Maybe You Should Get Out More!!!

Today in the Marketing Magazine daily e-newsletter, I came across this headline:

“Subaru snuggles up to the outdoors for the first phase of its latest national print and TV campaign in support of its 2010 Subaru Outback sedan.”

The article by writer Kristin Laird describes the “creative team” (quotations are mine, so is the sarcasm) at DDB Canada came up with this brilliant idea:

While we are viewing a few seconds from a “Snuggies” commercial, a crowbar appears to pull the commercial away so we see some rugged looking white guy who has shown up to remind us poor people what losers we are to be watching this, that we can’t afford to heat our homes, forcing us to wrap ourselves in whatever we have available. The white guy walks up to his Outback, which is parked in front of a picturesque mountain lakeside scene while a super tells us “Maybe you should get out more”.

Maybe he should fuck off more.

Andrew Simon, senior vice-president, creative director at DDB Toronto, Subaru’s creative agency claims that the ad is supposed to “play off the idea that people are spending more time indoors”.

Actual Photo, Seriously

Well, that’s because they can’t afford to go anywhere.

Ted Lalka, vice-president, product planning and marketing at Subaru Canada said that they “wanted to come up with something that would disrupt people”.

I'm Sensing a Trend...

Oh, I’m disrupted alright!

Rob MacLean, DDB’s vice-president of public relations and corporate communications actually thinks that “Infomercials typically run late at night you don’t expect to see them during prime time, when our TV spots are playing”

Actual Product May Vary In Hotness

Infomercials run mostly at night…mostly. Really Mr. MacLean? I guess some people are too busy being employed, wearing thick sweaters and driving around brand new sedans on top of awesome mountains that they never actually noticed that commercials, not infomercials, run all the time on TV. No, really Mr.vice-president of public relations and corporate communications. Because that’s what those Snuggies things are: commercials.

Anyone who has ever watched TV knows that infomercials are commercials that are disguised as TV shows, in effect making them even longer and more irritating than the regular 30 second format. Not only that, but they run at all hours of the day, not just at late night. If you don’t believe me, just look at the morning programming of the majority of Canadian digital channels and I can guarantee you, it will be infomercials filling up the time since broadcasters don’t seem to be able to pay for legitimate content. There’s even a channel that doesn’t show anything else but infomercials, 24 hours a day! If you had Drapered that shit, you would have at least hired someone to research that point so you wouldn't end up making a foolish quote.

It would be nice if these guys could look for a demo that was a little bit wider but I guess that turning their faces away from the reflection in their mirror was too much effort at the time. Maybe they should get out more…