Okay? So when The Washington Post offers this lofty paean to journalism at its most courageous and noble, I am touched...
... but it's with sadness and longing for something I don't believe I can ever have. And indeed, the ad itself exemplifies the problem because it puffs and deceives and lures and titillates. It deals in sentimentality and sensationalism. It's biased... in favor of itself — of course, like any ad. It has something to sell and it wants to bind us to the brand at an irrational level.
"There's someone to gather the facts, to bring you the story, no matter the costs. Because knowing empowers us. Knowing helps us decide, Knowing keeps us free." I love the ideal of journalism, and you don't have to help me deeply value it. You need to convince me that what you present in your paper is "the facts" and that reading it will help me "know."
It makes me think of that old quote from Mark Twain...
What gets us into troubleYou may remember seeing that on screen in that Al Gore movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," which gathered the facts and empowered us with knowledge about climate change.
is not what we don’t know
It’s what we know for sure
that just ain’t so
And the great irony is that there is no substantive evidence that Mark Twain ever said that.
ADDED: About that Pepsi ad. I only vaguely saw it last night, but I'm watching it now on my computer screen. My vision is so poor that I had no idea that pudgy man in a beard was Steve Carell. But that ad has a race problem. Are people talking about that this morning?
A white woman orders a Coke and the white male waiter asks "Is Pepsi okay?" and Carell jumps up to berate him because he said "Is Pepsi okay?" in a bland, dull way. According to Carell, the waiter needs to say "okay" differently. We are then shown 2 black pop stars — Lil Jon and Cardi B — and they say "okay" with intense enthusiasm. Carell then yells at the 2 white people, insisting that they express themselves in the style of Lil Jon and Cardi B.
I'm thinking, blackface.
The Pepsi ad also has a sexual harassment problem, and I guess we're not supposed to notice or care because the victim is a white male. Carell snaps his fingers, says "Let's role play," and instantly the young man is wearing nothing but his underpants. Even in the bad old days, was there ever an ad that sold a major product by showing a woman stripped down to her underwear at the snap of the fingers? That was sexual humiliation.
Posts
124 comments:
If Daniel Pearl was in that list of dead, I missed him. But sure, quality journalism is vital to an effective civic life, which is itself vital to democracy.
But where do we go to get it? Certainly not the people who spent millions on this ad while laying off rank and file workers.
“Feed ‘em bullshit and keep ‘em in the dark.” Bezos is the world’s richest mushroom farmer.
Maybe The Wife will get The Post in the divorce.
Listing Jamal Khashoggi as a dead journalist dishonors the memory of Daniel Pearl, but I'd expect no less from a biased source of news.
I will remind everyone here that Al Gore predicted our doom many years back and we are all still alive and the planet is fine. Scam.
Back then Al Gore, Bill McKibben et al. were new at the con game. They made the rookie mistake of putting a date on the end of the world. AOC just made the same mistake with her 12 year comment.
The CAGW doom squad has now matured into an industry and the end of the world has been moved out to 2100. Unless, of course, we act now! Who today will be alive in 2100 in order to say, “It was all a scam.”
that Al Gore movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," which gathered the facts and empowered us with knowledge about climate change.
This is a joke, right?
Qatar wrote part of Khashoggi’s columns. An asset of Qatar.
It is an embarrassment to The Post that they gave this guy space as part of a foreign governments misinformation campaign.
In the list of names that went by, I didn't see Mr. Pearl but did see Khashoggi. Somewhat debatable that the latter was a journalist at all. It was entirely apt that the self-lionizing contained the very thing that makes people not trust the "press".
Janet Cooke should have narrated the ad.
Blogger David Begley said...
I will remind everyone here that Al Gore predicted our doom many years back and we are all still alive and the planet is fine. Scam.
Cookie recently admonished us that it was no fair to take predictions that they made 20 years ago and compare them against our reality; that’s anti-intellectual. I only learned in recent years that “anti-intellectiual” doesn’t mean that you ignore the facts and go with whatever propaganda catches your fancy, that would make the warmies “anti-intellectual,” no, it means unwilling to be told what to think by the same class of people what led us into WWI, for a prominent example.
