Random Esquire

Clearly, I take issue with some commercials.  There was the Smuckers one with a kid named Dick Smucker in which the ad actually made a point of his name.  Then there were the two stupid Jif commercials – the one with the loony grandpa who tries to steal his grand daughter’s sandwich (ha ha) and then the one with the kids splitting the last piece of bread.  Then there was the Folgers commercial that made me think that this dancer has to drink coffee to poop.

Well, Folgers, I’m on to you yet again.  Let’s dissect the latest Folgers ad.  I’ll put what happens in the ad in regular print and then I’ll put what Folgers wants you to think in bold print.

It opens with a young man, having just exited a cab, walking up to a very nice house in the snow and ringing the bell.  A young woman answers and he looks confused and says, jokingly, “I must have the wrong house.”  We see he is wearing a backpack that says (in big capital letters) “VOLUNTEER”.   The young woman laughs and points to herself and says, “Sister!”  (This, I assume, was a quick way to let us know that these people are family and he is not home from a war surprising his fiancee.)

FOLGERS MESSAGE:  What a nice young man.  He is a GOOD BOY and he is doing GOOD THINGS somewhere in the world.  And he has a sense of humor!  And his sister, via the transitive property, is also a GOOD GIRL.  They come from a GOOD FAMILY who lives in a nice house.

Walking into the kitchen, the sister says, “They waited up all night for you, you know.”  The brother responds, “It’s a long way from West Africa.”  Then we get a view of the full coffee pot with a large container of Folgers sitting next to it.  The young man closes his eyes and inhales and says, “Ahhhh, coffee.”

FOLGERS MESSAGE:  The parents care about the son.  He has traveled a great distance to be here from West Africa where he does GOOD THINGS.  Not bad things – like helping to run conflict diamonds out of Sierra Leone.  No, he does good things.  But probably not in the Ivory Coast which at one point, was one of the largest coffee producers in the world and can probably still whip up a mean cup of Joe.  But West Africa, people, which should make you think of malaria, starving children, and a denial of all that is comfortable and GOOD.

More after the cut.

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