Gotta Love Suave Shampoo

As a balding man with his hair cut short, I try to spend as little as possible on shampoo. I buy Suave for men, and recently stumbled over this bit of copy on the back of the bottle:

"The right tool to clean and condition -- for less than the more expensive brands."

Wow! Really?

MMMM Grossty!

The late Dave Thomas used to get a lot of criticism among advertising critics for his bland "Old Fayshen'd Guy" persona during Wendy's commercials. Dave laughed his way through dozens of successful promotions and proved that the critics were wrong.

Unfortunately, it seems as though advertising agencys have yet to learn the secret of Dave's success, which is, quite simply, let the food sell itself. When you see a new sandwich that looks good, you want to try it.

Recent ad campaigns for Quiznos and Dairy Queen violate the Crutnacker's #1 rule for fast food advertising, "Don't pair food with disturbing imagery." Quiznos has been doing this for years, by shooting people with tranquilizers, having obnoxious singing rodentlike characters, showing a wolf nursing a grown man, and now, using the ultra creepy Baby Bob to promote their food. The computer generated/enhanced talking baby (first used in internet ads a few years ago), is just all wrong, with an oversized head and that Stepford baby look. The ads aren't funny, the odd looking child overshadows the product shot, and the message that Quizno's Subs are good gets lost somewhere.

Even worse is Dairy Queen's latest burger ads, which show that their burgers are so big, you better get a spare hand, because you'll need two to eat them. Several people are shown eating the burgers, using a fake hand to perform their tasks, including giving a baby a bottle (and spilling it all over the baby), frisking a suspect , and giving a guy a hernia exam. Nothing spells "Mmmm, delicious burger" like a shot of a doctor squeezing a guys crotch or seeing a small child getting covered in formula because his dad's too hungry to pay attention to him.

What ad agencies need to realize is that people who see food ads need to walk away from them WANTING to eat. No amount of humor in a commercial is going to make someone rush out and order the latest Burger Au Gratin if the imagery or idea of the commercial makes you lose your appetite.

So, if you're out there doing a Quizno's ad, do me a favor: show me the sandwich. Show me someone eating it and enjoying it. (But please, don't show me someone making a pig out of themselves while eating it). If your chicken is finger licking good, don't show me some one giving their fingers a tongue bath. I should come away from a food commercial wanting to eat, not wanting to barf.

As the Super Bowl draws near, Budweiser pulled a great PR move by drawing attention to its own "controversial" Super Bowl advertisement. The ad, which can be viewed here, is a funny spoof of the whole Janet Jackson incident, in which a stagehand, while taking care of things backstage, decides to open up his bottle on a costume he finds, and manages to rip one half of the top of the outfit.

I'm not sure what is worse, the ridiculous controversy over the incident, or the fact that in the year following, advertisers and programmers are afraid of ANYTHING that might draw the ire of the FCC.

Still, through the magic of the Internet, and a lot of free publicity, we can watch this funny spot.

Rating -- 3 1/2 Potato Chips Out of 5