Our “Best Of” series continues this week with Grey Poupon for the resurrection of their classic ad from 1981. Connect with them on Facebook and on Twitter.
What is the most distinctive condiment commercial you can think of off the top of your head? Remember, Oscar Mayer is a lunchmeat. Not condiments. If you’re anything like us, it is probably Grey Poupon’s classic ad from 1981 that seemed to be ubiquitous throughout the rest of the decade. It disappeared, along with our childhood, and since that time the most we’d thought about Grey Poupon was making the occasional joke when we saw it sitting in the grocery store.
Then we were watching the Academy Awards a couple of weeks ago, trying not to scream at Seth MacFarlane to stop making inside jokes to himself in front of a billion people, and this came on our screens:
We’ve talked about nostalgia in advertising before, so shooting us back to our childhood never hurts. What a wonderful blend of humor and self-awareness. This is really how any argument should be settled, don’t you think? A car chase in a Rolls Royce, sword fighting with 9 irons, and ending with a gentlemanly apology in the condiment aisle at the grocery store.
A little humor can go a very long way with consumers. There’s nothing more we like to do than laugh when we’re watching commercials. Just think about all of your favorite ads. How many “serious” ones are among them? The only one we can think of is Apple’s famous “1984”
