Sears, Where Strippers Shop

I posted a link to an AdRants posting yesterday about a nipple slip in the "Exotic Apparel" section of the Sears website.  Made the requisite Mom jeans joke and got the expected Craftsman, etc. comments.

My curiosity piqued, I later went to Sears.com and typed "Exotic Apparel" into the search bar.

Holy crap.

There's 10 pages of this stuff.  Apparently, if you're a stripper, Sears is where you shop.

Middle America, get your freak on.

Now You Don't See Me, Now You Do?

Like Peeta Mellark camouflaged as a river rock, it seems the latest trend in broadcast advertising is hiding actors in plain sight against various architecture and terrain, then 'gasp' they step out of the background and reveal themselves.

I first noticed this device last year in this National Highway Traffic Safety Administration PSA about drunk driving.

This spot's been around for a while; the thing that struck me about it was the creepy mannequin-like stiffness of the police, and the fact that you can easily see them if you're looking. Which I suppose a drunk person wouldn't be doing. What bothers me though, is that even though the guy and girl are obviously drunk the cops let them get in the car and drive around for a while before pulling them over, just to make sure, I guess. Bad on you NHTSA. But overall, a good idea, I thought.

So people coming out of the woodwork, I get it. Then last week while on vacation in North Carolina, I caught these two spots in the same commercial break during some show or other. OK, OK, it was Real Housewives of NY (you know, the one where they go to St. Barts and LuAnn sleeps with that Tomas guy) but it was my wife watching, not me, I swear!

The IAVA spot addresses a real problem for returning veterans, letting them know that they're not alone, and they've got support. Kudos. But I can tell you, if I was sitting in a coffee shop minding my own business and saw this parade of painted zombies shambling toward me I'd probably assume I was having some sort of post traumatic stress hallucination, and get the hell out of there as fast as my Army boots could carry me.

The CTU ad depicts a dystopian future in which picking the wrong school dooms you to a either a job or a lecture hall that are both so stupefyingly boring that you    cannot      even      move.

Oh, and here's a Sprite spot this year out of BBH Singapore... same thing.

Well, not exactly the same; the Sprite spot features a hot girl in her underwear, which is never a terrible thing in a commercial if you ask me.

I'm thinking that all these spots, especially the CTU spot could have benefited from a hot girl in her underwear. It would certainly make that office and lecture hall more exciting. Certainly that soldier wouldn't be feeling so all alone if a mob of beautiful, lingerie clad women was closing in on him... but then that would be an Axe commercial. And I'm certain that guy in the NHTSA spot was drunk driving his girlfriend toward their own personal "underwear encounter" until he got pulled over by that cock blocking state trooper. Nice hat though. I'd like to get me one of those.

So four different agencies, four different directors*** and one overwhelmingly similar idea.

Advertising and entertainment and pop culture are all rolled up in one big ball of borrowed interest. We know this, and I've referred to it several times in this blog. But while commercials and ideas are often similar to one another, they are not usually exactly the same.

Yet these four spots feature the exact same execution.

Yes, one can argue that concept behind the ads is different in two of the four. IAVA is about not being alone, and NHTSA delivers an uncomfortable "Big Brother is watching" message. But that still leaves Sprite and CTU in which the idea, "don't blend in, stand out," is the same.

Regardless of the concept and the message though, it is the the execution that is my biggest issue here because is exactly the same. And it makes me wonder, with all the creative brainpower at these four ad shops, with all the skills that these four directors bring to the table, with all the knowledge of everything that has come before, could no one have figured out how to execute this idea even the teensy weensy littlest bit differently?

(I mean OK, Sprite, the underwear thing, points for that)

***NHTSA "Camouflage/Invisible Cops" directed by David Slade@Anonymous Content (2008), for The Tombras Group.  
       IAVA "Camouflage" directed by jacobsbriere@HELLO!(2009) for Saatchi NY
       CTU "Stand Out" directed by Steve Reeves@TWC (2012) for Ogilvy NY
       Sprite "Camouflage" directed by Peter Thwaites@Unit + Sofa(2012) for BBH&BBH/Shanghai

Finally, Mom's a dork

After years of enduring the doofus Dad in advertising, it is refreshing to finally see a commercial where Mom's the butt of the joke.

Granted, she's still a fantastic Mom because she makes sure the kids get a nutritious breakfast, but still...