Commercial Rant #1 - Pizza Hut pizza pouch things
I’m going to start whining in this space about commercials that bother me, if that’s ok with everyone. I’ll try to stay away from particularly irritating local commercials unless I can obtain video of them.
Today’s ad: Pizza Hut Hot-and-Ready Pizza Pocket Things (I frankly can’t be bothered to look up their actual name)
The gist of the ad: Guy with bad hair #1 comes into the cubicle-farm-style office and announces, smugly, that the pizza pockets have arrived “… as requested.” (The ellipsis was indeed included in his dialogue, and you can tell because he pauses for a distinct beat as he makes some pretentious, irrelevant, and magnanimous hand gesture.) Two of his office-mates poke their heads over the cubicle wall, gopher-style. Guy with bad hair #2 (really bad, sideways-swept blond hair on this one, plus square poetry-slam glasses) says, dreamily, “Dan’s back from The ‘Hut” to which his puzzled cohort replies, “That was fast.” GWBH#1 distributes three (3) pizza pocket things from a shopping bag large enough to hold several shoe boxes, the third of which goes to GWBH#2. He accepts it, gazing lovingly at his pizza pocket as he cradles it. The office drones each take bites of their delicacies, GWBH#2 looking particularly dreamy as he does so. To conclude the commercial, a forlorn loser officemate clutches his pathetic sandwich as he says, “I guess I missed the memo… damn.”
What pisses me off: I’m pretty easy to piss off, and commercials in particular tend to chap my ass, as the saying goes. This one started off on the wrong foot with GWBH#1’s excessively dramatic pause before “as requested,” which irritates me more every time I see the ad (and does he have such a bad reputation that he needs to reassure everyone that yes, he used their money for what he promised, and didn’t spend it all on smack and hookers?) and also with the coined term “The ‘Hut,” which is a typical big-corporation attempt to make a self-generated term of endearment catch on in the mainstream. And what really annoys me about that is it will probably work.
In the middle there are all the precisely-refined mannerisms and facial expressions that smack of excessive advertising budget and too much focus on what might be considered relevant and resonate with the target audience, which is office drones. Let’s not forget that the product itself amounts to nothing more than a hot pocket, for which you’ll pay about $5. I’m sure it’s super healthy, too.
The spot finishes on another wrong foot, if that’s possible, with a hip reference to Office Space, an eight-year-old movie. While it may be true that in the wake of that particular movie every reference to missing a memo is funny, it’s crap like this, the corporate mainstream attempt to capitalize on a subculture’s humor, that spoils it for everyone.
Filed under: Commentary, Dumbass, Food, Other, Reviews, Side Notes, Television
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