To be fair to AOC! The 12 years comes from the UN IPCC. They just put this out again in the past few months.
Pretty sure this is where aoc got it from.
we've had 10-15 years to go since about 1990.
John Henry
AOC just made the same mistake with her 12 year comment.
Sandy O'Casey, like, Totally, did Not, like say it'd be 12 years; AS IF!
She like, said it'd be 'like 12 years'. That's like, an approximation .
Like, don't you know English?
The commercial should have included a reference to the Post's initial reporting on the confrontation between rambunctious Indian elder Nathan Phillips and young Catholic bigot Nick Sandmann. The Post's initial report was titled ‘It was getting ugly’: Native American drummer speaks on his encounter with MAGA-hat-wearing teens. The report's opening paragraphs:
[quote]
A Native American man steadily beats his drum at the tail end of Friday’s Indigenous Peoples March while singing a song of unity urging participants to “be strong” against the ravages of colonialism that include police brutality, poor access to health care and the ill effects of climate change on reservations.
Surrounding him are a throng of young, mostly white teenage boys, several wearing “Make America Great Again” caps. One stood about a foot from the drummer’s face wearing a relentless smirk.
[end quote]
The report's concluding paragraphs:
[quote]
Phillips had approached the group, informing them that their celebration was racially offensive, a local Fox News station reported. One of the students threw a beer can at him, Phillips told the news outlet.
But the Friday incident, combined with the ensuing attention from media outlets scrambling to get his story, left him shaken.
“I’m still trying to process what happened,” Phillips said. “I’m feeling a little bit overwhelmed.”
He said he hopes the teens will find a lesson in all of the negative attention generated by the videos.
“That energy could be turned into feeding the people, cleaning up our communities and figuring out what else we can do,” Phillips said. “We need the young people to be doing that instead of saying, ‘These guys are our enemies.’ ”
[end quote]
This is how The Washington Post reports the news and keeps Democracy from descending into darkness.
“I never said a lot of things that I said.” - Yogi Berra
Mark Twain could relate.
They couldn’t include Perle because he had his head sawed off by Muslims, same with 9-11. We have to go. with a one off bombing by a loner as a “threat to our nation,” and a the death of a “journ-o-list” who was an asset of a foreign intelligence agency and who was most likely killed for taking an active side in a shooting war.
You know what that’s called? "Keeping us in the dark"
No sexual humiliation is a made up rule.
The stupidest commercial I have seen in a long time is the helium truck accident though. Those people would all have quickly suffocated. That would be a good kind of “gas chamber” though, fill it with helium and then ask the prisoner “any last words?"
WaPo spent $10 million to remind us all how self-important and sanctimonious it is.
In reality it is Buzzfeed without the revenue stream.
I wonder if Mackenzie Bezos will be running the paper soon.
The major journalism story of the Super Bowl is that our august reporters failed to notice that the Pats keep winning with white players at the running back and receiver positions.
Well, the media did produce a lot of articles about how much they hate the Pats for fielding white players, particularly those who support Trump.
Democracy dies in blackface.
It so happens that I'm required to dissect one of the ads from the Super Bowl for my Broadcast Writing class. I have it DVR'ed, don't remember the Carell ad, I will check it out, I was taking smoke breaks throughout the game. The one I made notes on is the Planter's peanuts commercial, but I can't remember what I liked about it. -Lincolntf
would have made a simpler ad--
Jamal Khashoggi. One down . . .
The omission of Pearl was the most noticeable thing to me too. The self-puffery was annoying, but about what I expect from an ad.
In both ads, the companies know what the people who don't like them think, but they don't understand the customers/readers so they can't counter it well.
Even in the bad old days, was there ever an ad that sold a major product by showing a woman stripped down to her underwear at the snap of the fingers? That was sexual humiliation
An English ad had a woman stripped naked when the product they were advertising supposedly went away (what if it never existed?) It was some sort of petrochemical product. She had been wearing some ski suit or similar.
WaPo spent $10 million to remind us all how self-important and sanctimonious it is.
