2009 Superbowl Ads: Doritos 2

by pistols at dawn of save your generation

In this second Doritos ad apparently airing this evening, we learn a lesson thanks to familiar character in the Commedia dell'arte of advertising stereotypes - the 20something Slacker Dude.



As the ad opens, Dude is taunting his roommate's cat with a laser pointer, a poignant metaphor for the endless, Sisyphean tasks that comprise all our lives, hours spent grasping at straws that turn out never to have been there at all, leaving us empty vessels which only process pain into slightly more tolerable pain via a soul-deadening process of hard liquor, drugs, passionless coupling, and snack chips.

Knowing this, and egged on by his angry girlfriend, Dude's roommate taunts Dude similarly - with moving Doritos. Dude then proceeds to chase said Doritos, and numerous pratfalls - allegedly comic ones - ensue.

There is but one problem with this: as a huge fan of Doritos, I can tell you that no huge fan of Doritos can get up off the couch, much less chase a moving bag of Doritos around a room. One of the main reasons fat guys love Doritos is because, unlike women who want "dinner" and "you not to stare at their boobs" and "you to get their consent before filming them doing it with you," Doritos never play hard to get.

Also, taunting a cat is still okay, because cats are dumb, as they lack the single most important aspect of intelligent life: the ability to establish mercantile systems with the end result of enabling its participants to purchase Doritos.

Deer Park: Allegedly Good Water, Unquestionably Bad Slogan

by Pistols At Dawn from Save Your Generation

The other night, I was treating myself to some store-bought water, because I live in the fast lane, and I grabbed some Deer Park out of its home in the convenience store fridge.

I can't say the name "Deer Park" was what sold me, since most people who talk about deer are hunters, and those people are nuts enough to pay money to other people for deer urine, which they then douse themselves with to throw the deer off their scent. Why you would pay money for a urine bath when Taco Bell has meals for under $5 makes little sense to me, but then again, I'm not R. Kelly.

Also, who has the worse end of that transaction - the guy buying deer urine to wear like cologne, or the guy collecting and bottling deer urine for distribution?

I suppose all this effort might make sense if venison were the best-tasting meat ever, but it's gamy, stringy, and other words ending in "y" that indicate crappiness. I've eaten some gross things in my life - after all, I've been to England and the Miami Subs chain dotting South Florida like a plague (a dysentery-causing plague) - and I'd gladly eat shepherd's pie 1,000 times before I'd ever eat venison again.

In fact, the only meat I've eaten that I liked less is turtle, because that stuff's comically chewy. Turtle is like meat gum, and it's every bit as gross as that sounds.

Aside from apparently having a great deal of negative feelings about deer, I also didn't buy the water because of its slogan, which is: "That's Good Water!"

For some reason, Deer Park registered this incredibly generic phrase, which is sort of like the fat, ugly, religious girl in high school loudly proclaiming how proud she is of her virginity: you don't have to protect it, darlin', because no one was going to take it anyway. People only take things that are of value.

I understand that it's nigh impossible to come up with a phrase that will sell us on water. Except for desert dwellers or most Iraqi villages, we're all very familiar with potable water. You can't use the ad man's usual tricks, like, "Now with more water flavor!" or "Improved recipe!"

But if you paid an ad company to come up with "That's Good Water!" you are the dumbest company in the history of recorded time. Taking thirty seconds to brainstorm this for you, I would have come up with: "Mmm...water!", "The watery-est water in town," "More water than you can shake a stick at," and "That's not urine-y at all!" and all of those are better.

And to prove that to you, Deer Park, I would have registered the phrase, "Those Are Good Slogans!" for my work, and you'd know I was your kind of people: dumb, lazy, and terrible at selling products.