Ad Campaigns Are Like Presidents

They're either effective or they're not. Generally, bad ads will not just cause me to not buy a product or service, but if they're really bad they'll drive me away from the product entirely. Take Snickers. I like Snickers, but I won't eat them right now because of their horrible ad campaign. What idiot executive looked at the storyboards for these ads and thought, "Yeah, that's a great concept." More than likely the thought was something like this, "Man, I don't understand this at all. It must be good. Hey, I wonder if my assistant remembered to put her bra back on." Do we have a bunch of ex-Fox executives working at M&M/Mars now? Let's see, we'll have people do things with Snickers that they're not intended for like throw at a deer or toss on a fire, and in doing so inform people that they're really tasty and they should buy some. I HATE THESE ADS!

Take the deer hunting one. If they really wanted red-neck deer hunters to buy Snickers wouldn't they have shot the same ad but instead of the deer running away when attacked, they could have had the Snickers bars turn into deadly sharp weapons that slice through the deer, killing it on the spot, automatically gutting and dressing it. Snickers, tasty in the tree stand and deadly quiet from 30 yards. Red-necks would be buying Snickers by the case.

Then there's the one were the um....questionably straight...guy who sees a fire, breaks the glass, grabs a Snickers and throws it on the fire only to have no effect. If you really wanted to sell to questionably straight men, wouldn't you have had the Snickers hit the fire and magically turn into a muscular, shirt-less fireman who douses the fire with urine and gives the guy a sly wink. No doubt that would sell to the questionable straight audience. As it is, the ads make fun of those demographics it portrays and pisses off the rest of us because of their stupidity. Nice job. These are Bush league ads. Too much attempted cleverness, not enough action.

Then we have the Reagan league ads, even if I didn't want it, I'd buy it because of the message. In this category we have the new Milwaukee's Best Light ads. Yep, the "Men Should Act Like Men" ads. I haven't laughed this hard at a series of ads in quite a while. Well done Milwaukee.