Bezos spent whatever discounted rate that they got considering all of the other Amazon ads on there fluffing up the propaganda arm of his government influencing operation he bought.
The best ad was the football falling off the cake.
Did you notice where the woman's gaze went after he was stripped?
They gave it half a second on its own.
It's "role play," not "roll play."
C'mon, prof.
I drink both Coke and Pepsi. I hate it when members of the younger generation follow every declarative statement with, "OK?"
I have heard of Cardi B but would not recognize any of her product. Never heard of the other dude. I know Steve C from The OFfice but would not have recognized him in the beard and paunch.
The Expensify ad was clever but for some reason a lead-in with close-ups of gyrating female dancers doesn't work anymore.
I was surprised by how dreary most of the ads were. It was as if the Handmaid's agency were consulted by everyone.
A guy dreams of a fancy car and it turns out he's choking on a nut. What?
I missed the WaPo commercial. I must have been chopping more celery sticks.
EIGHT MORE DAYS, until Pitchers and Catcher report; and our long national nightmare is Over!
but it's with sadness and longing for something I don't believe I can ever have.
I think there should be a slight change to this statement. We could have it. But we don't and won't because those who control the profession prioritize other goals.
Separately another fact I haven't seen highlighted:
The Handmaid's Tale commercial began with Reagan's famous "It's Morning Again in America" tagline. So the left is associating even mainstream Republicanism with sexual slavery as if they're now taking their political ideas from Inga.
They just can't help themselves.
Blogger gilbar said...
EIGHT MORE DAYS, until Pitchers and Catcher report; and our long national nightmare is Over!
Red Sox tweeted “Patriots end 98 day championship drought!"
WaPo ad was pathetic. Weak and insecure. Tom Hanks was chosen to make the viewer think of WW2-style heroism and sacrifice. The inclusion of Khashoggi, rest his soul, actually made me laugh out loud because it reminded me of the media’s self-important and atrocious coverage of that story. As with so many other stories, the media was very selective about the facts and skewed everything to advance a narrative. So brave.
If you want to improve your reputation, just do a better job. People can smell the bullshit.
The Handmaid's Tale ad was ridiculous.
American women are rich and powerful. They're like 3 year olds with parents who won't say "No!"
We even allow them to murder their newborn kids.
There is something truly obscene in the way American women, like Althouse, marinate in resentment and bitching over being female. We indulge women no matter how evil and shitty they behave.
Besides Daniel Pearl, the carcasses of the WTC and Pentagon are also missing from the ad. But, they did show the Oklahoma City government building blown to smithereens. So, I guess they do protect us from the bad guys ... by showing us what some bad guys do.
I know a liberal lady who said about “The Handmaid’s Tale” that she watched it at first because people said it was good, but then she just stopped... I heard another lady once say the same thing about herbal tea in place of black tea.
dbp said...
In the list of names that went by, I didn't see Mr. Pearl but did see Khashoggi. Somewhat debatable that the latter was a journalist at all.
The key fact is that the profession doesn't recognize a difference between journalists and literal government agents as long as their propaganda supports leftist goals. Since they determine who produces "journalism" I think their definition is operative even if we prefer it wasn't.
we should recognize that as fact and act accordingly.
Shouldn't it be the woman who was lectured about how she said OK when answering? They should sell her enthusiasm, not his.
And the waiter should get Carell's clothes in a role play, since Carell got the waiter's.
As with so many other stories, the media was very selective about the facts and skewed everything to advance a narrative. So brave.
Omission one of the most powerful tools of rhetoric. Rhetoric is something that sounds like logic, but it isn’t.
The Washington Post Ad would have played very differently with a different set of images.
"When we go off to war": Vietnam or Korea photos
"When we exercise our rights": Photos of Tea party or March for life protest
"When our nation is threatened": WTC photos
None of those would have made it into the ad in a million years. What exactly does "we" and "our nation" mean for the Washington Post?
Carell snaps his fingers, says "Let's roll play,"
Is Cardi B Hispanic? That ad isn't diverse enough, especially compared to the others.
