I have said this for 20 years (if you have worked with me, you know it already): Every commercial should have a dog, preferably a talking dog. Bud Light knows this truth of advertising. Few branders have put as many dogs in commercials as they have (thank you DDB Chicago).
Now I have witnessed ad dog perfection.
January, 2008, Green Bay, Wisconsin, minus-25 wind chill. Lambeau Field is packed for their Packers. Brett Favre is frozen. Another Manning is smiling. The Giants are going to the Super Bowl. Fred (our Mr. Moore) is in the stands with his brothers and son. They are colder than a welldigger’s butt, yet I watch the game in HD comfort. The camera pans the oddly blistered face of Tom Coughlin then dips to black.
Commercial break.
I’m about to go pee. A frosty Bud Light bottle rolls and a heady beer-pour fills the screen. Foam rises. Big theme music swells. The announcer waxes on about the product attributes. I’ve seen it before.
Then it happened. Here’s the replay. I won’t do it justice by describing it. Besides, I still have tears in my eyes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UHKB6nQrzM
I am just another blogger talking about how funny it was. It’s four legs and a tail past funny. I have watched it 100 times. Everyone I know is talking about it. I’ve read dozens of blogs (mostly ad people) writing about it. Don’t read my words; just go watch the commercial over and over and over.
“Sausages! Sausages! Saaaaausages! Sausage! Sau-sage!”
Over the years, I have sat in thousands of meetings and listened to several thousand humans talk and talk and talk. Yet, in 15 seconds, that dog said it all. In one word, the dog expressed why branding works.
If you don’t get it, that’s your clue. Maybe you shouldn’t be in branding or marketing or maybe you need to check your passport as an American.
As Hollywood gets ready to hand out Oscars and actors get ready to give their speeches, that dog can lick his butt knowing he bested every single one of them.
Best performance by anyone in any medium in 2008. And the envelope goes to (pause as Nicholson grins on the front row): Sausages.
{ NOTE: If you think they dubbed over a human voice for that talking dog, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tayhKuJe44Y&NR=1 }
