Don't call it a comeback! God, I hate when people say that...and I therefore hate myself for letting that creep into my mind. When is that gonna die? The song is 20+ years old (no seriously, look it up) and people still routinely use it in reference to something that could undoubtedly be considered a comeback. 37 (Yes, I counted) people on Twitter have said "don't call it a comeback" today, most of which are in reference to the New York Rangers being down 3-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals against the New Jersey Devils. If the Rangers do come back to win the series, it is not only unequivocally a comeback in every sense of the word but it will also be considered a comeback too. So really, let's just put an end to this as it should have exited the lexicon about 18 years ago. Are people actually going to be saying YOLO in 20 years?
Shit, this is my commercial blog isn't it? Sorry guys, that escalated quickly. Let's get back on track. I guess I'm getting back to work on this blog for the time being mostly because I'm sick of my friends ribbing me about how they "used to know this one friend who had a blog about commercials" every time I mention something about a commercial. While I'm pretty sure they were saying that just to annoy me and weren't in fact clamoring for the return of the blog I'm going to do it anyways just so they can shut up.
By now you've probably already stopped reading either because you don't give a crap about my thoughts on LL Cool J lyrics from the early 90's or you see that I've got an older DiGiorno commercial queued up here. I know, I know, this is a complete softball of a commercial to critique. But hey, I've been out of the game for a few months I need to warm up a little. I just spent the last 5 minutes trying to think of a middling professional athlete who made an unceremonious comeback to compare myself to, but drew a blank. (If anyone thinks of one we can edit it in later.) Basically it's like if Mark Madsen inexplicably came out of retirement in hopes of making an NBA roster. Like me, he would need some time in the D(igiorno)-League too. So here we are.
Before we go any further, I just want to marvel at the fact that this clip was uploaded to Youtube as "Pizza_Man.wmv." If I had to bet my life I would have said it was 3 minute porn clip that some kid downloaded on Limewire in 2002. Moving on...you've probably seen this commercial before as it's pretty old. Why this commercial has been airing for over a year I don't know. Actually I do know why: DIGIORNO HAS NOT HAD A NEW IDEA FOR A COMMERCIAL FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER! It's always: someone sees/eats pizza and asks if it's delivery (or confuses it with delivery), which everyone agrees would never happen. This is probably true on premise alone--even if they DID confuse the pizza with pizza from a delivery chain no one would never say "is this delivery?" They would say "hey where did you get this pizza from?" And not *all* Americans are so lazy they need to have their pizza delivered...WHAT ABOUT CARRY-OUT DIGIORNO? There are a lot of great specials that are carry-out only, you guys. Basically what I'm trying to say that Digiorno has been beating a dead horse (or in Geico's case, a dead pig) into the ground for years now with an idea that never really worked anyways. It's an ad campaign that was baked in the oven for about 15 minutes at 350).
So on to this particular commercial. It's really got it all in terms of terrible ideas:
1.The kid disguising the box with duct tape(I'm sure that will do the trick...especially when the guy answers the door and the one part of the box you can see is the part that still says "Digiorno" on it. They did, however, fix this at the 18 second mark but just didn't care enough to fix it at the beginning I guess)
2. Cheap attempt at comedy with awkward white kid dancing with the black guys.
3. No one apparently finds it odd that this huge party only had one pizza delivered.
4. Oh hey! Nerdy kid hitting on chick out of his league! What a gag!
I'd like to take this opportunity to say that as far as frozen pizzas go, Digiorno is the Rolls Royce of frozen pizzas. I used to buy it on occasion in college and share it with my roomate. My roommate in turn would buy mediocre Red Baron and share it with me because he is a cheap son of a bitch. While I enjoy Digiorno I don't think I'd ever confuse it with Domino's or Papa John's. But hey, I've always had Digiorno knowing it came out of my freezer so maybe I've never had the chance to see the placebo effect at work.
I just hate ads like this where they have to show a hyper-fictionalized story to demonstrate the value of their product. If DiGiorno really believes in their pizza why don't they do some blind taste tests and give us the results? I, for one, would be impressed if 5 out of 10 people mistook DiGiorno for pizza from a major chain. I guess to the common eye 5 out of 10 would be wildly unimpressive though so they'll never do it...But I'm done with you yet DiGiorno! Here is what you do in lieu of a simple blind taste test setup in the mall or whatever: go to a suburban area and open up a pizza place. Spread the word about this place and deliver pizzas for the price of the standard DiGiorno pizza you can get at the grocery for $5. Survey the customers and see what they think. I suspect that people would say the pizza was pretty good and that they would have it again--if real people ate the pizza on the assumption that it was delivery pizza I think they would say it was passable as a delivery pizza. But if you give me a Digiorno and ask me if it's as good as delivery I'm saying no. If I could see real people mistaking Digiorno for delivery I would think the commercials were a lot more effective than seeing a rogue "pizza man" crashing a party with someone he pulled out of his oven at home. Is this plan fairly elaborate? Yes. Doable? Absolutely. So please, DiGiorno, actually put your pizza up to the test of scrap this campaign entirely.
