I couldn't let the year end without posting about GAP's holiday ads. The brainchild of local Crispin Porter & Bogusky (cpbgroup), these commercials make me wish I'd once been a sassy little 10-year-old who dared to dress as though a rainbow had thrown up all over me.
... What's this about
talking to the moose?
Not kidding. I love these ads. The energy of these girls infects me every time and I applaud the group for the choice of using an easily memorized cheer. They've gone back to the very basics to come up with a brilliant tv jingle. And to use a cheer at all, combining catchy phrases, group participation, excitement, and youth? Genius. I don't even care that I hate uggs or their knockoffs when I think: how cute are those boots?!
Now go ahead, see if you can view this without wanting to *SQUEE*.
Got a questions for you, though, CPB. What's this stuff about talking to a moose?
It's been four years and I still cringe every time I seethese commercials, part of a collection I'm sure would win an award for "Most Demeaning TV Ad Known to Women".
Sadly, the Jared's jewelry ad campaign obviously works, and it's easy to see why.
I think I get the intention of the message, Kia marketers David & Goliath, though at first, or even tenth viewing, it's never really very strong or clear to me. Let me see if I can break the message down as I understand it.
Here's what I believe you're telling me about how I should desire a rolling toaster by the name of Soul.
In your market research, you've guessed that in my comfortable, middle-class world, my biggest fear is that I am part of a society of drones living a drab, washed-out existence set in neutral tones. Not only is there a lack of individuality, purpose, and Soul, but I'm going nowhere fast. Really fast. Me and my fellow drones don't even realize we're not getting anywhere until some crazy new hamsters with, Yes!, Soul! pull up in a red toaster. We are astonished! These daring new city hamsters invoke in us a feeling of deep desire-to-be-desired and longing for fulfillment because they have four wheels instead of one, drive a red toaster, and listen to urban music on popular mp3 players. Attainment of these things is all that's required to express individuality and break from the sterile subuarban world we know is ours. I, too, can have a Soul, you promise.
I get it. With a name like David & Goliath, I understand why you'd want to address the big questions.
What I'm having trouble with is that this execution springs from the same well of lack of individuality and purpose we're seeing in the hamster drones. It seems you've bitten off a whole lot more than you ever had the intention of chewing in a 30 or 60 second spot. There's too much transparency in your goal to attempt to resolve themes of individuality and existential angst. I thought the ad game is to convince me that I lack, to play to my fear of not even knowing I have a lack, or to evoke in me the desire for the thing that will somehow transform me. You didn't deliver. If I buy into your pitch, by the commercial's end you've left me with the same image of myself I started with and I wind up a reworked drone in a low-budget car with bangin' speakers.
You've shown me nothing I lack, and you haven't convinced me that any Soul associated with buying the car comes from your wheels rather than my choice in music. Me and my rodent friends are still caught in a repeating lock-step, simultaneously bobbing our heads to thumping music, but we're never transformed. I'm still a hamster with wheels. Worse, unless I pay cash, someone else owns my soul.
I've resurrected this blog, Dolce & Gabbana, because not only do I hate what you've done to McConaughey, but I don't think I can possibly forgive you for ruining my favorite Miles Davis piece.
And seriously, Matthew, I can only ask you... WHY?
The commercial starts off strong with a gorgeous black and white slow motion shot of a sleek and mysterious car you know is going to be carrying someone of style and importance. Miles' Generique starts on cue, drawing my attention to the noir feel every.single.time in delicious anticipation of what I know signals a sensual scene. It's because Generique was originally played in the 1958 French film Ascenseur pour l'echafaud.
But then our actor exits the car in a stiff and obvious pose and the commercial dies at that very second. The rest is forced and over the top, with the paparazzi's movements so overly choreographed that it grates against Miles' soft and beautifully raw notes in the background. The effect of this juxtaposition exaggerates the cheesy visuals and not in a humorous or tongue-in-cheek kind of way.
I'm not sure whether Dolce & Gabanna takes themselves so seriously as to believe we'll fall for this overt attempt at making us desire being the object of desire but it falls as completely flat as McConaughey's abs, the only shot that, for some, may redeem this irritating bit of fluff.
At least I love the soundtrack and can enjoy it in the way it was intended:
