According to a recent report in The New York Times, the latest trend on Madison Avenue is called “comfort marketing,” using nostalgic advertising figures such as the 61-year-old Speedy to “woo consumers during the uncertain economy.”
Having dozed blissfully through Econ. 101, I’m not qualified to explain how a cartoon figure whose body looks exactly like his hat is going to keep us from falling off a fiscal cliff. But bringing back aging icons such as Speedy Alka-Seltzer, the Jolly Green Giant and Captain Crunch probably couldn’t hurt.
For advertisers, the added advantage of using cartoon figures instead of real-life celebrities in commercials is that you don’t have to worry about them winding up in some sort of embarrassing incident.
Tony the Tiger never had the image problems Tiger Woods underwent. The Energizer Bunny kept on going for years without a whiff of scandal. The Pillsbury Doughboy may have been way too pudgy, but at least he never was accused of fathering doughchildren out of wedlock. Whatever it was that made the Jolly Green Giant so big and strong, it wasn’t steroids. If the Michelin Man ever got cited for DUI, his publicist was able to hush it up.
Not every cartoon advertising character could make a comeback. The Frito Bandito might not be ethnically correct enough for today’s commercials, and the Hawaiian Punch guys smacking each other around probably would ruffle the nonviolent feathers of some viewers. I’m not sure I would want to go back to the days of dancing cigarette packs and women dreaming about all the things they could do in their Maidenform bras, either.
But I wouldn't mind seeing Charlie the Tuna crabbing about not being caught, even though he had good taste. If nothing else, I may have gained enough insight by now to understand why a fish would complain about not having a barbed hook through his lip. Then again, maybe it's just a case of tunas not being nearly has logical as other fish.
And if I have to sit through medical advertising, I’d rather hear “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” than the ones in which drug companies recite all the debilitating side effects of their products.
There’s no guarantee, of course, that retro commercials featuring dancing raisins, beer drinking frogs and cookie-making elves who live in trees can do the economy any good. But I’m willing to give them a chance.
Lord knows the Aflac duck and the Geico gecko haven’t gotten the job done.
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