“Things Are Getting Interesting” is getting… interesting
The new “Things Are Getting Interesting” advertising campaign by Remy Martin, purveyor of fine cognac, is so ripe for Overthinking ™ that I don’t know where to begin.
A few weeks ago I started noticing these new ads in the NYC subways. These and similar posters are plastered everywhere:
Interesting: alcohol induced threesome.
Interesting: Girl on Girl Action, Bondage, Cannibalism?
Things get even more interesting, after the jump.
Using the suggestion of sex, or even two-chicks-at-the-same-time sex, to sell alcoholic beverages is nothing novel. In fact, it’s so overused that it actually ceases to be, well, interesting. Yet the word “interesting” is featured prominently, and as we’ve all learned from Mad Men, advertisers are very, very sophisticated people, and every aspect of an ad is highly intentional. So either the firm behind all of this is ironically joking at its own clichéd ad campaign, or it really believes it’s offering something more “interesting” with this product. Given the typical dearth of irony in alcohol advertisements, I assume the latter.
What could that be? The ad clearly beckons users to visit the campaign’s web site (getinteresting.com) to find out where this is all going. Will the guy have an awkward morning after phone call with one or both of the women? After the lesbian bondage cannibal sex, will the survivor feel any guilt?
I was sorely disappointed. The website consists of a–get this–3-D lounge that the user navigates (clumsily) from a first person perspective.
This turns out to be a lie.
You walk around the (empty) club to find a “Music Room” (coming soon),
a “Confessional” (also coming soon),
and finally, the lounge. No ladies in sight, and definitely no lesbian bondage cannibal sex. Just pictures on the walls from the ad campaign and bottles of Remy Martin on the shelf behind the bar.
This is all decidely not interesting. What happened to the “door to the unexpected?”
I was about to give up on this website and ad campaign until I paused and reflected on all of the features that will be “coming soon.” Clearly, this is a work in progress. And then I realized where this is is all heading.
Take this decidely uninteresting scene. Come back when the website is done and it should look more like this:
Now that’s what I call interesting!
Remy Martin, please contact me at Lee (at) OverThinkingIt (dot) com when this website is complete so that I can enjoy the interesting first person shooter you have created to market your beverage. I also look forward to the functioning Music and Confessional rooms, as well as lesbian bondage cannibal sex, on the finished website. In return for this and future promotional efforts, I will gladly accept a case of your finest cognac, which I will use to toast this outstanding, creative, and interesting accomplishment.
Cheers,
Overthinking It
[Author's note: To get in the appropriate "interesting" mood, I refused to turn off the website's incredibly annoying background music while getting the screenshots. That's the kind of dedication we have to our craft here at Overthinking It.
Also, for more interesting hilarity, be sure to read the press release announcement. I had never before heard of "polychrome target consumers" before reading this.]
Matt on Tue, 11th Nov 2008 10:43 amHard to believe they launched the advertising campaign with the website still in a fetal stage. I’m guessing some web guys are currently getting yelled at on a daily basis. “Where’s the damn Confessional!! Get it live, or you’ll be making flash ads for a ringtone company for the rest of your life!!”
Professor Coldheart on Wed, 12th Nov 2008 10:04 amHell – that place looks like Quagmire threw up in a Hot Topic.
lee on Wed, 12th Nov 2008 12:58 pmI have to come back to the annoying background music on the site: I really recommend gritting your teeth and listening through one whole loop of the tune. Basically, it’s one note for the longest time, and I was positive it was the root of some sort of minor progression. But when the turnaround comes, (SPOILER ALERT), the bass line does a MAJOR pentatonic walkdown back to the root.
Come to think of it, that was both “interesting” and “unexpected.”
Gab on Wed, 12th Nov 2008 6:08 pmOkay, please tell me you’ve seen the Smirnoff raw tea commercials. *Please*.
lee on Wed, 12th Nov 2008 11:49 pmGab: you mean this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0ZbV1N9Z0k
I guess there is (a small amount) of irony in alcohol advertising, after all. Though I fear there are some who would appreciate the Smirnoff Raw Tea Partay unironically.
Speaking of irony in boozevertisement, apparently the Swedish Bikini Team was interpreted by some as something of a spoof of alcohol ads with scantily clad women. I’ll let you be the judge of that yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtnMtrEB1-I
Gab on Thu, 13th Nov 2008 10:40 amYes, I meant that ad. Muahaha. That, and the one made “in response” from California, for their hard green tea. I personally enjoyed them because they were both amazingly executed examples of modern satire in themselves, but they still managed to have enough of the product being advertised that one doesn’t forget they’re watching an ad, yet still not feeling overwhelmed with the advertising itself. Satire is hard to do on its own, let alone when there are other goals apart from satirizing whatever the target is. Whoever came up with those- and more importantly whoever wrote them- deserved a really, really big bonus.
As for the other ad, it does look like a spoof to me, only because of all of the other ridiculous things that make things “get better” for those guys. Even though it does totally objectify those women, the men look pretty st00pid and useless, having no real agency in what’s going on around them (I couldn’t help but notice one of the Swedish women fishing instead of one of the men, for example; and the good stuff happens TO them, not BECAUSE of them)- so they too seem objectified. It’s totally over-the-top, so it’s not so much offensive as it is outlandish (in a comedic way)- at least IMO.
lee on Tue, 18th Nov 2008 8:15 pmUPDATE: As of today (November 18, one week after this writing), the website has been expanded to include a back alley, but due to the still impossibly clumsy controls, i literally got stuck. I had to click on the “underground” shortcut to take me back to the bar, where “Music” and “Confessional” are still sadly “coming soon.”
I’m sure there will be a shotgun and a demon waiting for me when I check back next week.
Seriously, though, I urge you all to check out this website to marvel at how poorly executed it is and think about how much money RM is wasting on this. That is indeed interesting.
Matt on Wed, 19th Nov 2008 10:58 amBa-doo doo doo doo doo doo! (Thwak!) Ba-doo doo doo doo doo doo! (Thwak!)
That’s what it sounds like.
lee on Wed, 19th Nov 2008 11:29 amI forgot to mention…they changed the music to something slightly less annoying.
Because I like kicking a dog while it’s down, I’m going to do another full post on the status of this site in a couple of weeks. My goal is to keep reporting on this until I get a cease and desist letter or bottle of VSOP cognac from Remy Martin. Whichever comes first.
Matt on Wed, 19th Nov 2008 11:59 amThat’s the BETTER music?
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