Bud Light - Office Scavenger Hunt

As I was trying to determine which ad to review next, I asked myself: What company do I most associate with Super Bowl ads?

While there are several companies who have produced good ads over the years, I think that overall, the most memorable commercials have been brought to us by Budweiser.

Every year, when people discuss their favorite Super Bowl commercials, a Bud or Bud Light ad is almost always listed among them.

So I figured that for my next review, I'd pick a Bud commercial.  But with such a large catalog to select from, which one should I choose?

I went with this ad from 2006, mostly because it reminded me of a personal experience.

We learn that one of the company's employees - Davis - decided to spend his weekend hiding bottles of Bud Light around the office.  He claimed that it was done to give his fellow employees a boost in morale.

Why would hiding Bud Light improve morale?  If he really wanted to improve morale, shouldn't he have simply put the Bud Light in the break room?  Did he think that the Bud Light would somehow be more satisfying if the people discovered it?

When I'm at a bar, I typically don't want to go on a scavenger hunt in order to get a beer.  I prefer to have the bartender simply hand it to me.  It tastes just as good, and it requires considerably less effort.

I am also confused why hiding the beer took him "most of the weekend."  This seems like a task that would take maybe an hour at the most.

Then again, he works at a company that apparently is fine with their employees openly consuming alcohol during business hours.  So maybe expectations are a bit lowered there. 

I'd say that this is the type of company I'd like to work for, except I don't think I could handle wearing a suit to work every day.

As we can see, Davis' plan hasn't necessarily raised morale, but it has certainly gone a long way towards the destruction of the office.

At 20 seconds in, another question is raised when a man punches holes in the drywall and pulls out a couple of bottles.

How exactly did Davis hide the beer behind the drywall in the first place?  Are we to believe that he planted the beer in the wall and then replaced the drywall over the weekend?  That seems like a lot of extra effort.  Although that would explain why it took him most of the weekend.

Normally, I'd say that the office workers tearing apart the office in search of Bud Light requires too much suspension of disbelief.  But based on personal experience, I could see this scenario actually taking place.

In 2009, Mrs. Cutter and I decided to invite some friends over for an Easter party.  We decided to fill plastic Easter eggs with candy, coins, and other fun surprises, and then hide them around our condo, so that people could look for them in an Easter egg hunt.

Unfortunately, quite a few of our guests had been drinking beforehand (Don't ask) and when we began the hunt, chaos ensued.

It might not have been the wholesale destruction we see in this commercial, but rest assured that we almost immediately regretted our decision.  People tore through our furniture with abandon in hopes of locating a plastic egg that might contain a quarter or a Jolly Rancher.

So I have no trouble believing that these office workers would tear apart their office building in search of beer.  And as they drank the beer, I can imagine the madness only got worse.

I'd say that Davis deserved to get fired for this, but considering the company openly condones drinking beer on company time, can they really hold him accountable?

Rating: 4 TVs - This is a very realistic portrayal of what happens when you tell drunk people to search around a room for prizes.

Super Bowl Retro Week: Snickers - Betty White

Welcome to Super Bowl Retro Week! 

In the days leading up to this year's big game, I'll be taking a look back at commercials from past Super Bowls.

Since I covered 2011's commercials rather extensively last year, I'll start out by looking at an ad from 2010.  This one is from Snickers and stars Betty White:

We start off watching a football game in which one of the players is not having a good game. 

Apparently his hunger has caused him to transform into Betty White.

Personally, I'd be pretty excited if one of my teammates transformed into Betty White.  She's one funny lady, and I can only imagine that having her at the football game would make it that much more memorable.

But Betty - or "Mike" as they call him - is not being appreciated by his teammates.  In fact, they seem to be downright mad at him.

I can understand that Betty White might not be the best player out there, but the others should have recognized this long ago, and dealt with it accordingly.

In most pickup games, talent levels can vary greatly.  Some players aren't going to be as good as others, and most people accept this.  Once the weaker players are identified, those players typically don't get the ball as much.  And if there is an effort to get those weaker players involved, expectations are usually lessened.

In other words, if a guy sucks, and you throw him the ball, you shouldn't get too upset when he doesn't catch it.

So they shouldn't have expected Betty to have caught the ball.  And they certainly shouldn't have gotten so upset with him considering how off target the pass appears to be.  That would have been an amazing catch had he made it.

It feels like there's something else going on here.

Look at how Betty is laid out by the defender.  It seemed as if the defender could have intercepted the ball, but instead chose to deliver a big hit.

I think it is very telling that none of Betty's teammates got upset by what appeared to be a cheap shot.  In the NFL, that hit probably would have resulted in a fifteen yard penalty. 

You'd expect his teammates to be angry about the hit or at least check to see if he was hurt.  But none of them even seem to care.  They just yell at him for not catching the ball.

It seems clear that none of the other players like this guy, and it has nothing to do with him turning into Betty White.

I think the real cause for their dislike is sitting in the bleachers.

Mike was probably once a fun guy.  He could be counted on to hang out with the guys and have a good time.

Now?  He's just a whipped loser who can't go anywhere without bringing his girlfriend along.

