Miracle Whip still the sandwich spread for rugged drifters

By Dan Brooks in advertising 2 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxTA4iq98lw

Back when Combat! blog was young and wild, we discussed Miracle Whip’s “Don’t be so mayo” campaign, which positioned the Depression-era mayonnaise alternative as a uniquely millennial condiment. On the heels of that success, Chicago’s mcgarrybowen agency has launched the “Miracle Whip and proud of it” campaign, which further distinguishes the Kraft sandwich lube consumer from the man in the gray flannel suit. The ad above, entitled “Drew’s sandwich,” reminds us that Miracle Whip aficionados live in a kind of shadow society, a fraternity of outlaws who acknowledge one another with smoldering looks. Miracle Whip is for badasses. Put it in your mouth and shut up.

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House candidate shoots down drone in ad

By Dan Brooks in Campaign Advertisements 3 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJBcBx1XFU4

I don’t like it any more than you do, but in 2014, we have to admit that shooting stuff has become a genre of campaign advertisement. Senator Joe Manchin arguably invented it when he shot a copy of the cap and trade bill in 2010. Last month, Alabama candidate for US House Will Brooke shot and then mulched the affordable care act, in a spot bearing the electorally ominous tagline “let’s do some damage.” The marksman above is Matt Rosendale, Montana senator and Republican candidate for Montana’s lone House seat. He hates the federal government so much he wants to be a part of it, but only so he can get close enough to hogtie it or shoot it with a zip gun or whatever.

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“Generation Opportunity” urges young people not to buy health insurance

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 2 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7cRsfW0Jv8

The commercial above was produced by Generation Opportunity, a Koch brothers-funded political activism group that encourages young people to “opt out” of Obamacare by not buying health insurance. First of all, it’s good to see the leprechaun from Leprechaun working again. Second, the “opt out” campaign is designed to sabotage the Affordable Care Act by disrupting state insurance exchanges. For insurers to offer lower premiums, they need to enroll large numbers of relatively healthy young people, who dilute the risk pool for everyone else. If large numbers of young Americans refuse to buy health insurance, the exchanges will falter, [ill-defined step two] and, finally, Obamacare will disappear. Unintended consequences after the jump.

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The hands-free Whopper is not real, you guys

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 2 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd2YLgZqf3A

Brad alerted me last weekend to the existence of the hands-free Whoppper, ostensibly a product released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Burger King in Puerto Rico. Sadly, the HFW is not real. When you know that it is not real, the commercial above looks like exactly what it is: a gentle exercise in absurdity that also provides occasion to say that word “Whopper” 78 times. It seems impossible to believe that such a product could exist. Yet the hands-free Whopper was the first thing I thought of when I woke up this morning, and I was all set to write some funny (read: lazy) screed about it. Apparently, I was not alone. At all.

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Cory Booker calls Obama ad “nauseating”

By Dan Brooks in Campaign Advertisements 4 Comments

Evil tie adjustor Mitt Romney in the "Romney Economics" ad

Last month, Cory Booker saved his neighbor from a burning building. That’s called political capital, and it enables you to do stuff like, say, criticize an attack ad from a presidential campaign you support. Booker described the “Romney Economics” ad, which paints Bain Capital as a “job-killing economic vampire”—thank you, CBS—as “nauseating.” He was particularly bothered by what he perceived as an attack on private equity:

It’s nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright. This stuff has got to stop, because what it does is it undermines, to me, what this country should be focused on. It’s a distraction from the real issues.

Before you accuse Cory Booker of a false equivalence, you should see the ad, which really does portray Bain as a mad job destroyer leaving a trail of broken pension funds across the midwest. It’s also six minutes long and about a steel mill closure, so check to see if Bruce Springsteen is standing behind you before you watch it. You don’t want to wind him up.

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