Well someone doesn’t like this new work for Altoids from Energy BBDO…and it just might be us. Though we’re not sure. Let’s discuss. While Adrants reader Maury tells us the work is “fucking terrible,” we can’t help but get a chuckle out of what one might label “witty British humor” when it comes to the ad’s tagline, “A slap to the cerebellum since 1780.” It’s just so…sepia toned.
OK, OK, so it’s not the more eloquent “Curiously Strong” but that just might be OK in today’s ad world. After all, isn’t the new trend to “slap one upside the head” like their an idiot akin to Dads who can’t figure out how to use a cell phone or guys who throw cell phones at each other in the locker room or guys that whack each other in beer commercials or cause groups that stick a naked pregnant woman in a cage because, oh, we’re too stupid to figure out that, yea, pigs don’t live in McMansions?
Perhaps “Curiously Strong” has become curiously weak in our over saturated ad world where shooting the proverbial gerbil out of a cannon is the only way to connect with people. Maybe the only way to deliver a message is with direct assault and a big ‘ol punch to the…cerebellum. Add a dose of subdued sepia-toned wit and maybe you’ve got yourself a not so bad commercial. Maybe.
