Ask Your Physician if Louisville is Right for You

Some of you may recall an earlier post of mine about my hometown's theme song, Look What We Can Do, Louisville by Hazel Miller. That was part of a civic pride/local tourism campaign way back in 1982, presumably going by the title name (I'm not entirely sure, I was like 2 years old at the time and not yet aware of my love for local media campaigns). Anyway, our newest re-branding is all about Louisville's potential--which seems awfully unspecific--and is captured in the open-for-interpretation moniker: "Possibility City". What I love about our local branding efforts is our apparent inability to really pin down a meaning for our slogans. I mean, Possibility City sounds positive at first, but it doesn't really specify--one assumes that it would also be possible to have a terrible time here, or have just about anything happen to you, good or bad. Get food poisoning and be falsely imprisoned in Louisville? Well, it's possible...

This new campaign just reminds me of our old license plates, which were pretty much universally reviled: they had a cheery, smiling cartoon sun (in fact, the entire scene is a cartoonish landscape reminiscent of the Teletubbies set) and the words "It's That Friendly" printed at the top. Well, okay, that also sorta seems like a positive thing--until you start searching for sarcasm, putting emphasis on different words ("Oh, "it's that friendly," I see.") or spot a few whose owners slapped one of those faux-bullet hole stickers on the sun's face. That's the problem with leaving the interpretive optimism up to the viewer: locals are quick to apply hipster irony-with-a-dash-of-snarky-cynicism (to compensate for the raging inferiority complex) to just about anything.

Anyway, check out this video of our latest tv spot...I have to say, it is pretty entertaining--it seems like the ad agencies our esteemed mayor is hiring are getting hipper. Thanks goes to Andy over at South Twelfth for making me aware of this, a shining ray of goofy hometown forced optimism. So is this my favorite bit of pro-Louisville propaganda? Well, it's possible that it is...

The Most Interesting Man in the World

It's becoming more and more rare these days, but I have always had a thing for really well-done television ad campaigns. I guess I pay too much attention, because a great commercial really can influence my future purchases, while a terrible commercial can incite me to great heights of indignant passion: yelling and cursing at my tv included. The ability to read between the lines is a great asset,unless you unconsciously assign meaning to the most meaningless things...like tv commercials. For example: you can see the erosion of youth in Verizon commercials, a personal attack on the Everyman's intelligence in a come-on for the Blue Collar Comedy Tour DVD, and, especially troubling, the post-modern anti-feminist movement in a Swiffer Wet Jet ad. Love 'em or mute 'em, commercials can influence more than just your buying potential...if you pay attention to them.

It's mostly local commercials that are particularly endearing to me. They're just so hapless, stiff, amateurish and oddly offensive--like a space alien with no public-relations experience landed on earth in your hometown and began half-heartedly filming a hot tub commercial. The local tv ad is a reflection of urban isolation and the sad, empty ennui of the consumer condition in your very own Everytown, USA. From the supremely self-aware local ambulance chaser (Daryl Isaaks: The Kentucky Hammer), to the unfortunately-named RV salesman (Tom Raper's RV World), I really love our stupid local flavor.

That said, every once in a while a national ad campaign touches greatness. Like the current one for Dos Equis beer with The World's Most Interesting Man. I love these spots, and am surprised when I bring them up to friends and acquaintances who don't know what I'm talking about (FYI: it always ruins the joke when you have to explain your frame of reference). I guess it's a testament to how fewer people are being reached through television, which is sad when you think about the universal power to unite inherent in a notable ad slogan (remember those "where's the beef?" jokes? Almost everybody got a laugh from using that one, including Ronald Reagan).

Anyway, The World's Most Interesting man is basically just that--he's a silver fox: virile, adventurous, macho without seeming like a pig, vaguely European, suave, and into doing really REALLY interesting things. The commercials incorporate this vintage stock footage type of look, injecting a james bond-ish feel with exotic looking locales and bevies of glamorous, formally-clad ladies. There's also shorter ads they've started playing--now that the character has been established--that feature TWMIM holding court in a dark, swanky bar. Topics appear on screen, and then TWMIM locks eyes with the viewer and gives you his thoughts in a velvety, gravitas-injected baritone: on life: "It's never too early to start beefing up your obituary." on careers: "Find out what it is in life that you don't do well, and then don't do that thing." on rollerblades: "no."

I really enjoy these commercials. It's not just that they're off-beat and appeal to a certain retro-hipster aesthetic--they are and they do--it's also that it is pretty darn refreshing to see a beer campaign that is asking--expecting--for its customers to aspire for sophistication. That is a change from the usual standard of desperate, pick-up line infested foam fests touting spokesmen who are boorish, thick-witted losers, taking consolation in their brand of choice after the inevitable rejection from the hot chick. So finally: a beer commercial for the ladies! Yes, you say, but does that work? Well, I can tell you this: there's some Dos Equis in my fridge that says it does.

Stay thirsty, my friends