MGD 64 - Beer for Jerks

Now, I make a point here on Failvertising to not let my opinion on a product interfere with my like or dislike of an advertisement.  However, I must make an exception.  I loooove beer.  However, I think most mass-market beers are disgusting, with a very few exceptions. Having to drink piss-colored flavorless beers in clear bottles makes me want to beat the people who truly enjoy those beers with a lead pipe (in the conservatory. It was Colonal Mustard.)

THIS IS WHAT BEER LOOKS LIKE!!!

In my college Advertising class, we were taught that you need to make your product the 'hero' of the advertisement.  In this unfortunate ad, the hero is one of those douchey 'bros' who would be wearing a polo shirt with a popped collar if he wasn't a groomsman at this wedding.

Drink poison. Seriously.

I'd like to chat about the Best Man for a second.  He has the teeny tiniest wee glass I've ever seen.  He says it's "64 calories of Pinot Grigio" but the liquid in the class is PERFECTLY CLEAR.  (I aso think guys who drink white wine are generally assholes, but I digress.) 

Yummy Pinot Grigio?

The question for me is who the holy hell orders a specific calorie count for their drink? That's the point of these commercials, right? "Since you're ordering a specific calorie content of a beverage, why not have this pissy sucky beer that has the exact calorie content that you desire!"  Why do you need PRECISELY 64 calories of a beverage?  Sweet Zombie Jesus, if you can ONLY have 64 calories of a beverage, maybe you should rethink your nutrition plan.

 

You rang?

I think we're all thinking the same thing: NO ONE ORDERS BEVERAGES BY THE CALORIE COUNT.  You have to order what you want in the correct unit. It's one of the more important aspects of requesting goods from vendors. You're never going to ask for six cups of porterhouse.  No one wants you to pick up seventeen ounces of donuts.  If you need 8 pounds of milk, that's at least east to calculate (it's a gallon) since, as Alton brown taught us, a pint's a pound the world around.

You WILL watch my show and you WILL learn useful shit!

The icing on the cake here is our douchebro hero saying how MGD 64 is only 64 calories (Oh really? I *totally* give a shit about how caloric your beer is!) and then starts clanking his knife on his beer bottle so hard I swear it should shatter and leave his hand a bloody stump.  The noise his bottle makes is louder than the NYSE opening bell.  If the Liberty Bell could make a sound, it would be the noise this bottle makes.

Sorry, MGD 64. I was kind of with you and your toolbox assumption that people want to drink Diet Beer, but your fakey fake fake bottle clanging lost me.

Smucker's - Ma, Richard Got Into Grandpa's Medicine Again!

This chewy nugget of commercial delight is brought to you by Smucker's.  You know, the jam people.  "With a Name Like Smucker's, It Has To Be Good."  That sounds like a threat.  "Damn it, Smucker's! Your fruit paste MUST be tasty to make up for your ridiculous name or your family shall perish!!"

I WILL SCREAM WHILE EATING YOU ON TOAST!

 Or is it more like "Wow, the name of this company SUCKS! There's no way this jam can be anything BUT delicious!" Or maybe a dare. Kind of like that "Nobody Doesn't Like Sarah Lee."  Hey Sarah Lee, I don't like you! Watcha gonna do about it! (Actually I quite like Sarah Lee. Of course I do, fat kids love their pastries.) When I was a kid I thought the slogan was "Nobody Does It Like Sarah Lee." Isn't that funny?  Just like I thought that Disturbed's song's lyrics were "Get monkey down with the sickness."  Ahhhahaha.  Misheard lyrics are called "Mondegreens." Isn't that interesting? No, it's not? Oh I was talking about this stupid jam commercial, wasn't I? Moving on...

Our fun bit of commercial failery greets us with a boy wearing a large coat and talking strangely to baskets of assorted fruit in a barn.  I'm not sure if that combination of words has ever been typed out before.  (A cursory Google search tells me no.)  I think it's the fruit part that worries me about this child.  If he was talking to cows in a barn wearing a large coat, I could understand that. I like talking to cats (Gee, a chubby internet chick who writes snark likes talking to cats? Say it isn't so) so I can see how chatting with the cows can be fun.  Must get lonely living on a fruit farm with only your older brother and no apparent adult supervision, and the cows has sympathetic eyes and you can pet them.

