Lies Well Disguised: Night of the Living Dead
If you watched the entire Golden Globes last night, you witnessed the reanimation of a corpse (no, not Warren Beatty). Popcorn peddler Orville Redenbacher, who suffered a heart attack and drowned in his tub in 1995 (now his products have zero trans fat), was Frankensteined with parts of three actors—one each for voice, body and face—to create a fucking creepy digital Deadenbacher.
Fred Astaire for the Dirt Devil. John Wayne for Coors. Audrey Hepburn for The Gap (*Cough* Hack *Cough*). Ad agencies have no problem using dead people to sell shit. Shit, they'd reanimate dead Darfur babies if they could get away with, and it sold product. But this is the first time, I think, that the dead hawker was the live hawker.
Dig up Dave Thomas!
The spot was created by Florida ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky. generally considered the top "creative" shop in America right now. I guess, by default, that's close to true. Their "whopperettes" spot was the best of an awful bunch of Super Bowl XL commercials. But then, they've also created the stupid "Fast" for VW and the unoriginal "Man-Law" round table spots for Miller Lite.
And it doesn't get more unoriginal than this lifeless horror sequel. According to his Wikipedia entry, Redenbacher made his first fortune selling fertilizer. According to their website, CP+B is a factory that makes different brand products by hand every day. Their hands smelled like shit this day.
The heads of the two big names in microwave popcorn. Paul, if I were you, I'd revise your will right now to include a clause prohibiting your body parts from being donated to advertising.
94 years ago, liar H.K. McCann launched his NYC ad agency with the slogan "Truth Well Told." That was a Big Fat Lie. Advertising copywriter copyranter brings you instances of Ad Lies and the Lying Liars who sell them.