Looks like the lady in the booth heard Cardi B’s song “Girls."
Tying two of Ann’s thoughts together, if the Press did its job then the CAGW scam would have NO traction.
Anyone with a brain can see that CAGW is a scam. The most laughable claim is that it is “science” and that any skeptic is a “denier.” Didn’t any of these people take Logic in college? Appeal to authority.
It's creepy WaPo attempts to promote the nobility of journalism when they and the rest of mainstream journalism have given themselves permission to ignore standards of journalism because their preferred political candidate didn't win an election.
The commercial should have included a reference to the Post's publication of the transcripts of phone conversations between our new President Trump and the presidents of Mexico and Australia.
The Post's purpose in publishing the transcripts was to demonstrate the Post's determination to remove him from office by publishing any and all leaked information that might help cause trouble for Trump and remove him from his Presidency.
The Post never would have published such phone conversations of President Obama, but the Post was not trying to cause trouble for Obama and remove him from office.
The Post is trying to remove our elected President Trump from office. That is how The Post is dealing with Democracy and Darkness.
The most laughable claim is that it is “science” and that any skeptic is a “denier.”
Even if you agree with their preferred scientific conclusions but disagree with their preferred policy solution you're labeled as a denier. Which logic fallacy(ies) is/are that?
Note that there are a great number of alternate news sources around the world, not under the control of the American monopoly cartel.
Many have English services, though it does help to have a foreign language.
You may remember seeing that on screen in that Al Gore movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," which gathered the facts and empowered us with knowledge about climate change.
WTF?!? That movie was nothing but lies, fabrications and failed predictions...just like the rest of the climate alarmists.
Blogger buwaya said...
Note that there are a great number of alternate news sources around the world, not under the control of the American monopoly cartel.
Yeah, this makes it hard for the WaPo to enforce their blackout of news that their billionaire owner doesn’t like to be reported. I like France24 because even the Brits are sort of sucked into the American PoV in a lot of ways.
Journalism is supposed to bring us the truth.
The WAPO ad shows it doesn’t know the truth.
It can’t even bring us the facts about itself.
The Handmaid's Tale ad was ridiculous.
Weber does a much better version in his Honorverse.
WaPO - House Organ for the Democratics who want you to die in darkness.
Mubarak the fellow pearl went to see was a client of the isi, Qatar has been taking over the Turkish military and hacking the records of emirate officials.
"Even if you agree with their preferred scientific conclusions but disagree with their preferred policy solution you're labeled as a denier. Which logic fallacy(ies) is/are that?"
Guilt by association and, maybe, bandwagon argument.
No one sees Althouse marinating in resentment and bitching about her sex. In fact it is all you phony baloney chicken Hawks crying in your pumpkin spice mocha latte about how fucking hard it is to be a white Christmas male. The Life of Riley is just there for the taking and you too fraidy cat to carpe diem
I rarely link Carlos slims or Bezos , because they leave so much out, with a pillow.
Both my wife and I were struck by the fact that the Post ad showing various American tragedies, including the Oklahoma bombing, ignored 9/11.
And you cannot tell me that was not intentional.
The Climate blogs are Dead since former skepticals @ Berkeley Earth, with Coke Bro funding, proved the temperature records correct.
Those People of Cola dance quite vibrantly.
The qatari hack was managed by a Moroccan diplomat, working with mercury partners (why does that name seem familiar) well they have Russian and Turkish clients.
And yet did not get raided like Manafort's even they and Podesta did the lobbying.
The life of Riley is not a reason to live, Howard.
We are here for a reason and it is not us.
Our lives are expendables, ammunition, art supplies, ingredients, sacrifice plays.
Besides factual inaccuracy they commit the error of being boring.
Our Constitutional Republic dies at the hands of leftwing fascist propagandists.
The state of Middle Eastern politics is very poorly explained in US media.
Even "Foreign Policy" glances over all the maneuvering. Nor does anyone try to explain the players. Its almost as if these things were inconvenient, no?
Well many of them are in the pay of qatari Turkish paymaster so why afflict the confortable.
