end up saving three people from a horrible car accident.

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/51212742.html

  7. Let’s all do the ice cream and cake dance, you guys!

    Whoops, they’re forever on the internet. Doing that. Until Fallout 3 happens, anyways.

  8. I saw this commercial and couldn’t wait until the store opened to go get one. Then I forgot. Now I want to go to there again.

    • Yeah, exactly. This commercial makes me a toddler. It comes on and I’m laughing and clapping and shouting “Ice cream!” to no one in particular, and then I get distracted by something loud and colorful.

  9. ‘Leaves of Grass’ when it comes to your feelings about ads. Lots of Loves over here. Lots of Loves.

  10. sounds like MC Pee Pants

  11. I don’t get it. Is Sprite trying to tell us that Sprite and semen are pretty much the same thing? I’m so confused!

  12. The banned commercial is apparently just a SPEC ad. Not real, not final… not endorsed by Sprite. Just some marketing agency trying to prove how edgy it’s willing to be if you hire them. If this is how far they’ll go to sell Sprite, I wonder how they’ll market my upcoming film “Anal Mascara Whores”.

  13. sandy sicko  |   Posted on Jul 20th, 2009

    Oh man! I want to go to there, and I want it to last forever! Ice cream cakes! Dinosaur and astronaut! Vaguely 90s dance craze music (think ‘Tootsie Roll’)!

    This adman/woman knows my every heartbeat.

  14. In the name of truth, BR probably ought to write a song called “ice cream and freezer-burned-slightly-chocolate-tasting-cardboardy-lab-created-cake-like-substance”

  15. This commercial is the essence of summer and fun and delicious. Done.

  16. Ice Cream and Cake is going on all my mixtapes this summer.

  17. Mabuk  |   Posted on Jul 20th, 2009

    This is perhaps the most context-sensitive thread ever

  18. Remember when advertisers just ripped off music videos?

  19. I can already tell I’ll be alternating between this and Peanut Butter Jelly Time in my head for the rest of the day.

  20. I don’t care how many cool points I lose, I like this commercial. And I’ve always been fond of their tagline “Yay!” especially with their honky tonk music.

    Ice cream, what’s more to say? YAY!

  21. In an obsessive quest to find an MP3 of this song, I came upon the tag cloud on the Last.fm page for the Buckwheat Boyz, who “sang” it:



    My sentiments exactly. (Except the gay part, since I don’t want Gabe bludgeoning me with his soapbox.)

  22. I’m lactose intolerant :-(

  23. I really hated this commercial until this thread happened.

  24. i thought my summer jam was http://bomarrblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/das-racist-pizza-hut-taco-bell.html>”combination pizza hut and taco bell,” but i guess i was mistaken.

  25. DonDraper  |   Posted on Jul 21st, 2009

    *takes puff off of cigarette*

    Ice cream.

    Cake.

    Cake and ice cream.

    As a child, either one is a delight. Growing up, you’re happy to have either. Maybe, maybe you were deprived and couldn’t have both regularly. Maybe you grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth and had ice cream for dessert every day. Ah, but the day you had ice cream and cake? That was a special day. That was the day you received presents, your friends gathered around and the whole day centered around you.

    In my day, you only were given – no, blessed – blessed with ice cream and cake on one day of the year.

    Your birthday.

    But what if . . . every day could be your birthday? Or what if your child is jaded? What if he thinks ice cream and cake’s as old-hat as “Pin the tail on the donkey”? What if you want to- no, need to show your little Billy or your little Sally some ice cream and cake in a way that’s even more exciting than before?

    Ice cream on cake, sure, you’ve had that before. We all have.

    Ice cream . . . in cake? A cake with the ice cream inside of it? That’s new. That’s exciting. That’s the future. That is, gentlemen and lady, the very synthesis of “ice cream and cake” in a way that will blow every one of your competitors out of the water.

    *drains a tumbler of whiskey, lights another smoke*

    When you watch this ad, you’ll hear a peppy song, you’ll see some toys move, you’ll even see a cake sliced open to reveal cool, delicious ice cream inside of it . . . but none of that is the heart of this advertisement. The heart is getting the best birthday cake on the block, being the most popular kid in your entire neighborhood, if just for one day. The heart . . . is getting to live your childhood dream in a whole new way, one you never even imagined possible.

    The heart of ice cream and cake . . . is your childhood.

    That’s what’s really underneath the layers of cake and ice cream. That smile in summer when you knew life was a perfect dream.

    Ice cream and cake.

    Ice cream . . . and cake.

    Lights.

  26. elyse  |   Posted on Jul 21st, 2009

    this ad is channeling “peanut butter jelly time” so hard i can practically hear youtube yawning.

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