Advertising Age review: "Snickers! For macho young men insecure about their sexuality!"

[Bluebear]

One of the worst Super Bowl advertising blunders was the Snickers commercial, says Bob Garfield in this seven-minute video review of the game spots:

The biggest blunder of the game..the Snickers ad, which shows two mechanics so hungry that they started eating a Snickers bar from opposite ends together until they finally get to this kind of very awkward 'Brokeback Mountain' moment at the end and get entirely freaked out and then start doing what they think are funny, macho behaviors just to reassure themselves that they haven't 'gone over to the other side'.

And first, the joke is not that funny, it's familiar, and second, if you're heterosexual you might have a visceral queasy reaction to the thing, and if you're gay it's condescending and a little bit mean-spirited, so I' dont know, I'm not sure who they're trying to impress - I guess macho young men insecure about their sexuality. Now there's a pitch for you, "Snickers! For macho young men insecure about their sexuality!" i think that was one of the big busts of the game.

http://adage.com/article?article_id=114655

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Hmm.

Aren't they getting a lot of free publicity though?

[Deja Q]

2. That's how the game works these days...

:(

[Kiouni]

3. If they retracted it why did they leave up the web site?

http://www.snickers.com/index.asp

[karlrschneider]

6. The commercials are gone from the website.

For more than a day now.
:eyes:

[Kiouni]

7. but there its still "after the kiss."

what other marketing strategy are they going to do with that? If they're really sorry they should take the hit and close the web site.

[karlrschneider]

12. They probably paid -hugh- bucks for the domain name, it would be stupid

to shut it down entirely (from their standpoint) - I don't know what net effect the whole debacle may have on their bottom line but I suspect it'll be hard to find a net gain for what a Superbowl commercial costs. Their best (corporate) option might well be to use their site to 'clarify' (IOW, apologize) but there has to be a lot of breast-beating in the head shed over it. We shall see, I imagine.

[Nikki Stone1]

4. I love his take on the robot commercial too: "We're GM: everybody gets laid off."

He nailed both commercials.

[Goblinmonger]

5. I disagree with the Brokeback Mountain reference

As a matter of fact, I think it is kind of derogatory. Like the only thing it could be about is that "gay" movie. It is nothing like that. Those guys were in love. The mechanics had lip contact by mistake. There was no mistake in Brokeback Mountain (unless it was the forces that caused their love to be unrealized in society).

That part of the ad was Lady and the Tramp all the way.

[Lex]

8. ???

"Like the only thing it could be about is that "gay" movie. It is nothing like that. Those guys were in love."

[Bluebear]

9. Oh God I love your avatar

[Lex]

10. And I yours.

:thumbsup:

[Goblinmonger]

13. I meant

that the commercial was not about love. Brokeback Mountain was about love. I find it kind of odd that the only movie reference that that person thought it could be was Brokeback Mountain because that is a "gay" movie. The ad was not about two gay people. Why bring down Brokeback Mountain?

[Neshanic]

11. Lady and the Tramp? Wow, just wow.

[Goblinmonger]

14. You disagree?

How can you think the "eating the candy bar from both ends" is NOT an allusion to the "eating a strand of spaghetti from both ends" scene from Lady and the Tramp? How is it anything but? I thought that was obvious, but I have learned a lot about what people get that I think is obvious.

[Orangepeel]

15. but Lady and the Tramp was also about love

I got the spaghetti reference of course, but I don't think the commercial is any closer to Lady and the Tramp than it is to Brokeback Mountain. Even less, actually, since the characters in Brokeback Mountain wanted to "quit" each other to some degree and, IIRC, Lady and the Tramp did not (although it's been a lot longer since I've seen L and the T).

On the OP: I love Bob Garfield!

[Duncan Grant]

16. Snickers: For those 'wrenching' moments of sexual insecurity.

How's that for a campaign slogan? :kick: