Perhaps you, too, have been washing dishes in the kitchen and heard what would seem to be the Big Red gum commercial in the other room. You wipe your hands on your dish towel and walk over to the TV muttering “Creativity, here she lied, no one knew her worth” etc., expecting Big Red to simply be using their old jingle, only to to see a Verizon v. AT&T commercial. If you listen closely, you then realize that they’ve changed the lyrics, but if you look closely, you realize many of the commercials’ tableaus are nearly indistinguishable.
Big Red
So kiss a little longer, hold hands a little longer, hold tight a little longer. Longer with Big Red.That
Big Red freshness lasts right through it. Your fresh breath goes on and
on while you chew it. Say goodbye a little longer. Make it last a
little longer. Give your breath long lasting freshness with Big Red.
And now Verizon
So browse the web much better, update Facebook pages
better, ditch your boring job much better. Better with Big Red. That
3G coverage lets you do it. You’ll watch YouTube on a horse. When you
use it. E mail friends and family better. Download stupid stuff [like old Big Red commercials?] much
better. Get the most great 3G coverage with Big Red.
Apparently, yes. Some other time in February, you may have again been washing dishes and heard the (glorious) voice of Don Draper wafting in from the other room. Bringing the dish towel with you this time should you have to need to wipe the sweat off, you trip over yourself into the other room to see if you somehow missed the episode of Mad Men in which Don Draper pitches a campaign for Mercedes Benz.
For three seasons, the actor Jon Hamm has played the 1960s adman Don
Draper on the hit AMC TV series “Mad Men.” Beginning on Sunday, he gets
to do some advertising work in the real world as the new commercial
voice of Mercedes-Benz USA. Mr. Hamm’s voice will be heard in a
commercial that Mercedes-Benz USA will run on local ABC stations in the
carmaker’s 16 largest markets during the ABC network’s broadcast of the
Academy Awards.…”It’s a nice re-fresh of our voice,” Stephen
Cannon, vice president for marketing at Mercedes-Benz USA in Montvale,
N.J., said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. Not only does Mr. Hamm
have “a terrific, very resonant voice with a lot of gravitas to it,”
Mr. Cannon said, he will also help Mercedes-Benz “reach out to a
younger, more vibrant audience.”
That is because Mr. Hamm is “ascendant, a hot actor,” Mr. Cannon
said, as well as a “current part of pop culture.” Mr. Hamm’s contract
is for three years. (via the New York Times)
Right: you hired Don Draper because of the “gravitas” in his voice, not because the “younger, more vibrant audience” you desire has grown accustomed to hearing this man sell products for the past three years.
In these recent ads, both Verizon and Mercedes Benz want us to be nostalgic. Verizon wants us to be nostalgic for a jingle, and perhaps nostalgic for a gum that, while still for sale, has not been marketed in recent years. Mercedes Benz is really taking our poor brains for a drive, using a voice we associate with selling products in the 1960s–even if we weren’t alive at that time–to sell something in 2010. Jon Hamm, Man of Many Zeitgeists.
Funny, because all we talk about in classical music advertising and marketing is trying to get as far away from nostalgia as possible.
Speaking of gravitas, did you hear the Visa commercials voiced by Morgan Freeman? Up here in Canada he did a whole bunch of Olympic-themed ones.
Felt like they were cashing in on our nostalgia for the Shawshank Redemption, Million Dollar Baby, and any other movie with his famous narration.
If AT&T works something out to the Doublemint Gum commercials (maybe they can do something about the double “T” for twins?) then the weirdo nostalgia circle will be complete!
Also this might be a wee bit paranoid, but I wonder if there’s even another layer under the nostalgia for “Big Red” — those”red and blue” US maps look awfully familiar from the Presidential elections — red covers the middle of the country while the elitist blue states are on the coasts. Ya know?