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:
Star Trek: The Original Series on DVD
The Promotion:
The Pitch:
Star Trek is groovy, baby.
This gloriously kitschy ad is very much a product of its era – and that era isn’t the 1960’s, but the 2000’s. It may seem odd for an ad to poke fun at the show it’s promoting, emphasizing all of its cheesier, goofier, and more aesthetically dated elements. But it kinda makes sense when you put it in context.
While this was the first time Star Trek: The Original Series got a DVD boxset, it was not the show’s first time on home video. Starting in the 90’s, individual DVDs of TOS were already being sold, with two episodes to a disc. And even before then, the entire series had already come out on VHS and Laserdisc.
They couldn’t advertise this boxset as you finally being able to own the original Star Trek. Instead, the selling point had to be that you could finally own all of the original Star Trek in one package. To that end, the commercial wisely features numerous short clips from across the breadth of the series, showcasing many well-remembered moments, letting people know that, yes, it’s all here. And pretty much anything can become a joke if you make a fast enough montage out of it. Kirk making out with one pretty lady is just a single interesting shot – kirk making out with three different pretty ladies in quick succession counts as a running gag.
The other important factor is that, when the TOS boxsets came out in 2006, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise were all already had their boxsets on the market. TOS was coming late to the party, and needed to stand out from the pack and grab attention, in case Trekkies’ wallets were empty from buying up four other series on DVD.
Thus we get an ad the emphasizes The Original Series‘s differences from the other Star Trek shows. Those series, that aired from the late 80’s through the early 2000’s, all had a fairly consistent house style for how Star Trek should look and sound. So this commercial throws in your face how TOS, hailing from the 1960’s, does not adhere to that style. It highlights the bright and varied colors, the weird and goofy looking monsters, the theatrical and over-the-top acting styles. Plus a musical score that doesn’t sound like anything actually from the show, but does a great job selling you on the retro, kitschy vibe of the whole thing.
And, you know what? Even aside from all that historical context, I still think this ad did a great job. If you get nothing else from this commercial, it’s that watching Star Trek: The Original Series will be a weird, wild time.