Much like a diet cola, the contents of this particular post are 100% non-nutritional. No matter; let’s celebrate this April Fool’s Day by returning to an easier, more light hearted era in advertising… Those halcyon days before production costs exploded or media platforms proliferated or clients expected a little something called ‘logic.’
Consider this gem from the Coca-Cola company’s long running campaign for Tab; that pink-canned, cyclamate-sweetened, named by an IBM-1401 computer diet beverage they debuted in the apparently misogynistic playground of 1963. For earlier marvels of this groovy effort, surf here and here. But for the apogee of this ill-considered campaign, this 1977 spot stirs my soul and butters my biscuits. It would require the keen mind of William Safire to determine whether ‘mindsticker’ is the linguistic forebear of ‘freshmaker’ so let’s just set that aside because strategically, poetically–and most of all musically–this spot’s creative vision knocks me out. It makes me take a knee and wonder “Dag, why doesn’t anyone have the vision, the moxie, nee the courage to enlist a Stepford-esque soprano to sing demeaning product stories like this anymore?
Probably because we no longer drink at lunch. Anyway, enjoy…
All I can say is, “WOW!” This spot is one solid minute of something so wrong it’s right. (A minute–I can count on one hand the number of times in my career I did a broadcast :60.) However, I don’t know how you could gloss over the moment at the end when Mrs. Mindsticker meets her just-home-from-the-office hubby (they were married, right?) halfway down the stairs and then hangs a U-turn to walk back up with him, presumably to retreat to the bedroom for a closer inspection of her synapse-searing form. Again, “WOW!”
Who wouldn’t want to be a “Mind Sticker”??? Wish they still sold this stuff…might help me get my beach body 09!