Around the World in 98 Ads
Don't touch that mute button -- these commercials are worth watching
By CYNTHIA JOYCE
Whether you're the type who blubbers during Hallmark commercials or hurls pieces of fruit at that simpering MCI girl, there's no denying that commercials are both a barometer of cultural trends and -- at their best -- a sophisticated art form. And nowhere else does the life-imitates-art-imitates-life continuum spin faster than in the world of advertising."World's Best Commercials 1995," a 70-minute compilation of the 98 winners at this year's Cannes International Advertising Film Festival, offers a fascinating look at both the increasing homogeneity of global ads -- the same slick narrative techniques are used around the world -- and the cultural quirks of various countries. The ads, chosen from more than 4,210 entries submitted by 800 advertising agencies from 16 countries, were divided into five categories: Food and Drink; Public Awareness; Products and Services; Travel and Transport; and Entertainment and Leisure.
The best, and often funniest, commercials were those that played off cultural stereotypes. The following ads, for example, were all awarded bronze, silver, or gold prizes at the festival:
The uptight snootiness of the English: "Waiter, which Spritz is mine?" asks an impatient customer in an upscale outdoor cafe. To the exaggerated horror of the patron and his lunch guests, the waiter takes a sip of one, reports that it is lime, sticks his finger in another and licks it. "That one's lemon."
The high-tech, gadget-obsessed Japanese: A baby boy has just been delivered in a small, starch-white hospital room. Before the doctor can hand him to the proud parents, the tyke pulls a camera loaded with Fuji film from his swaddling clothes and snaps a photo of their shocked expressions.
The gluttonous Americans: A small boy stands on the beach, noisily slurping a Pepsi. As he tries to siphon out every last drop with his straw, he sucks himself inside the Pepsi bottle. Apparently expecting this, his little sister picks up the bottle and yells out, "Mom, he's done it again!"
The instability of Eastern Europe: While doing their daily chores, a Ukranian farm family debates the boundaries, and then the very existence, of various Eastern Bloc countries. An outdated atlas is no help. Exasperated, they finally consult Corriere Della Sera, an Italian newspaper.
On the gender-bending of Americans: A beautiful young woman sits in a crowded cafe and engages in aggressive eye-sex with an attractive man. As he seems to be responding, she makes a move toward him just as his boyfriend waltzes in and plants him with a passionate kiss. Dejected, she returns to sulk alone and sip on her "Solo" soda.
On those crazy Californians (okay, so California isn't a country, but it is in the minds of many): A panhandler on Venice Beach plays the xylophone by repeatedly spitting ping pong balls at it. The kicker: "Everyone knows the best nuts are from California."
Taking their cue from the other categories, a majority of the Public Awareness ads -- historically laden with heavy-handed messages -- appeal to a sense of humor instead of a sense of propriety or justice.
The most memorable of these ads is one in which a man standing by a copy machine looks down to discover a dog humping his leg. Embarrassed, he looks around to see if anyone is looking, and tries to shake the dog off. But Fido, apparently mastered by his passion, continues his relentless gyrations. Just when you think the man can't possibly take anymore of this furiously pumping hound, the words "This is how a woman feels when she is sexually harassed at work" appear on the screen.
Where humor would be inappropriate, harsh blows to the conscience seem to be the preferred spin. Gone are the days when an earnest Sally Struthers offered the viewer an opportunity to make a difference in a poor child's life -- today's award-winning Africare commercial asks the viewer to "send your old shoeboxes. We're running out of coffins."
Not surprisingly, sex is a recurrent theme. One of the spots that received the most enthusiastic reception during a recent screening at San Francisco's Castro Theater was a cartoon showing an ant and an elephant lying in bed together, staring straight ahead and wearing satisfied smiles. As the ant takes a drag off her post-coital cigarette, a bottle of "Tulipan Lubricant" flashes onto the screen.
Some ads are simply baffling. One bizarre Smirnoff Vodka ad features a man who finds himself sitting in a bar in some strange land. The things he witnesses here are like something out of "Naked Lunch" -- roaches crawling up a woman's neck, a strung-out drunk sitting at a nearby table. As he peers through a bottle of Smirnoff, he begins to hallucinate. The weird thing is that his hallucinations are like something out of a bad acid trip -- everything is suddenly disjointed and chaotic, though certainly no more inviting than before. This ad appears to be aimed at mental patients recovering from excessive psychedelic drug use -- neither a large nor a desirable demographic.
There may be some cryptic, Mad Magazine-like cultural significance to the fact that the American ads that won the most awards were for soda (four Pepsi ads), pizza (three Little Caesar's ads), and beer (four Budweiser ads). Inexplicably, the most popular ads were the Budweiser bullfrog spots which ran during last year's Super Bowl (some of the most expensive airtime in the history of television) -- proving perhaps that the judges at the Cannes Advertising Film Festival are about as clever as your average football fan.