The actor and comedian Jimmy Durante in 1959. His version of “Make Someone Happy” is newly prominent, in two commercials.
It is time again to ask 20 questions about advertising, the media and popular culture.
■ After the success Coca-Cola enjoyed during the summer with its “Share a Coke” campaign, which replaced brand logos on bottle labels with 250 popular given names, is the company missing out on a surefire follow-up by not reviving the campaign for Christmas with given names like Angel, Carol, Ebenezer, Gabriel, Holly, Noel, Rudolph, Santa, Tiny Tim, Virginia and Zuzu?
■ Although rock fans are far less likely these days to complain that musicians are “selling out” by appearing in ads or permitting their songs to be used in commercials, aren’t the band the Bleachers and its frontman, Jack Antonoff, tempting fate by becoming the stars of a campaign for the Apple Pay mobile payment service from the giant bank JPMorgan Chase?
■ Were the copywriters who came up with the slogan “This is how it’s done” for the Ruth’s Chris Steak House restaurant chain familiar with the longtime slogan for A.1. sauce, “It’s how steak is done”?
■ If McDonald’s was really serious about its commitment to the “well-being of children everywhere,” as was proclaimed during the NBC coverage of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday, shouldn’t the Ronald McDonald character who rode the route in a red-shoe car have set an example by getting out and walking?
■ Would a slogan for Pulsar watches, “Life. In real time,” be just as good or better if it were recast as “Time. In real life”?
■ Would Fox Broadcasting executives be offering television critics a target too big to resist if they decided that a new series with the working title “World’s Funniest Fails” ought to go on the air as just that?
■ Now that a Canadian band known as the WPP has decided to reunite for a concert, will employees of the advertising holding group WPP get free tickets?
■ Is it just a coincidence that new commercials for Coca-Cola and the Monopoly Millionaires Club Lottery Game both use the Jimmy Durante version of “Make Someone Happy” on their soundtracks, or have marketing professors started requiring students to watch “Sleepless in Seattle,” which features the song in its final moments?
■ Were the copywriters who produced a magazine ad for Pantene hair-care products, which carried a headline that declared, “New year. New ’do. Full heart,” big fans of the television series “Friday Night Lights,” in which Coach Eric Taylor would frequently pump up his football teams by exhorting them with these words: “Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose”?
■ Was it a coincidence that the temporary subsidiary set up by General Mills as part of a deal to acquire Annie’s, the maker of organic foods, was named the Sandy Acquisition Corporation, or was someone at General Mills looking forward to the new film version of “Annie,” which features the character once known as Little Orphan Annie and her dog, Sandy?
■ Why did the film critic Peter Travers write, “I couldn’t have liked it more,” in his Rolling Stone review of the movie “Pride” and then award it only three and a half stars out of four - especially after he used the same phrase, and awarded the same number of stars, to a movie, “Room 237,” that came out last year?
■ How many Black Friday shoppers will conclude that it was not very sporting of retailers to advertise “doorbuster” deals that included discounts available only if mail-in rebate offers were redeemed?
■ Were the people who coined the brand name Pureau for a bottled water worried that the companies that sell the Pure Life and Glacéau Vitaminwater brands of bottled water would come after them?
■ If consumers drink a new reduced-calorie soda from Pepsi-Cola, followed by a new reduced-calorie soda from Coca-Cola, would they describe it as a True Life experience?
■ Were the copywriters who thought up a slogan for Timberland, “Best then. Better now,” alumni of the Dexter Southfield School in Brookline, Mass., which has the motto “Our best today, better tomorrow”?
■ After ING U.S. changed its name to Voya Financial, how many customers were pleased because the new name evoked for them words like “Voyage” and how many were taken aback because it evoked for them words like “Voyeur”?
■ Although it may be true that, as a magazine ad for Preparation H Medicated Wipes for Women asserts, “All the feelings you’ll have as a new mother shouldn’t include the burning and itching of hemorrhoids,” was not there a way to deliver that sentiment without such a wince-inducing headline?
■ Were the folks at the Aldi discount supermarket chain who decided that a store-brand line of items like acetaminophen, ibuprofen and vitamins ought to be called Welby Health recalling how much they enjoyed watching the television series “Marcus Welby, M.D.”?
■ Now that Olay is encouraging women to “Be your best beautiful,” Burger King is encouraging fast-food fans to “Be your way” and Gap Kids is encouraging children to “Be your beautiful you,” how much longer will it be before Hamlet is signed for an endorsement deal?
■ Will the actors in commercials who say lines replete with double entendre like “Half fast,” “Ship my pants” and “Big gas savings” tell a reporter who wondered how long the tasteless trend would last, “You ask a lot of questions for someone from Brooklyn”?
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/
