For those of you born after 1984 here is the original campaign, and then the new one:

What it lacks in Clara Peller it more than makes up for with an attempt at ironic hipster humor. Or not.

Perhaps its the nostalgia speaking but when the original ad was running you couldn’t go anywhere near a burger without someone sneaking up behind you to inquire “Where’s The Beef.” Which would often lead to someone being so startled that they would drop their burger onto the floor, thus making the answer to the question, “It’s on the floor you jerk.”  OK that never happened.

So what do you think? Are you expecting a wave of “Wheres the Beef?” at all hours of the day or will this new commercial fade away quickly?

As I was just watching Game 5 of the ALCS, a commercial came on the boob tube for Dr. Pepper’s latest offering: Dr. Pepper 10.  The “10” in the name refers to the calorie count, which officially makes this beverage a diet soda.  Now you might be thinking – doesn’t the Pepper already make a diet soda? – and the answer would be, yes, Diet Dr. Pepper.

But knowing that diets sodas, in theory, can be less appealing to men, the sharp folks in the marketing department decided to take an unconventional route in the promotion of this soda.  The tagline?

It’s Not For Women.

Um, clever?  While the ads for this drink are clearly tongue-in-cheek with their over-the-top manliness, I think they fall pretty flat.  On one level it is a slight rip-off of the now transcendent Old Spice campaign in its outlandish testosterone use, and on another level, it’s just not a great idea – it’s labeled as not for women, but does that make it appealing to men by association?  Yes, the packaging is now a “rugged” gun-metal gray, it uses HFCS instead of aspartame (chills), and it is getting decent reviews, but will this soda sell?

My guess is that it will end up like Pepsi Max, living on the fringes of the soda aisle, between Jamaica Jarritos and Tab.  I think the market is already well-served with the regular Pepper, diet Pepper, or if you are really lucky, the Dublin variety.  There is saturation, and then there is over-saturation.  I think we are at the latter, and the marketing is not innovative enough to overcome it.

What do you think, readers?  Does this campaign work?  And more importantly, would you buy this soda?

H/t to The Daily Caller for picture at top.

Yes, a very valid question indeed, and a good poke at McDonald’s for its chicken being less “real” or more “processed” than KFC. Of course that would be a good opening line if KFC then talked about how it serves breasts, wings, thighs etc. that are actually part of a chicken. But instead, the next line of the commercial is “We’re KFC. Our cooks don’t make nuggets. They make Popcorn Chicken.”

Right. Because everyone knows what part of the chicken “popcorn” is. It’s right below the…um..wing? No. Ummmm…inner thigh? No…ummmm…I give up.

The ad actually goes on to make all the valid points that KFC wants to make – its popcorn chicken isn’t made with some “mystery meat” – it’s made with “premium, off-the-bone breast meat.” Good call. THAT is the product differentiation you want to establish with the commercial. Too bad following “what part of the chicken is…nugget” by IMMEDIATELY saying “we make popcorn chicken” opens you up for immediate mocking. The placement of words in commercials makes a huge difference, and this ad could have conveyed its main point by simply shifting a couple sentences. But KFC was just too snarky for its own good.

How exactly that would work is a little unclear, but it’s an interesting gimmick and attention grabber. And it DOES fit with the general Burger King ad campaigns which frequently surprise, create controversy and cross the boundaries of poor taste.

In the video, the students suggest that “The King” would somehow intercept or light something off of the actual Olympic torch once it reached London, and he would then “take back” this Olympic fire to all the BK’s of the world. This appears to just be a student project that is unsanctioned by Burger King (I could be wrong about that) but if that is the case, I wonder how crazy BK is about them using The King, BK logo and nabbing Facebook.com/olympicwhopper.

This is a catchy and bizarre enough idea however, that I bet this ad goes viral, and BK, whether involved or not, will get attention, derision and bemusement from it.

UPDATE: And just as quickly as it was there, it’s gone. The Vimeo video is now “private” and the Facebook page has been shutdown. Glad I at least grabbed the three images you see above!

UPDATE #2: You can view the ad HERE.

Wow. That’s pretty blatant. To say right on your wrapper that your product is “Not For Girls”??? After seeing this, I was wondering how Nestle didn’t take some flack for it. I mean, I’m a comedian, marketing guy and food blogger, who finds things like this mildly amusing. But surely other people must think/have thought this is a pretty sexist marketing tactic, no? I mean we wouldn’t tolerate a candy bar that say’s “It’s Not for (insert ethnic group, minority group, political group, religion etc. here).”

Turns out this campaign has been around quite a while, launching in the spring of 2002. At the time it did catch some flack. When the campaign first launched, it used slogans in TV ads and on posters such as: “It’s not for girls”, “don’t feed the birds”, “not available in pink” and “King size, not Queen size.” Wow. The back of the wrapper even features the phrase “Do Not Feed the Birds” (In Britain, “bird” is a slang term for woman or girl). The wrapper was supplemented with TV ads in which the only way girls could buy a Yorkie bar was to try and dress up to pretend and be a guy:

Yorkie/Nestle, when they released the ads, talked about “reclaiming” chocolate bars for men, since so much of chocolate advertising is aimed at women. This Yorkie campaign attempts to make eating chocolate bars a thing that is ok for gruff, manly men to do again.

Well So Good readers, what do you think? A little harmless fun by Nestle? A deliberately controversial campaign that was made purely to draw attention and press? Blatentently sexist? A subtle appeal to women by trying to entice them into buying something they “shouldn’t” be trying to buy? Effective? Ineffective? Offensive? Fun?

Domino’s is bringing the Noid back for one week only, in the form of the Noid’s Super Pizza Shootout game. The premise? The Noid has stolen 10,080 gift cards for a free pizza and Domino’s will be giving one out each MINUTE of the week to the highest round score at any given minute. Huh. Here’s what the game looks like, which can be played on the Domino’s Facebook page:

Back when Domino’s was one of my clients I was emphatic about their need to bring back The Noid at some point. There is just a ton of retro love for this guy. I’m glad to see The Noid make his return, even if it is just on Facebook and not in TV ads.

I find it hard to believe that when the Thomas English Muffins marketing department was bandying around this idea that no one pointed out, or at least thought about the fact, that for some people offering to cook them breakfast is akin to saying “hey, let me stay over and have rampant sex with you all night.” Hilarious.

Via The Dish, The Daily What & nickrrrad.

What surprised me even more was not the popularity of this uber-caffeinated tonic (seriously – the same caffeine as 6 cokes, in just one ounce??), but the new target market – the 60+ demo.

Apparently, this snake oil has been advertising in AARP‘s magazine, and as a result, seniors have been hurriedly pushing their tennis ball-outfitted walkers to find this holy grail of energy.   However, what they will soon realize is what all of us who have downed a Mountain Dew or tall boy of coffee while pulling an all-nighter know “ that when the quick boost subsides, you either take a nosedive, or you have to keep hitting the sauce, which I guess is the idea. It works for crack, so why not energy drink?

My next question is – where 5-hour will go with their new audience? Prune-flavored shots? Nursing home sponsorships? Advertising in the newspaper? More bogus pictures of active-looking fossils? I sure hope so on all of the above.