You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …

The Product:
Jooky soft drink

The Promotion:

The Pitch:
… or, actually, it’s for Sprite, I guess.

I was going to write something about how this ad gets your attention through cliche but eye-catching gimmicks, but then mocks those gimmicks to indicate that they’re too good for that sort of thing.

Then I remembered, I already wrote all that last October, when I spotlighted the Denny’s Nannerpuss commercial.

But I still wanted to write something about this ad, ’cause, c’mon. Look at it. It’s too delightful not to share with my fellow ‘Cados!

So I’ll say this: as much fun as this ad is, I don’t think it’s as effective. With the Nannerpuss ad, there was at least a contrast between the Nannerpuss pancakes (covered with lots of brightly colored fruit) and the Denny’s grand slam (where the pancakes are the only thing on the plate that’s remotely plant based). But here, nothing’s done to distinguish Sprite from Jooky.

They mock the outlandish promotions of fictional-competitor Jooky, saying taste is all that matters … except we never see anyone taste Jooky, or Sprite. Even if Jooky doesn’t provide instant fun beach times, like in the ad, it could still be the better tasting fruit-flavored soda.

This ad tells you not to let what pop you try be determined by flashy advertising, but in doing so, it can’t actually make an argument in favor of Sprite. If people actually took this message to heart, and listened solely to their taste in buying soda, then the only way this is a win for Sprite is if most people really do prefer the taste of Sprite.

I mean, maybe they did some blind taste tests and found out, yes, they do have the flavor people like best. But if they’ve got that kind of hard data, maybe that’s what the ad should have been built around.

It worked for Pepsi.