The 2012 Joshys: Part III

The Timothy Leary Award: The trippiest commercials. You might not have been on drugs, but these made you feel like it.

Winner: The Skittles Walrus

It’s trippy, alright. The connection to Skittles Riddles is pretty out there and pretty damn tenuous.

Honorable mentions: Axe’s Office Love: Very polarizing.

Old Spice’s Terry Crews ads: Whoa. The definition of a guy commercial.

The Boner Award: Sexiest of the year. I look at analytics for this blog and know that the audience is like 65% male, so I’m going to include a lot of honorable mentions too. If you’re a female reading this and want to suggest a commercial with sexy men, feel free.

Winner: Anything with Kate Upton.

Now a 2-time winner of this prestigious category. I just really like Kate Upton.

Honorable mentions: Adriana Lima for Teleflora and Fiat’s Seduction: Both Super Bowl commercials. I remember being unimpressed with both of them, though in retrospect, the Fiat ad is better than I remember. The Teleflora commercial has a decidedly non-progressive message which many objected to.

Samsung Work Trip and Liquid Plumr Double Impact: Both on here for the suggestiveness. Samsung’s is more subtle and sly while Liquid Plumr’s is a solid minute of obvious, ridiculous, and amusing innuendo.

The Traffic Awards: The posts that brought people to Commercial Society.

Ragu’s Long Day Of Childhood

This one premiered during the Olympics. I remember seeing it and knowing I needed to get something up really quick. Within an hour, it had something like 4,000 pageviews. The next day (August 6) Commercial Society had slightly more than 18,000 pageviews, with the Ragu spot accounting for close to 15,000. By far the busiest day ever. And the Ragu post was WordPress.com’s #1 post of the day…out of more than a million posts!

The Wendy’s Redhead Saga

The original post about the Wendy’s redhead (Morgan Smith Goodwin) is the most popular in Commercial Society history. People REALLY like her. This one has almost 77,000 pageviews. 4 of the top 7 posts on my blog are ones from this campaign.

And that wraps up The 2012 Joshys. Hope you enjoyed it!

Kate Upton Sez: Get DirecTV Right Now

Well, that was direct. And who doesn’t like Kate Upton?

Kate Upton Sexily Eats A Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s Burger

Kate Upton is everywhere these days. She’s on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and was profiled in the New York Times. I wrote a post about a SoBe commercial featuring her last July, and it’s still getting regular views. Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s often features sexy women in their advertising. At various times, they’ve had commercials starring Paris Hilton, Padma Lakshmi, and Kim Kardashian. So it only seemed a matter of time until Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s would add Kate Upton to their arsenal. Here’s the highly awaited ad for the Southwest Patty Melt, which was previewed a few weeks ago.

So yeah, in the words of Paris Hilton: “That’s hot.” Aside from having Kate Upton, I do like the ’50s aesthetic of the spot. Of course, this type of ad would never be allowed in the ’50s. But man, Kate Upton. She could do a commercial about the joys of kicking puppies or having abortions, and nobody would care.

Bonus: The video that made Kate Upton famous…her Dougie. And her commercial for MLB 2K12.

The 2011 Joshys: Part I

2011 is soon coming to a close, and that means year-end lists and countdowns. So I’ve decided to introduce my own awards: The Joshys. The only real parameter is that everything has to be something I’ve covered on this blog. Rather than doing a generic best/worst list, I’ve come up with some more eclectic awards. Here goes.

Campaign of the Year: Chrysler’s “Imported From Detroit”

I decided to skip picking a commercial of the year, because that’s something that can be hard to quantify. Choosing a campaign gives more room to evaluate than a single 30/60 second spot. An awesome campaign all around…writing, visuals, tagline, and overall spirit. It started at the Super Bowl with Eminem and kept on during the year.

Honorable mention: State Farm’s “State Of” campaign and Geico’s “Easier Way To Save” campaign

Fierce competitors, these campaigns both were shown at the same time, and frequently during the same commercial breaks. Humorous and amusing.

The Houston Van Gogh Award: These commercials were so annoying that they made me want to gouge my eyes out and/or cut my ear off. Or at least change the channel.

Winner (loser?): NAPA Know How

This was shown endlessly during March Madness and throughout the spring, and has gained a new life during football season. I hate it, and I also hate that the song is so catchy.

Dishonorable mention: 5-hour Energy’s Fix the Tired

Honestly, it was a coin flip between NAPA and 5-hour Energy. The 5-hour Energy spot was shown ad nauseum during Cincinnati Reds games, where the same 10 or so commercials were aired for 6 months straight.