You know what most guys enjoy when they're arguing with their friends?  When their significant others interject themselves into the argument and feed them candy bars.

Yeah, THAT would have gone over well. 

Mike should have been spending the rest of the game listening to taunts from the others.  They should have been referring to him as "baby," and asking if he "needed a candy bar from mommy," or if he'd like to have his girlfriend sub in for him.

This probably isn't the first time this has happened, so they don't even bother anymore.  Instead, they just try their best to get him to quit.

It's very possible that the QB might intentionally be throwing those balls to him in hopes that he'll get knocked out of the game.  And the defense is probably hitting him with impunity, knowing that the guy won't retaliate with his girlfriend present.

Everything is supposedly better after he eats a Snickers.  But in my opinion, things have gotten much worse. 

I can see some advantages in being Betty White.  But after he eats the Snickers, he's still whipped by his girlfriend, his friends still hate him, and now he looks and acts like a douche.

After playing like crap all game, he really has the nerve to shout "I'm open?"  Who screams "I'm open!" anyway?  What a tool.

The commercial's conclusion raises a very important question as well: Why would you make Abe Vigoda your quarterback?

He's 91 years old!  They didn't have anyone else who could play QB?

Rating: 1.5 TVs - This commercial is saying that by eating Snickers, you'll transform from a beloved actress into a whipped douche bag.  Is that really the message that Snickers wants to send?

DirecTV - Don't Wake Up in a Roadside Ditch

We have once again almost arrived at the event which many consider to be the Super Bowl of advertising: The Super Bowl!

That means next week will be Super Bowl retro week in which I look back at Super Bowl ads from years past.

Here is a selection from last year's Super Bowl retro week:

Hare Jordan

Fence

Frogs

i-Opener

Just be warned that I will not be reviewing any of the Super Bowl ads that been pre-released on the web, most prominently the Volkswagen Star Wars dogs ad.

I am not a fan of this trend where companies release their Super Bowl ads before the game itself.  It's kind of like when a person is so excited about a Christmas gift that they bought someone that they give it to them before Christmas.

When I'm watching ads during the Super Bowl, I want to be surprised and entertained by new ads, not by something I've seen already!

But before we get into the Super Bowl ads, I'm going to review a current commercial that will not be shown during the Super Bowl.  It is from DirecTV and attempts to show us the perils of having cable instead of DirecTV.

We start off with a man frustrated by being placed on hold by his cable company's customer service. 

Now this is something I can relate to!  I know just how hellish an experience it can be trying to deal with a cable company's customer service line.  You have to navigate through seemingly hundreds of menu choices only to wait about an hour to speak to a living person, who usually ends up being less than helpful.

Trying to work off his frustration, the man engages in physical exercise - in this case, a game of racquetball.  This seems like a healthy way to burn off stress, as I too enjoy a spirited game of racquetball from time to time.

Here's where the problem comes in: The man is both unskilled and unprepared to actually play racquetball.

At almost every racquetball club, there are signs that warn players to use proper eye protection.  As an experienced player, I can tell you that the ball moves very quickly, and the threat of eye trauma is very real. By playing without any sort of eye protection, he pretty much invites disaster upon himself.

Aside from his lack of goggles, there is another major problem: Both he and his opponent don't seem to actually know how to play the game.  

Racquetball is a game of quickness and agility more so than power.  Simply standing there and smacking the ball as hard as you can is not generally an effective technique if you want to win the game.

If he had just moved around the court a little and used finesse instead of pure power, he probably could have avoided his eye injury altogether.  He must also have extremely poor reflexes, as he was standing decently far back when the ball struck him.  You're telling me he couldn't have dodged that ball?

Next, we see the man being treated by a doctor.  Apparently the injury was severe enough that it requires him to wear an eye patch.  It didn't look like the ball hit him THAT hard, but maybe it just was perfect placement.

I suppose it is possible that he just had LASIK or some other eye surgery, and his eyes are especially sensitive.  But if that was the case, then by not wearing goggles, he really deserved to have his eye injured.

Now he has to ride the bus home wearing an eye patch.

He didn't have anyone who could give him a ride?  What happened to his racquetball opponent?  You'd think the guy might have at least given him a ride home.

Unfortunately, also riding on this bus is a gang of hoodlums.  Based on the look of these guys, I think that it doesn't take much to set them off.  They might have used the eye patch as their motivation to go after him, but I have the feeling they were just looking for an excuse to attack someone.

What kind of neighborhood does this guy live in anyway?  When they show him running, it looks kind of barren.  Maybe instead of spending his money on cable or DirecTV, he should look into moving to a nice neighborhood where he isn't in danger of getting attacked by gangs on the bus.

Finally, he ends up in a roadside ditch.  Did the guys who beat him up dump him in the ditch?  That seems like a lot of extra effort on their part.  They probably would have just left him bleeding on the street.

In the end, he might like to blame the cable company for all of his problems.  But by choosing to live in such a bad neighborhood, and by eschewing proper eye protection, it seems that going with cable was just one of several bad decisions he has made.
Rating: 3 TVs - While I fully sympathize with being frustrated by a cable company, I feel this guy has brought most of this misery upon himself.