Best Spots: Visitor's View

IT WASN'T A BIG MONTH. December retail and holiday greetings. One month before the Super Bowl. There were nonetheless some December spots I liked very much. The jelly-donut guy for Saturn. These people love their customers. The kid who sings "Top of the World" for IBM and NFL online merchandise (above, left). He's wonderful. AT&T does another nice one with dad and son being caught in a snowdrift. They end up working all day. Two guys in the Volkswagen Jetta trying to get rid of a menu stuck on the windshield. First the wipers. Then the spray. We've all been there. So, like I've said, some really enjoyable spots. Branded. Distinctive. Emotional. Some core of truth we could relate to, laugh at. But then I noticed something: Hey, there's this Saturn guy. And IBM guy, and AT&T guy and Jetta guys. What about the girls? I looked again. Guylian chocolates-- the lovely, luscious mermaids scuttling across the floors of silent studios. The card-playing biddies and ducky young chicks for Diet Coke, oohing and aahing over an invisible man. What else? Hmmm. Fashion models for Moet & Chandon champagne (the guys didn't fare much better). Momma Patty Blue Hamand, rabid fan for Miller Lite (next in the series is a dog that retrieves kicking tees on the 30-yard line). So I got to thinking, maybe women, yea, women are the problem with good commercials. Somehow, they just don't ring true. They keep looking like myths or objects or idiots. People who don't seem to have a real emotional life. I present to you, therefore, this modest proposal: Let's leave them out. It would be simpler. I mean, there are a lot fewer women writing and art directing these things. The commercials would be better. (Proof, all the good commercials.) We wouldn't have to deal with so many perfect moms and really cute girlfriends and sex goddesses of the sea and air. And nobody could accuse us of being sexist. No sir. We'd just be casting people who easily fit our view of reality. One last case in point. The Pam commercial was a nice surprise. I'd expect some woman in the kitchen. Instead, I get a real guy fly fisherman who is about to fry his catch in Pam. The birds stop chirping, the brook stops running. "Relax," he says. "It's all natural." Now, can you imagine how stupid it would be if that was a girl fisherman?" Ann Hayden is executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi Business Communications. Her accounts include DuPont, Kodak Professional, Alcatel, Comdisco and "Stop the Sickness" for the Lupus Foundation of America.

Brand Marketing

Best Spots: Visitor's View

Ann Hayden

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Ann Hayden