Reader Friday: Your Favorite Commercial

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Some of the best writing and acting can be found in commercials, going back to when the legendary Stan Freberg brought comedy to advertising. My current favorite is the Geico commercial with Peter Pan. What an inventive scenario to go with their “That’s what you do” campaign. What’s your favorite commercial?

22 thoughts on “Reader Friday: Your Favorite Commercial”

  1. Alas, I watch too much of the idiot box, but, DO try to find those programs that work as the “Writing Seminars” discussed earlier this week~

    🙂

    That said, there are three, and, interestingly enough, they’re all for insurance:

    1. GEICO’s “Mom’s call at the wrong time…” wherein the action hero is fighting for his life while his madre goes on about his father’s continuing battle with squirrels (a little ironic parallelism there, perhaps?)

    2. The Allstate “Mayhem Dude” – in general (especially with lawyerly “Professional stunt, do not attempt” line along the bottom)

    3 And lastly, and maybe because I’m nostalgic, but the Coneheads “To whom are you speaking at 0300?” ~ State Farm’s self parody of the non-French “Jake, from State Farm” original (Most appropriate).

  3. Like George, I love the “Jake–from State Farm” commercial. That is cool. But every single other commercial is an also ran to the masters who prepare commercials for Budweiser. There are no greater commercials on the face of the earth than the Budweiser commercials with the horses and lab puppy (there are 2-3 of them) followed by the Bud commerical where the young Clydesdale thinks he’s pushing the wagon by himself.

    If I could write with the impact that those Budweiser commercials have, I’d be selling books by the bazillion.

  4. Jim, actually I’d like to haul Peter Pan down from his floating perch and smack him for being so obnoxious. But otherwise some of the Geico commercials are pretty good. Since we record most programs and speed through the commercials, I don’t have much to add to the discussion except to say the Budweiser Clydesdales are enjoyable to watch.

  5. My favorite was a public service announcement from the mid-seventies. A man is being grilled in a tense senate hearing about information gathered at government expense and made available to anyone who asks for it. The incredulous senator asks the witness the name of the agency he works for, and the witness gravely responds, “Senator, it’s the public library.”

    They don’t make ’em like that anymore.

    • Yeah, Kris, perhaps the greatest commercial of all time. Ran only once. But the effect was stunning. I remember watching it and being bowled over (not least because it has a literary reference in it)…and I was turned into a Mac user at that moment.

      Speaking of Apple, the single greatest campaign is no doubt “I’m a Mac…I’m a PC.”

  11. I like the insurance commercials with Flo, particularly the nostalgic ones and the ones with her family.

  12. For current ones, I like the State Farm and the Geico commercials. The most memorable ones though were from the 70’s. Who can forget, “Where’s the Beef?” and “Is it soup yet?”

  14. My favorite commercial is the Cadbury gorilla. This is the extended version so you get to hear the entire song, so hang in al watch it all. Rumor has it that it’s Phil Collins in the suit. If you haven’t seen it before, you’ll understand afterwards.

    extended version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHjieD6CTYs

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