Weekly Ad Uncoiling: Diesel
Diesel has quite a history of pushing the fashion ad boundaries, with mixed results. There was the creepy fat guy ads. The “let’s see how many ads we can get banned” phase (that one was banned). The flower ejaculate ad. And the global warming is fun campaign. They’ve even seriously pissed off dentists. Now, they’ve started a self-described “Dark” effort (here’s 1, 2 recent print examples). This effort includes the below four-minute web video “Pete The Meat Puppet.” The ad agency responsible for this edgy craziness is Sweden’s Farfar, who sport the spiffy tagline “the original in time-bandit advertising.” (How clever! [I don’t get it.]) It’s certainly well-produced, but well, sorry Farfar. It’s not funny, and it’s not weird or dark enough to be interesting. If you’re going get all non-selly with your advertising Diesel, you better leave me with something remarkably memorable. Pete’s stupid story continues here on Diesel’s website, if you’re for some reason intrigued. It features “beat the meat” and “sirloins” of my mother jokes. I didn’t make it through it.
December 11th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
That is pretty terrible. I would dislike this even if there were no brand behind it trying to hock shit at me.
If they had used an actual dude made-up like Frank from Hellraiser hooked up to puppet strings…this might’ve worked. They could’ve kept the same song and it would definitely get banned.
http://www.fleshtwister.com/HR1/images/KirstyFrank005_jpg.jpg
This way it’s just a dummy with hamburger glued to it’s face.
December 11th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
It’s an interesting oddity, but what the hell does it have to do with the company? Or isn’t that the nature of viral adverts?
December 11th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
It’s not quite weird enough or quite absurd enough to work, and it leans on the crutch of an overused and stupid trope – that of meat puppets. The real clincher, though, is that the Pete puppet has no personality whatsoever.
December 11th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
my favorite is this one:
http://www.vkmag.com/videos/videos_diesel_doet_sfw_porn/
teh awesome
December 12th, 2008 at 4:51 am
rickie: yes, that was good. I didn’t include it in the post because it was just a one shot vid announcing their 30th anniversary. It wasn’t part of their ad campaign.
December 12th, 2008 at 7:43 am
I would guess that time bandit advertising is any ad that makes you go “where there’s 2 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.”
December 12th, 2008 at 10:57 am
I think its done pretty well. I work in marketing and if this ad was simply about getting the brand out to as many people as possible they’ve done a good job. The simple fact that you’ve embedded the video on the site and people are debating it means they have won.
Doesn’t mean anyone’ll buy a pair of jeans though.
August 12th, 2009 at 3:57 am
Wow… that was disturbing.
But the big question on my mind? Was that butcher-lady played by the same actress who played Pearl on MST3K?