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.]