Friday, November 7, 2008

Is the sign of good advertising solely if the ad gets stuck in your head or does it actually have to elicit a positive response? The commercial that is prompting such a vitally important question is the Subway "Five Dollar Foot-Long" commercial with the 1980s New Wave music and refrain of, not surprisingly, "Five Dollar Foot-Long". It's hard to decide if it's that otherwise completely annoying aural experience or the stupid scenarios on screen of various characters holding their hands about a foot apart to indicate the length of the sandwich. Yes, the sandwich is called a "foot-long" and is approximately this long.

Upon further thought, the gesture of holding up five fingers to signify the "Five Dollar" part of the refrain might be the most annoying. The smugness of those hula dancers or that football referee is just obnoxious. Ok, this entire argument is probably floundering at this point, so hopefully you're not looking for some big revelation about advertising in America right here on a Friday night spent primary in front of the television.

Subway has managed to earn a unique place in modern television advertising infamy, though. The jerky robot dancing around and trying to sell foot-long sandwiches joins Jared Fogle, who might be the most annoying smug person ever to sell deli sandwiches in the pantheon of annoying advertising personalities. So basically, Jared Fogle, those hula girls, that referee and that robot can enjoy their Subway sandwiches, regardless of how long they are or how much they cost.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

most annoying commercial ever...

-matt