Potty humor for grown-ups
Posted: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 4:03 AM by Allison Linn
Filed Under:
Food and drink, Health care
Everyone knows that kids love potty humor, but how well does it go over with adults?
Kellogg Co. is testing that notion with a new ad for All-Bran, a cereal touted more for its fiber than its flavor.
The commercial, targeted at consumers ages 45 to 75, features a burly construction worker strolling around a job site boasting about how All-Bran has helped make him regular. Just like the recent ad featuring a group of men jamming about the wonders of Viagra, the first question that comes to mind is, “Do guys really hang around talking about this stuff?”
You don’t have to look far for the symbolism at the construction site. There’s that long, brown beam falling out of a hole in the wall, complete with grunting sound effects. Then there is the dump truck dropping a load of brownish bricks, not to mention a scene in which pellet-shaped barrels appear to roll out from the rear end of our affable narrator.
The tagline of the ad promotes the cereal’s “10-day challenge” with the slogan, “Do it. Feel it.”
Kellogg’s spokeswoman Kris Charles said the company hopes the ad will be “something that people would notice and might get a chuckle out of, but also think about as a solution for an issue that they might be experiencing.”
Everyone appreciates a little sly humor in an ad, but does it have to be literally dumped in our faces? This ad will likely make you giggle, or cringe, or both, while watching television or browsing the Web. But what about the next time you walk down the cereal aisle? Will you remember the ad and pick up the All-Bran, or blush and move on, not wanting to be the person with that cereal in your grocery cart?
Click here to watch the ad.