What two world wars couldn't acomplish,
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/02/03/crisis-brewing-italy-will-lead-default-exit-euro/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_fb&fbclid=IwAR2BpCbWvIQ6jjcH2GF2Ab4Tc8rTqh4xchCYM0Su_XQvXtg3qBilfqowW3s
The Life of Riley is just there for the taking and you too fraidy cat to carpe diem
What's with the "chicken hawk" thing? I voted for Trump because he promised to extricate us from foreign wars.
I have a great life. Retired. Financially secure. My only work now is as a church musician and choral ensemble accompanist.
Sold my house 2-1/2 years ago and bought a house with an in-law unit with my daughter and son-in-law. 3 young grandkids upstairs. I wake up every day to the pitter patter (well the thud) of little feet.
Life is very good. You're talking to the voices in your head.
That's all he has on his cue card, so were are moving across the border to Iraq while Egyptian and Saudi proxies fill the gap.
Were supplying Ukraine with javelin missiles and breaking the Russian 'tip of the spear' wagner group, but meh russia!
"The Washington Post Super Bowl ad is a great ad for the product — journalism"
WTF? With Khashoggi as the finale, it was propaganda shoveling propaganda.
Erdogan regards the Turkish Democrats right up there with the militant Kurds that was why he supplied the passport to the bomber in manbij
I take it the WaPo ad didn't include the largest slaughter of journalists in recent memory: the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
A white woman orders a Coke and the white male waiter asks "Is Pepsi okay?" and Carell jumps up to berate him because he said "Is Pepsi okay?" in a bland, dull way. According to Carell, the waiter needs to say "okay" differently. We are then shown 2 black pop stars — Lil Jon and Cardi B — and they say "okay" with intense enthusiasm. Carell then yells at the 2 white people, insisting that they express themselves in the style of Lil Jon and Cardi B.
This is the kind of moron hot garbage that is on TV? Was there a trailer for Ass while they were at it? We are DOOMED.
I did remember the WaPo commercial, but that was mainly because of the Khashoggi remembrance. It is always encouraging when the marketing team of a major newspaper, as well as anyone involved in approving the commercial, obviously do not read their own newspaper. The NYT had a similar problem with Sarah Palin. It's a rather fascinating situation. The reporters are probably better informed if they do not read their colleagues efforts, given how poorly those colleagues do their jobs, but that brings into question why we should read any of their output. It's a game of finding the journalistic needle in a propaganda haystack without any assurance that there is a needle at all.
The commercial I remember best is the Game of Thrones/Bud Light Dilly Dilly crossover. That helped me retain the rest of the Bud Light commercials as well. Apparently, I should not drink beer that has corn syrup in it. Good to know.
That was Cardi B? I honestly thought it was a man.
Think about it. The single most important thing in America in this century was 9/11 and WaPo completely ignored it. It was BIG NEWS at the time.
Why? Did we do something wrong? Because our attackers were Muslim?
What a bunch of frauds. A total and complete disgrace.
My problem with the Pepsi ad was simple; it still referenced itself as an alternative, and a lessor one, to Coke. It may be better than okay, but I saw a similar Facebook meme a few days earlier regarding Dr. Pepper. It went something like this:
Patron: "I want a Dr. Pepper."
Waiter: "Is Pepsi okay?"
Patron: "Is Monopoly money okay?"
That's funny, and it hits the point. The alternative is not sufficient. Pepsi should have done the commercial in reverse. "I want a Pepsi. Is Coke okay? No!" Alas the marketing firm anchored me at "okay". What a waste of money.
I missed the WaPo ad completely.
WaPo is White Hollywood Democratic fascism narrative.
We are here for a reason and it is not us.
I feel a ghost story coming on.
Does WaPoo care about the journalists Clinton murdered by bombing the Radio Television station in Serbia because they wouldn't broadcast propaganda from Hillary's Albanian UCK buddies?
Pepsi says it's not okay to be white.
Who in turn were tied to al queda:
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/428288-intel-operation-against-trump-still-going-strong
As I noted last night. There was also an ad from CBS news essentially begging us to believe them. I think the tag line was styling themselves as "the real news."
