» 2005 » May | Oh The Drama

I have to commend Mastercard. Their most recent commercial has got to be one of the best commercials I’ve seen in a long time.

I know they’re most known for their “priceless” commercials, and this one follows along the same lines, however, it’s executed in such a wonderfully elaborate way.

They don’t give it all away in the beginning of the commercial, but the snow globes labeled “vacations” made me wonder what was going on a little bit. The turning point that made me sit up and take notice was the “miniature” plane landing on what seemed to be a store counter.

Then the clincher - miniature wild animals running through a miniature African plain. I was definitely left wanting to be a kid in a candy store after watching that commercial.

Whoever thunk it up and executed it should get an award or something. It’s rare you see a commercial that good anymore.

(yes, I even believe they redeemed themselves after than whole green man board game fiasco)

That red dragon minty fresh cinnamon scary crap is not working for you. What in the world were you thinking? I know that my hard earned dollars that I spend weekly on your toothpaste can be put to far better use.

Just for thinking you could get away with broadcasting that assinine commercial to the world, I’m switching to Crest and don’t even try to talk me out of it. Yank that piece of shit you call a commercial, revise it, revamp it, re-do whatever the hell you have to in order to make it less crappy, then we can talk.

In the meanwhile, fire your advertising agency — if you did it in house, hire an advertising agency — quick.

This has to be the best damn commercial in the world! Every time I see it I break down laughing. So what is this amazingly wonderfully funny commercial?

The Starburst commercial with the art kid who made the sculpture of “Sharon” which he then shows to her and begins to eat in her presence - that kid just makes the whole psycho-ness of it completely believable.

It’s really funny in a creepy way. They have a couple others that I think are pretty cool, but that one definitely takes the cake.

Sometimes I like to watch music videos in the morning — get the blood going. This morning I noticed something…off. When the video I was watching on VH1 went off the air, I flipped over to fuse — commercial there too — so I flipped over to MTV1 & 2 and, surprise, commercial there too.

I’m all for the commercials, but there are times when I really don’t want to deal with them - so why oh why out of 4 different music channels did they all have to be on commercials at the exact same moment, thus depriving me of my musicvision™?

I think it’s a commercial conspiracy. All of those networks mapped out their scheduling to prevent people from flipping between channels, thus forcing them to choose their favorite one and stick with it until the commercial is over. Wouldn’t that be something if I were right…

I absolutely love those “not quite, but really is a public service announcement in disguise” commercials from the For A Better Life Organization.

Especially the one when the guy is hailing a taxi in the rain then gives it up to the lady and her daughter. That’s definitely a tear jerker — and amazing they managed to do it in 15-30 seconds.

This is where a lot of companies should pay attention because their commercial worked, and after the first one because I went to their website. The intent of their commercial was to drive traffic to their website and because the commercial was so well crafted, I actually wanted to and did go to their website.

Isn’t that what advertising is all about? Getting the consumer to take action (like buy your product)?

Key points that made this commercial a winner in my book:

• The voice of the narrator is soothing and non-threatening
• The characters look believable (i.e. they look like “real” average people - not movie average people)
• The characters draw me into the story and I can relate to it.
• I can tell, just in that brief time watching it, that a lot of thought and consideration went into these commercials. They weren’t thrown together while burning the midnight oil running on ten cups of coffee.

But I guess I should be grateful that not all commercials are this carefully and well crafted, otherwise I’d probably have a bunch of useless stuff that I don’t need (not that I don’t already).

*One small note, although their commercial is great, their site can use some work - esp for those who omit the www. and are presented with the “no website configured here” dialog…not covering all your bases.