"Tell me your hopes and dreams. I'll listen. Also: Moo."

 And the coat protects you from cow poo and drool. (I imagine cows drool? I have no idea.) Hell, even talking to sheep, or horses, or chickens makes more sense than FRUIT. "Oh apples, no one understands me but you."

Jake Gyllenhaal knows what I'm taking about.

And whyyyy do you need a big coat to talk to fruit?  Isn't that a bit like wearing a trenchcoat on the subway? There's no way you can be up to anything but no good. Might as well park a windowless van outside the playground with a "Free Candy" sign hanging on the outside.

Anyhoozle, Speaks With Apples's brother comes in, and it turns out he's been pretending to be his grandfather the whole time.  Isn't that sweet? Maybe? No? Yeah I don't think it's cute.  But then again, I'm bitter and cynical, so don't ask me. Don't kids like to pretend to be really awesome superheros like Batman, or maybe even a real-life hero like Sgt. Leroy Petry?

Superman has pictures of Sgt. Petry on his jammies. Chuck Norris wants to be Sgt. Petry when he grows up.

I can't imagine a kid pretending to be his grandpa.  Here, let me pretend to be everyone's grandpa for a second: "Back in my day, things were (harder/colder/cheaper.) Everyone was (better/nicer/smarter) than you kids today. Get off my damn lawn! (Racist statement about a nearby minority.) Liberals are ruining this nation!" There. (If it was my grandfather, that rant would be punctuated with the opening of a beer.) But apparently this kid's papa doesn't smack him when he opens up the fridge, and warrants pretend play.  Fine. I won't fight with ya there.

But it's this kid's INSISTENCE that he is his grandpa that troubles me.  "I'm not Richard, I'm Grandpa Smucker!"  Nope, you're still Richard.  "I'm not Richard, I'm Grandpa Smucker!" Did you get into the horseradish again, Richard? "I'm not Richard, I'm Grandpa Smucker."  Get the cattle prod, Ma! Richard is having an episode! Keep him away from the bell tower!

I'M GRANDPA SMUCKER! AAHAHAHAHA!

At the end of the commercial, we are treated to the still completely unsupervised children wandering through an abandoned orchard.  Does it look like all the adults have magically vanished from this farm to anyone else? The bushels of peaches are sitting on the ground like the workers just dropped them and wandered off to jump in front of the combine harvester like in that horrible M. Night Shyamalanalamalan movie.  Maybe the kids picked the peaches. They seem to be the only humans present on this farm.  That must be why young Richard is having delusions. He is overworked and has heat exhaustion from picking peaches and making jam. Hell, that would leave anyone rambling at fruit.

This post was made by special request! Please comment with any commercials you think deserve my snark.  Also, let me know if my addition of silly pictures and captions were a win or a fail.  If I get enough positive feedback, I might go through the older posts and add pictures to them!!

Stupid Husbands and Their Fiber Intake

Why hello my lovelies.  Your Failvertising Diva is back with a delightful ditty about granola bars.  This particular granola bar is brought to you by Fiber One. They're the people who make the cereals with the handsome gentleman (who I *think* is Indian) who says, in a delightful accent, "Cardboard no; delicious yes."  I kind of like those commercials. I like the cereal quite a bit as well.  Hell, I even like these granola bars.  The mocha flavor is so damn tasty I think I might go out and buy some after I'm done writing this post. (Hey, Fiber One People, send me some goddamn free shit!) This commercial, however, fills me with rage.

First, we are treated to the BEIGEST KITCHEN IN THE WORLD. ("Beigest" is a word. Shut up.) There is no physical way for this kitchen to be more beige.  Moreover, the wife is beige.  I don't know about you, but I don't trust people who color coordinate their outfits to their decor.  That's some strange Real Housewife "I Only Wear Pink and My House is All Pink and My Toy Dogs Are Pink" kinda crap.  

