Tuesday, February 21, 2006

MARCH OF THE BLIPVERTS

I first noticed this happening after "Breaking Away" premiered - that six months to a year after a popular movie has opened, there will be commercials which seek to emulate those films.

(Obviously, if the commercial is going to tie in to a movie's release, then of course it's going to be produced in advance.)

With "Breaking Away", there were about three blipverts that used cycling as their theme.

My current example would be "March Of The Penguins". First up was last year's holiday installment for the Coca-Cola polar bears. They found themselves in Antarctica at a penguin rave, where a good time was had by all thanks to a bottle of Coke.

(But the commercial ends before the polar bears rip off the baby penguin's head and drink its blood.)

Now there's a new one, a live-action blipvert for Jeep Commander.

The driver makes it far into the Antarctic wastes before dropping off his passenger - a penguin who then got an admonishment to stop following the Jeep Commander home.

Maybe now would be a good time to resurrect the career of toon penguin Chilly Willy to be a commercial spokesbird. He could hawk - or rather, "penguin" - fish sticks, for example.

Let's just hope this trend isn't used when it comes to a movie like "Hostel"!

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi. The film "March of the Penguins" has already inspired several commercials. That's OK, but it has also led to the early demise of a precious baby-penguin in a zoo. The babe was abducted, and probably died as he still needed to be fed food coming from his parents' stomachs. Sometimes I wish not so much publicity would be given to cute animals.
Now, the animated Geico publicity is tops.This little lizzard is quite a character.
Of course, Toob, Dave and I adore him because of the TV show "Surface". I doubt Geico cartoonists are not aware of this "Surface" star that is Nimrod.
Take care,
Colette and Dave
miceandchips.com/bluemood