For absolutely no particular reason we recently found ourselves reminiscing about three television campaigns that ended quite some time ago. Two were actually long running campaigns that had that rare combination of smart and funny. One didn’t last very long and was the stuff of nightmares. Let’s start with that one.
A horror hallucination of brand awareness
It was February 7, 2016, Super Bowl 50, a classic match-up between Denver and Carolina. During the game, an ad for Mountain Dew’s energy drink, “Kickstart,” aired. It exploded on social media. “There’s a line between cute and horrifying,” wrote the Huffington Post, “that line was crossed.” Forbes began its critique with, “Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: the Puppy Monkey Baby is horrible.” It had the head of a pug, the body of a monkey and the legs of a baby. It was downright disturbing. And addicting. It was created by Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, better known in the ad world as BBDO. The creative team felt it was a cliché to have a talking baby, a monkey or dog in a commercial. Why not try to have all three? Being labeled a “horror hallucination of brand awareness,” doesn’t sound like a good thing, but that’s what the BBDO was aiming for. It’s been six years but if you say, “Puppy-Monkey-Baby” to someone, odds are they know what it is. Loved or hated, it was not ignored, and not forgotten.
The Talking Baby Cliché
In advertising, a cliché is anything that’s been overused, that lacks originality. That said, novel ideas are rare. It’s more common to take a cliché and do it better. That’s what Grey Advertising, New York, did when they gave birth to the E-Trade Baby. The baby’s voice, a mix of snark and sweet, was supplied by comedian Pete Holmes, who also contributed to the writing. When a baby with an adult voice tells you he isn’t trying to micromanage your finances, but his E-Trade savings account earns 8 times the national average, and he used some of his extra coin to rent a clown, it’s silly, sophisticated and smart.
He was the “Most Interesting Man in the World.” EuroRSCG in New York, created the campaign. They gave us a Hemingwayesque character and appropriately some of the best written television commercials in history. Actor Jonathan Goldsmith was cast as the nameless fictional icon pushing Dos Equis beer. Actor and narrator Will Lyman, the familiar voice of PBS’s Frontline, did the voice over for the commercials. From 2007 to 2015, they supplied some very funny, very smart one-liners, and significantly increased sales of Dos Equis. Here are some of our favorites:
He lives vicariously through himself.
The police often question him just because they find him interesting.
He bowls overhand.
He is fluent in all languages, including three that only he speaks.
Once, while sailing around the world, he discovered a short cut.
When he drives a new car off the lot, it increases in value.