The Beautiful Award: Most beautiful visuals in an ad

Winner: STA Travel Australia

All three spots are beautiful, though I think “Move” is the best. Just awesome.

Honorable mentions: Blue Moon Seasonals: Pretty animation showcases the seasons and the Blue Moon offerings that go along with them.

Intel’s Most Amazing Thing: Maybe not the most amazing thing I ever saw, but pretty great.

The Boner Award: Sexiest commercial of the year

Winner: SoBe and Kate Upton

Not even close here. The past summer was one of the hottest on record in America. Mostly because of the sizzling temperatures, but also in part due to this hot commercial starring supermodel Kate Upton. As for its effectiveness…I still probably won’t buy SoBe stuff, but I now associate their products with Kate Upton’s boobs. That’s good, right?

The Explosions In The Sky Award: The most epic of 2011. These spots made everything seem more important, whether I was tooling around on Facebook or lying on the couch scratching myself.

Winner: British Airways “To Fly. To Serve.”

If I was awarding a “best commercial”, this would be a strong contender. Everything works here. Truly epic (and probably with an epic budget to match).

Honorable mention: Jim Beam’s Bold Choice: Willem Dafoe helps this spot become more epic. Award-winning too.

Well, that’s Part I. Stay tuned for Parts II and III.

T.G.I. Friday’s Doesn’t Turn Me On

Food and sex are often linked in advertising. That should come as a surprise to nobody. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, food, water and sex are some of the basic human needs essential for survival as a species. When these fundamental needs are met, humans can focus on other aspects, such as security, love, and self-esteem. From a hard science perspective, dopamine is a neurotransmitter released in the brain in response to pleasurable experiences such as eating or sexual activity. Dopamine can also be released from the use of drugs and alcohol, strengthening the arguments that food and sex addictions are real, and not just “a lack of self-control”.

I’m going to show two examples of the food/sex connection that stood out for me. They’re both for the same restaurant chain, Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr. The first is from 2005, and features Paris Hilton during the time she was famous for some reason. The second is from 2009, and has super hot Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi eating a burger sensually.

So there you go. I’m sure there’s other examples featuring hunky, shirtless men, but frankly I’m not dying to track them down. We all know the adage “sex sells”. I would argue that it isn’t necessarily “sex sells”, but more “sex gets attention”. Take an example from one of the more popular posts on this blog: a SoBe commercial featuring supermodel Kate Upton. At first glance, the commercial only seems to prove the attractiveness of Kate Upton. But upon further examination it does more. There is no way I would have been aware of “SoBe Mango Melon”, but with this ad, I can now say “hey, that’s the Kate Upton stuff”. Am I going to buy it? Probably not. But at least I know it’s there. And awareness is half of the battle. If you need another  tangible example, check out a restaurant menu, whether in-person or online. You’ll see vivid pictures, often accompanied with suggestive words such as “slathered”, “smothered”, and “drizzled”. Obviously, these are consumer products, so it’s important that they look their best. But it’s not much of a stretch to call restaurant menus porn for the fat and hungry. Here’s an interesting article about some of the dirty little tricks of food photography.

That brings me to my original focus, which is actually anti-climactic at this point. First, the facts. T.G.I. Friday’s, seller of tasty burgers and other life-shortening comfort food, has introduced a number of new entrees inspired by beer. The focus is on regional craft brews which vary by state. My suspicion was that there was consumer demands for more microbrews, and that’s backed up by the linked article’s finding that sales of craft beers increased in 2010, while sales of national brands were slightly down.

Now, the commercial. I had actually written the majority of this entry before finding this one. I was disappointed to discover that it wasn’t the same one I had seen. This ad doesn’t feature any scantily-clad women, but the sex is in the vocals. The one I saw was longer, with more over-the-top narration and more female background moans. I hope I can get it online soon, because it’s way more ridiculous. But you’ll just have to settle for this one. Harpoon is the beer advertised, so it must be from New England. Turn your speakers up!

Bonus links: The extended versions (i.e. racier) of the Carl’s Jr. commercials. Plus, one featuring Kim Kardashian!

SoBe: Flavored Water And Kate Upton’s Cleavage

Yeah, so it doesn’t really have anything to do with SoBe water (unless you see a double entendre with “mango melon” flavor). But who’s complaining?

Kate Upton sure is a looker. Though it does feel somewhat strange to be lusting over someone born in the ’90s (she’s 19). SoBe also has a staring game, which I will win eventually.

Bonus video: Kate Upton does The Dougie.