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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!nsc!chuqui
From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Dept. of Misc. Petty Grievances
Message-ID: <2546@nsc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 31-Mar-85 17:00:50 EST
Article-I.D.: nsc.2546
Posted: Sun Mar 31 17:00:50 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Apr-85 06:23:36 EST
References: <469@vax2.fluke.UUCP> <225@moncol.UUCP>
Reply-To: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach)
Organization: The Warlocks Cave
Lines: 46
Summary: 

In article <225@moncol.UUCP> john@moncol.UUCP (John Ruschmeyer) writes:
>  If they can *prove* that people really prefer flame broiled burgers, then
>OK, but WHY do they need to then go around putting down fried burgers as
>though they were some crime against nature and that those who eat them are
>some form of unenlightened species which also practices devil worship and
>human sacrifice.

The problem with those commercials are simply that they take themselves too
seriously-- as though flame broiling was going to save us from Communism or
something. It is the basic problem with a LOT of products-- how do you sell
toilet paper or Preperation H with a straight face? Most of those
commercials simply give me a pain in the rear. 

The alternatives, and alternatives that seem to work rather well, are
commercials that poke fun at themselves at the same time as they poke fun
at others and get their point across. I actually look forward to many of
the light beer commercials, Federal Express also does a great job-- in many
cases the commercials are better than the show surrounding them. 

Probably the funniest commercial I've seen was by Jack in the Box. They did
a series (both radio and TV) on the 'Burger Wars', with burger king girls
with flamethrowers (yelling 'flame broiling') going after billions and
billions of the Macdonalds armies, and a recruit yelling 'here she comes
again! Little old lady at three o'clock!' followed by a 'Where's the beef!'
and an explosion. That explosion always made my day.....

What made the commercials good? Intelligence. The realization that you can
sell your product by simply by having a good time and assuming that your
audience has a bit of a brain to get the jokes with. Lite beer, as a matter
of fact, has taken it further. They now parody their own parodies with a
new commercial. The scene is a clone of the bar in Star wars, full of
strange beings. Cut to a blob of protoplasm, who goes through the light
beer spiel in some alien language (without subtitles). he then comes up to
Mr. Baseball, who says 'I almost went into the wrong place! It was full of
wierdos!' What is most interesting was that Lite Beer realizes they no
longer even need the sales pitch -- the rhythm of the sales pitch was
enough to get their point through.... That shows a marketing executive with
brains and with enough guts to take a bit of a chance...

chuq
-- 
:From the closet of anxieties of: Chuq Von Rospach, National Semiconductor
{cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui   nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

"I can call spirits from the vasty deep." "Why so can I, or so can any man; 
but will they come when you do call for them?" -- Henry IV, part I