There are reasons we have "ghost stories".
It is a universal human emergent phenomenon, in any social group.
Our paleolithic ancestors probably had ghost stories too.
It is probably hard coded. Those who reject the concept of ghost stories most likely have rationalized their own ghost stories as something other than that. Intelligent people are especially good at rationalization.
The other thing intelligent people (though not too intelligent) are prone to do is to dismiss unknowns. We don't know why people develop ghost stories. We know hardly anything about social phenomena. We have history and current examples to develop some empirical chops, mostly in the form of judgement calls. We can with experience predict ranges of possibilities in most situations, but we are often still surprised.
Narciso is of course correct. There is an awful lot unknown about Al Qaeda, for one.
Why was Bin Laden found adjacent to the Pakistani military academy, living there in plain view for 5-6 years? In a military cantonment, the very heart of the Pakistani military parallel society, its "deep state"?
Not a matter much delved into. Of course there are reasons, that connect to others, and other reasons, again very obscure, to the US public anyway. You are very ill served by your lavishly resourced media. For good reasons no doubt.
Indeed, there is a great deal of "secret history" in the recent past. Or the older past for that matter. This makes political argument problematical, as we, out of most loops, don't know even the subject of the conflicts in which we are invited to participate, nor the players.
And of course it makes the concept of democracy absurd, in terms of normal governance. You rarely know what you are deciding, or that you are at all. In such a fog the only useful purpose of a democratic process is complete rejection of the ststus quo.
The stripped down (why?) waiter does a perfect double-take to Cardi B's entrance.
He might be wondering how she compiled 2 syllables without profanity and why she isn't in underwear.
Apparently its now ok again to traffic in racial stereotypes so long as whitey looks lame.
Leland, great point. "We're #2 and that's more than ok. Say it like you mean it..or something"
Wapoo showing OK bombing instead of 911 is about as blatant an admission of skewed perspective as possible. But I suppose it wouldn't mesh well with Kaashoggi imagery in a tv spot. Oh to be a fly on the wall in the pre-production meeting on that one.
The Pepsi ad makes me want a Coke and never have a Pepsi product ever again. It is really insulting and vile.
The WaPo ad is just funny. Sure I want good journalism, but knowing what I know about WaPo, it doesn't offer me any guidance on where where I might find some.
Pepsi says it's not okay to be white.
Pepsi’s been saying that for awhile.
btb, Pepsi has had a #2 complex since it was created in the 1890s (Coke was created in 1886), and even after 120+ years has not outgrown it.
Corporate culture can be incredibly persistent.
I've never been into any form of brown sugar water, but having been married to a Coke person, I can say that Pepsi is never OK: she will go to Dr. Pepper or even root beer before a Pepsi. Pepsi would lose the Pepsi Challenge every tome if she were the judge.
I didn't even notice, until some pointed it out, that the Pepsi ad starts AFTER the customer asks for a COKE.
Does it help that their spokesman is a mere substitute for John Stewart, Ricky Gervais, or Stephen Colbert, now looking like as a less-handsome, bigger-nosed George Clooney? And the best they can come up with is calling their product "OK", no matter how much their minstrel performers strain to give it pizzazz.
robother hit on something:
Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good
Brown Sugar, just like a Pepsi should
Note to the world/Pepsi:
Please quit yelling at everyone for everything.
And, no, Pepsi is NOT OK.
No, Pepsi is not OK. And that ad moved me from languid dislike into the "hostile to Pepsi." Which the insipid drink, on its own was never able to do.
The Pepsi ad is a convenient reminder that most eateries don't serve your crappy product.
Al Qaeda was initially funded by the golden chain, who comprise many of the figures that prince Salman detained back in 2017. The isi s division was the liaison with the Taliban and al queda.
Conflicting messages:
"Don't drink beer with corn syrup."
"Here's our halftime show sponsored by Pepsi."
Timothy McVeigh was a criminal as he chose to blow-up innocent people in a federal building. If he had targeted the WaPo or NYT, he would have been a hero.