Husband comes in and asks "Did we get anything good?" There is one paper grocery bag on the counter.  If that's all she bought, I guarantee you can see it.  Judging by the food on the table, she bought produce.  So, sure, if you think one grocery bag's worth of fruits and veggies are good, then yes, Husband, yes she did.  But, Wife doesn't even answer his perfectly reasonable question.  She shoves right passed that and into "I think you need more fiber in your diet."

Now, my interesting internet friends, your Failvertising Diva is a married lady.  Not once in the decade's worth of time I have spent with my husband have I thought to myself "How's his fiber intake?" or "Is he consuming the right amount of fiber?" or even paid the slightest bit of attention to the fiber content of whatever it is he happens to be shoving into his face at any given moment.  Anyone else think how much this lady cares about her husband's fiber intake is odd? I imagine the only time you, as a wife, would think about that is if your husband had some medical condition requiring absurd amounts of fiber and he was too stupid to keep track of that himself.  Husband's response, instead of the "Why the holy fuck do you care about how much fiber I eat" that I would expect, is a more childish "Uuurrrrgghhhhh."  This leads me to believe she's one of those wives; the ones who are WAY too involved with their husband's diet, clothing, hairstyle, and demeanor.  One of those wives who think a husband is really just an overgrown golden retriever they can tie a bandana around and take for walkies.  One of those wives who treats their husband like a child because their children grew up and she never had a life outside of their home and family so now she need SOMETHING to mother, goddamnit!! (Sorry, I just really hate those women.)

He then says one of the dumber things I've ever heard in my life: "Fiber makes me...sad."  Oh, does it? Fiber makes you sad? Why is that? Did fiber beat you up and steal your lunch money when you were a kids? Did fiber take your virginity and never call you again?  Did fiber crap in the back seat of your Geo Metro? Maybe fiber ran off with your fiance? There is no possible way for fiber to make you sad.  Fiber makes you poo.  It would make seven times more sense if he said "Fiber makes me poo, and pooping makes me sad."  I could almost understand that.  But it's still ridiculous. 

Wife then dares him to taste any fiber in "Fiber One."  He then says "Why not eat this bag."  Is that what he thinks 'fiber' tastes like?  Is that what Fiber One thinks he *should* think fiber tastes like?  I don't understand this marketing strategy claiming that it's sooooo surprising that their product doesn't taste like a pile of zebra crap.  If you need an increased level of fiber in your diet and you DON'T eat the amount your doctor has recommended because you can't find a tasty enough product, fuck you.  You deserve colon troubles if you refuse to take care of yourself because kind-of healthy snack foods aren't as flavorful as the processed cheese-food and Skittles your body is used to you cramming it full of.

Husband then confuses her granola bar for a candy bar.  I'm sorry, Husband, now you've completely lost me.  Never in the history of forever have there been candy bars that look like granola bars.  Ever. EVER. Granola bars are made of granola. Maybe there are some nuts or seeds or rice in them, and maybe some dried fruit or chocolate bits.  Unless it's totally covered in chocolate no one will EVER confuse a candy bar with a granola bar. Not unless they don't know what either of those things are.

This commercial exemplifies a genre of advertisements that make me furious: The Stupid Husband Commercials.   This is a hugely popular advertising technique.
Step 1: Take a ridiculously stupid husband and a smarmy, sighing "Oh look how stupid my husband is" wife.
Step 2: make him do or say something so stupid it would make any normal human be restrained for their own safety.
Step 3: Have her explain the situation to her stupid husband as if he is a particularly incompetent house plant.
Step 4: ????
Step 5: Profit

The moral of my tale is as follows: Listen wives, if your husband is dumb enough to believe it's normal that you're obsessed with his fiber intake, he's dumb enough to believe that a granola bar is a candy bar.  He's also dumb enough to believe that antifreeze is soda, so be careful.

As always, my pretties, please post any suggestions for awful or hilariously terrible commercials for me to rip apart.