Ads of the Weird : Restaurants

Bad day? Del Taco recommends a wedgie

Allison Linn — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:00:00 GMT

A recent commercial for Del Taco shows your typical office drone standing in line staring at the woman behind the counter in a kind of creepy way.

It turns out he’s angry because Del Taco’s prices are so cheap he realizes that everyone else is ripping him off.

Del Taco’s solution? Send another hapless worker over and let the office drone give him a wedgie.

Del Taco (click image to view ad)

Believe it or not, there are actually tasteful ways to discuss wedgies in commercials – witness Hanes’ witty campaign for underwear guaranteed not to give you a wedgie.

In Del Taco’s hands, however, a wedgie is played for the kind of comic effect that might humor mean-spirited third graders.

What’s worse, the ad implies, albeit in a humorous way, that it’s perfectly OK to beat up on someone else to deal with frustration and anger -- regardless of whether that person has anything to do with why you’re angry.

In this case it is even more nonsensical because the guy on the receiving end of the wedgie works for the company that’s providing a good deal, not the companies that are at fault.

Fast food workers may not be receiving many literal wedgies these days, but we’re guessing they get their fair share of abuse, verbal and otherwise, as people take out their stress over the recession on the person behind the counter.

For Del Taco to play that up shows a disrespect for the company’s workers, since the humor is at their expense.

We’re guessing that won’t do much for employee morale, and we’re not sure how many tacos it’s going to sell, either.

Click here to view the ad.

Burger King’s "virgin" experiment proves socially awkward

Allison Linn — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:00:00 GMT

When Burger King decided to run a campaign called "Whopper Virgins," with the premise of doing a Whopper versus Big Mac taste test in rural international outposts, you can imagine what they were thinking: Controversy!

People will love it! People will hate it! People will debate it incessantly! It’ll be great!

Perhaps they should have found a way to make a little more interesting.

Burger King (click image for ad)

The ads feature people who live in such rural areas of the world that they have ostensibly never tried, or perhaps even heard of, a burger. After apparently being told to dress in their fanciest traditional outfits, they are trooped into a bland room and handed two burgers.

The results are exceeding awkward.

Footage on the company’s Web site shows the testers unsure how to eat the burger and yet keen not to be impolite. In the television ads, the subjects are seen taking huge bites of the sandwiches, but their responses appear muted: They point at the one they like and briefly confirm their choice.

If they had anything compelling to say about the experience of eating their first burger, you don’t see it in the spots. There’s certainly no evidence that they were converted to a life of fast food and are seeking franchise opportunities.

The online movie offers a little more insight, including one man admitting he prefers seal meat and a few people choosing the Big Mac, saying they have no preference or refusing to try a burger at all. But if there was an "a-ha" moment among the testers, we don’t see it.

Mostly, the ads and the online video come off as a Herculean effort to make something dramatic out of encounters that appear, at best, stilted. When the video reaches the point that they are discussing propane outlets extensively, you really get the sense that they are stretching for drama.

Also, while the company’s self-congratulatory press materials paint the experiment as an example of honesty and transparency, they don’t reveal the most basic piece of information: definitive results of their taste tests, such as how many people tried the burgers and the number of people who preferred each one.

The lack of concrete data raises the question of whether, overall, the Whopper was the favorite, or whether they just choose to feature the anecdotal stories of those that preferred the Whopper.

A few more facts – now that might have been interesting.

Click here to see the ad, or click here to watch the online video.

Arby’s is thinking phallic imagery

Allison Linn — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:00:00 GMT

We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again: Sex does not sell everything. And one thing it really doesn’t sell very well is fast food.

The latest entrant in the surprisingly crowded "fast food as erotica" genre comes from Arby’s.

The chains’ recent ad for the chicken cordon bleu sandwich begins with a pudgy guy wearing sweats and white socks sitting on a bed, surrounded by pillows and candles.

Arby's (Click image for ad.)

"You know I’m only doing this for your birthday!" a woman calls out, before entering the room wearing an Arby’s uniform and carrying a tray of food.

"Wow," the man exclaims, "Me likey." And then, as if we didn’t already get the not-so-subtle hints, a cartoon version of the chain’s logo -- a long cowboy hat -- pops up above the guy’s head, accompanied by a little "boing" sound.

Suffice to say we’ll never look at the Arby’s logo the same way again, and we don’t mean that in a good way.

Instead of making us laugh -- or better yet -- crave an Arby’s sandwich, the ad left us feeling a little queasy. We’re guessing that’s not the response a company that sells food is going for.

Also, every time we saw the ad, we wanted to yell at the TV screen, "Hey, sandwich guy! Your wife/girlfriend went to all this trouble for your birthday and, what, you can’t even bother to lose the sweats and white socks ensemble for the occasion? Come on!"

We had a similar reaction to last year’s Dairy Queen commercial, which attempted to make food sexy by implying that its Blizzard dessert was created after a soft serve ice cream and a waffle cone had an amorous encounter.

Click here to view the ad.