Maybe the thinking was "federal workers under attack/shutdown"
Blogger gilbar said...
AOC just made the same mistake with her 12 year comment.
Sandy O'Casey, like, Totally, did Not, like say it'd be 12 years; AS IF!
--
So has she addressed her nickname and all that? I suspect it would be a useful device for showing the lengths a minority will go to fit in.
Narciso makes an excellent point, re the "golden chain".
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/saudi-arabia-faces-the-missing-28-pages
Connections, contacts; little views of something under the surface. What it is, or was, or what it has turned into, who knows. But there is something, and whatever it is is enormous. And it is naive to think that that something or network of somethings has nothing to do with the motivations of the overt players taking their turns on the stage.
The Pepsi commercial is terrible because the customer asked for a Coke. Who thought this was a good idea? Then the rest of the commercial just reinforces the idea that drinking a Pepsi is stupid.
It seems good fiction. Writers like Dan silva are allowed to speak of it, also Anderson pool who I've referred too before.
At a first level, the customer in the commercial should have been scripted in asking if Pepsi is available.
Brad Taylor (who is fmr delta) is also good, mmueller didnt follow the leads either in 2002 or 2011, when they resurfaced.
Ignatius used to write good fiction, but he lost the plot sometime during the Iraq war.
Here's what Pepsi ad agency folks say:
https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/why-pepsi-put-cardi-b-steve-carrell-and-lil-jon-in-a-super-bowl-ad-together/
Greg Lyons, the company’s CMO for North American beverages, said that the company wanted to use the Pepsi ad as an opportunity to talk the beverage up. The team, which was led by agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, was inspired by the often-asked question: “Is Pepsi OK?”
“It’s what happens in real life a fair amount,” Lyons said. “We had a choice to embrace it and flip it on its head or to ignore it. We play it off as something consumers can really relate to, and we did it in a fun Pepsi way that really highlights and celebrates how great Pepsi is.”
Having the word “OK” in mind led Pepsi to Cardi B and Lil Jon, both of whom are famous for the way they say the word. The team landed on Carell because they felt he “could be strong and funny at the same time to talk about how great Pepsi is,” Lyons said.
And it was worth mentioning Coke, Pepsi’s biggest competitor, by name in the spot, Lyons said. “I think people have heard of Coke before, so I don’t think we’re helping their awareness at all,” he joked.
Okay, I missed that the woman asked for a Coke. It's still a bad ad. And they could only make the word "okay" OK by putting it in the mouths of black folks.
I guess a question is what % of 2019 Superbowl tv audience knows the 2 artists and their trademark renditions of OK.
A smart exec might want that number.
Also, the role play/role reversal would be better served if it was a simple swap of clothing..maybe putting Carrel's non-characteristic/notable bushy beard on the waiter.
Cardi without cleavage is just plain wrong.
I don't think I ever once heard a waiter say, "Is Pepsi OK?" I have heard, "Is Coke OK," hundreds of times over the years, and the reason is simple- pretty much every single establishment I have ever eaten in serves Coke.
Perhaps not that exact wording. But I've heard "We have Pepsi products" plenty of times
I once ordered a scotch and soda and the waitress said, "Is Coke OK?" I had to tell her 'club soda'. I was actually served scotch and some kind of soda pop in Mexico one time. I thought it was a mickey and didn't drink it.
If you must spend $5 million on single advertisement in an attempt to regain the public's trust, the cause is already lost.
buwaya @ 7:52am,
Even "The Grauniad is relatively reliable these days, compared to the US National Media Establishment.
Yes, I am surprised to be writing these words.
Carell flashes the white power sign at 42 seconds.
The ad cost 5 million to air and God knows how much to produce.
Every frame would have been reviewed and edited.
It wasn't an accident.
Who trills a K? That's retarded. I suppose Cardi B does, but that raises the question; who is Cardi B?
And Carrell didn't give the OK sign; it was a KO sign. They can't even get that right!
Pathetic.
Don’t know if Mark Twain ever said it, but Ronald Reagan said it for sure.
Post a Comment