My father and I like to talk about TV commercials, exchanging notes on ones we either really like or don’t like. Not long after I arrived, he was telling me about some new Nissan commercial with a couple singing and goofing around. The commercial was catchy, the visuals interesting, and the female singer as cute as a button. We discussed the commercial at length and when one of us was out of the room during a commercial break the other would pause the DVR so that the other could see it.
I was telling him about Nissan being the subject of some discussion in my marketing class because they have a history of running commercials which actually minimize the exposure to this product. Within the advertising community there are two thoughts on this. The first being that as long as you’re talking about the commercial, it’s a success. The other saying that you can watch the whole commercial without actually learning anything about their product – or for that matter even remembering it – and that’s not a good thing.
After several days of seeing these commercials I don’t know how many times, I noticed something. It’s not even a Nissan commercial. It’s Hyundai. We’re not the only ones to make this mistake as we tracked down who the singers were by referring to “Nissan commercial” and others thought the exact same thing. Despite the fact that they mention the Hyundai Sonata a couple of times in the ad itself.
I think this underscores the criticism of commercials that don’t feature the product very prominently.
Here’s an example of a Nissan ad where the actual car is not very prominently displayed:
It’s actually a really brilliant ad. Ridiculously manipulative, but effective in evoking emotion regarding that poor bear. And if one associates a displaced polar bear with global warming and buying a Leaf as being part of the fight against global warming, perhaps effective in that way, too. Provided nobody mistakes it for a Prius commercial or something.
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the female singer as cute as a button
In the Hunt circle, we refer to her as the cute girl with the bad haircut. For some reason her band mate plays the drums using plastic serving utensils.
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The other song that was over-played over the holiday season was “Holiday” by Vampire Weekend. It was used by Tommy Hilfiger and Honda.
I think the bandmate is supposed to be the “goofy one” while she is the straight man. Yeah, her haircut is weird, but it works in this case. I happened to see a video of her with a traditional haircut and she seemed more plain looking.
“I think the bandmate is supposed to be the “goofy one” while she is the straight man.”
At least she smiles in the commercial. If you look at their videos on YouTube (watched a few of them, after seeing a Yahoo! article about the band a week or two ago), she’s not so much a “straight man” in them as an expressionless drone, which is her shtick I guess.
“The other song that was over-played over the holiday season was “Holiday” by Vampire Weekend.”
Andy Levy tweeted:
“If I could go back in time twice, I’d kill Hitler and prevent Vampire Weekend from recording “Holiday.” Not sure of the order.”
In what should shock many of you, Andy Levy has blocked me from following him on Twitter. He said: Soviets called Westerners who blindly supported Lenin & Stalin “useful idiots.” I wonder if Castro calls @mmflint a useless idiot.
(FYI, mmflint is Michael Moore)
So, I replied: useful idiots are what Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes call women who work for FNC.
This is what earned the ban. Seems like ol’ Andy can dish it out, but can’t take it.
It is ashame, because I enjoy his work on TV. He is clever in small doses.
Looking at the commercial, I had them pegged as hipsters. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen hipsters outside that website that makes fun of them.
Those two are hipsters, aren’t they? They certainly appeared to have the ironic part down.
Even after clicking on Andy Levy’s titter site, I still have no idea who he is. I guess some celebrities are better left unknown.
“Even after clicking on Andy Levy’s titter site, I still have no idea who he is.”
“Celebrity” is a stretch: he’s the meta part of a Fox News Channel show (Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld) that airs at 3am. I haven’t seen the show in a while, but Andy Levy was the funniest part of it. Midway through the show and again at the end of the show, Gutfeld would give the floor to Levy — seated not in the Red Eye studio but in a separate newsroom — to share his notes about that night’s show so far. Gutfeld would refer to him as “our ombudsman” and “TV’s Andy Levy” (an ironic acknowledgment of Levy’s obscurity, and, by extension, the obscurity of Red Eye).
Kirk, I’ve heard other people say that, too. It’s not something that would occurred to me, but I can sorta see it.
I had to look Andy Levy up. For some reason, I thought he was a sports guy. Probably confused him with someone else.
“I thought he was a sports guy. Probably confused him with someone else.”
Marv Levy?
For f*ck’s sake, Marv Levy must be at least a hundred years old by now. He was like 70 when he was coaching the 80s Bills.
Marv Levy was 61 when he got the Bills job.
Marv Levy, much like the recently deceased Sparky Anderson, looked old when he was young. Tom Kelly was the same way.
Sparky was 36 for his first World Series; Kelly was 37.