Six Days
That's how long I waited to call back pretty much every guy I met in the late 90s. So did everyone I knew. Thank you, Swingers.
Flash forward to 2005. Swingers, apparently, is still hot. I've been meaning to post about this for a few weeks now: one of the more recent MasterCard "priceless" spots (which have SO jumped the shark, though they used to be, well, priceless) is a not-so-veiled imitation of the scene when Mikey leaves a trillion messages for the girl, Nikki, he meets in a bar.
Every time I watch the ad, it makes me angry. I like McCann Erickson (the agency behind this travesty.) I visited their Edinburgh office a few years ago - it was cool and the people were smart. I used to like the "priceless" spots. They were so viral when viral was hot. But this...it's not even a really good imitation. I wouldn't call it flattery.
So today I decide to post my outrage. While searching for a link to the ad, I found this. My first reaction was, damn, somebody wrote about this before I did. Then I read down the page and realized that some enterprising internester actually emailed MasterCard to ask if the spot was an intentional homage (and yes, homage is a very strong word.)
Turns out, it was. Totally sanctioned by the Swingers crew. They even asked John Favreau to direct the spot, but he was too busy.
That news actually made me more angry. Swingers is a good movie, iconic in it's own way. It helped define my early 20s. This ad sucks. If you're going to honor something, do it right. At least make it obvious that you're not just haplessly latching onto coattails.
Ugh. Advertising is NOT that hard, people. Seriously.
Flash forward to 2005. Swingers, apparently, is still hot. I've been meaning to post about this for a few weeks now: one of the more recent MasterCard "priceless" spots (which have SO jumped the shark, though they used to be, well, priceless) is a not-so-veiled imitation of the scene when Mikey leaves a trillion messages for the girl, Nikki, he meets in a bar.
Every time I watch the ad, it makes me angry. I like McCann Erickson (the agency behind this travesty.) I visited their Edinburgh office a few years ago - it was cool and the people were smart. I used to like the "priceless" spots. They were so viral when viral was hot. But this...it's not even a really good imitation. I wouldn't call it flattery.
So today I decide to post my outrage. While searching for a link to the ad, I found this. My first reaction was, damn, somebody wrote about this before I did. Then I read down the page and realized that some enterprising internester actually emailed MasterCard to ask if the spot was an intentional homage (and yes, homage is a very strong word.)
Turns out, it was. Totally sanctioned by the Swingers crew. They even asked John Favreau to direct the spot, but he was too busy.
That news actually made me more angry. Swingers is a good movie, iconic in it's own way. It helped define my early 20s. This ad sucks. If you're going to honor something, do it right. At least make it obvious that you're not just haplessly latching onto coattails.
Ugh. Advertising is NOT that hard, people. Seriously.
posted by Kit Pollard at
2:36 PM
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