Ad Sense and Nonsense

Old Spice.

I have to admit I am completely enamored with the Old Spice ad campaign over the past year or so, and especially since the Super Bowl. They have managed to take a brand that was synonymous with your father’s medicine cabinet and bring it into the main stream. I think the thing that impresses me most about the campaign is that while they are trying to appeal to a more youthful demographic, they have continued to embrace their classic Americana roots. There are no fancy spokesmen, no skateboarders jumping through the air, or naked women fondling great smelling men. Instead they decided to use a humorous over romanticized portrayal of a classic Americana, while taking a few jabs at the nonsense put out by many other companies. Well done Old Spice.

Chevy Malibu Car commercial with Asian voice over.
I was a little shocked when I heard a spot on the radio today. The ad was for the Chevy Malibu, and how a family finally made the switch from Toyota over to Chevy and they couldn’t be happier. The voice for the first part of the spot sounded like your average 45 year old white guy from nowhere, America. Then out of nowhere his wife chimes in…’I was the first person in my family to buy anything but a Toyota…” The strange part about this voice over is that the voice was coming from what sounded like an Asian women that had just arrived in the United States. Her English was horrible and she only had one line before her husband finished the last thirty seconds of the spot. I get what Chevy is trying to do here…’hey Asians, buy our cars’, but it just felt really awkward and insincere. I guess in a radio spot the best way to tell your listeners that someone is not from the U.S. is to give them some over the top accent, but do they really think that the Asian population is suddenly going to run out and buy American made cars because Peggy “the Asian that married an American man that lives in Omaha” said so?