Dad's an Idiot, Mom Has Contempt for Him in Burger King Commercial
April 23rd, 2007 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families
As usual, dad's an idiot and mom is more mature, more intelligent and just all-around-superior in this Burger King commercial. One interesting part which may not be clear enough on this video is that mom has a look of excruciating contempt for dad before she walks off.
See the video below.
"));
19 queries. 0.315 seconds.
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:25 pm
...so are we supposed to believe that she chose this guy for whom her contempt is obvious, or was he assigned to her by the government?...
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Yup, that's a real offensive ad. I guess they made the guy as close to being a flasher as they could and still keep things 'funny' by making him seem like a little kid playing in the bathtub. Of course mom's a dolt for having had the bad sense to marry him in the first place, considering how many available great guys there are out there.
BK happens to be the closest fast-food to where I live, and so I'll admit to having sometimes given them my biz -- their burgers are pretty awful but they do have onion rings, so I go by there once every month or two. But they're definitely on my personal boycott list now, along with another burger chain which will remain nameless. If the nuts peddling this stuff keep it up, I'll be eating healthier (not that that's much of an issue in my case, but rather that the beef comes from the destruction of South American forests is...) and they'll be out of business. Win-win!!
April 23rd, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Well, I can assure you Glenn that I will NEVER be found driving a Volvo through
the drive-through at Burger King.
Easy enough to boycott them. We just need a few good catch phrases:
"Burger King Capitulates to Queen"
"American Princess depose the King"
"Have it your way -- if you're a woman"
"Don't have it YOUR way ladies, you can have it BOTH ways at Burger King!"
"Who needs a husband? Come to Burger King and sponge off of Sponge Bob himself?"
Those are just my initial thoughts.
Oh, here's one more:
"Burger King parking lot jammed by Volvos as divorced women
act like crazed Sponge Bob groupies!"
OK. I pulled a few hundred K$ from Fidelity, and have put Volvo
and Burger King on my life-long black-ball lists.
Who else wants to lose my businesss?
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Notice: Strange new Fidelity ad
Glenn,
Looks like Arnold still doesn't like males. But that's not surprising -- most of the times
when Arnold has been fired from major accounts -- which appears to be a lot of firing in
their case -- it has been male executives firing them. Their disdain for males is again
apparent in Fidelity's "new" ad from Arnold is viewable here:
http://www.adweek.com/aw/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003573548
Rather nasty dissing of the guy from my perspective.
The implication seems to be as follows: this guy has worked (presumably like a
brainless drone) his whole married life, but really is a fool, and needs the "brains"
of his wife to keep him from falling down a manhole, let alone losing all of his --
excuse me -- "their" money.
Arnold advertising may not realize these truisms about comedy and advertising:
1. comedians who are not truly talented or whose talent is fading, invariable get
driven to using lots of 4-letter words in their "routines", as well as exploiting
minorities in their desperation to be "funny" (the latter to their peril increasingly --
except if they bash men), and
2. ad agencies who are not truly talented or creative (or whose talent has faded),
similarly get driven to exploit and fan inter-gender conflict and push negative
gender and other stereotypes which more thoughtful and successful firms
would not embrace.
So, to my mind, Arnold using these tricks is no different than the last two
comedians who committed professional suicide using similar exploitative
tricks to garner attention -- it is a sign of lack of talent at Arnold.
Manipulative. Exploiting. Sure. But more than anything, a "has been".
Yes, the bottom line, take-away message about Arnold:
a serious talent vacuum at a has-been advertising firm.
Implied bottom line message about Volvo:
all the good agencies went to larger auto firms, and perhaps,
executive egoism drove them to pick the wrong agency
just to show they couldn't be pushed around.
Now this leaves the question of why Fidelity would permit a
male-bashing ad campaign?
The answer might possibly be found if you were to examine the marital status and
male satisfaction/dis-satisfaction and relationship track records (and reflected
attitudes towards males) of the senior-most women in the reporting line
which subsumes consumer marketing at that firm. In other words, the female
executives who you would expect to have been in the approval loop on these
campaigns. Just a theory, but...you might be surprised at what you can find if you
dig a little bit:)
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:04 pm
How about posting a link where we can express an opinion to the Executive Vice President of Marketing at Burger King, and their Corporate owner, our opinion of depicting man/husband/father as an immature dolt?
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:18 pm
The above is not the first time Burger King has done something stupid regarding disrespecting basic human dignity:
http://www.onemilliondads.com/TakeAction.asp?id=287
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Ladies --
You don't need a man any more! And you don't need to cook either!
Yes, now you can take a romantic sponge bath with Sponge Bob himself -- and let Burger King do the cooking!
Just jump in your man-hating Volvo, and go feed your daughters some hormone-laden beef patties at Burger King.
Have it your way baby!
And women said they would never get back their beloved sponge!
April 24th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Maybe I am still happy with BK for the MANLY MAN commercials, or perhaps I have the exact same sense of humor as the guy in the bathtub, but I find the commercial funny. I see the wife as a humorless husk who probably can not relate to her kids. In the full length version the kids run in at the very begining asking to go to BK because Spongebob is there. Personally, that would be enough to spark a similar joke from me. I probably would close the door first though. From the first time I saw it I thought the woman came off much "worse" than the man in this commercial, though I certainly can not speak for the intent of the advertisers who wrote it.
April 24th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
This ad wouldn't be so bad if it weren't played at every single commercial break by Cox Cable in Baton Rouge.
October 16th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
[...] watch some videos of "dad as idiot" TV commercials, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and [...]
October 24th, 2007 at 11:42 am
[...] some other videos of "dad as idiot" TV commercials, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, or just turn on your television for 75 [...]
October 25th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Lol... I don't see nothing wrong with this ad. He's a real hottie despite that he's an idiot.
October 25th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
[...] watch some videos of "dad as idiot" TV commercials, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here . As Bill Maher says, "Look at television...the wife is always brilliant and [...]
October 26th, 2007 at 12:38 am
[...] watch some videos of "dad as idiot" TV commercials, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or [...]
October 26th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
[...] some other videos of "dad as idiot" TV commercials, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or [...]
November 1st, 2007 at 12:49 am
[...] some other videos of "dad as idiot" TV commercials, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or [...]