Food Theory: The Candy Commercials That HAUNT Your Brain!

[Music] oh hello internet and welcome to food theory the show that loves berries and cram [Music] hello internet welcome well you get it little lad already kind of stole my line there at the beginning yes friends today we're talking about everyone's favorite starburst commercial turned tick-tock phenomenon berries and cream pardon me what kind of starburst did you just say oh berries berries berries and what else and cream berries and cream oh hurrah that isn't cream berries and cream all the little lettuce buddies and cream now admittedly when this commercial hit the american airwaves back in 2007 it didn't exactly resonate with the critics but the general public latched down to little lad in a big way the spot gained over 9 million views in the first 18 months on this newfangled website at the time called youtube granted 9 million views might not seem like a lot by today's standards but you have to understand a decade and a half ago they would write articles about videos that went that viral for my money though the commercial's most impressive achievement was giving teenage boys everywhere something else to quote other than borat so that was very nice anyway the years passed berries and cream starburst were discontinued and little lads gleeful song and dance became a distant memory until this year when hoops mcelroy posted little lads dance tutorial on tick tock the octave go for it berries and cream berries and cream i'm a little out of love berries and cream easy peasy the internet did its thing and now the berries and cream hashtag has hundreds of millions of views and it's only gaining steam 14 years after the character's debut our little lad is once again enjoying a moment in the sun now starbursts berries and cream ad wasn't the first bizarrely memorable commercial and it definitely wasn't the last for decades advertisers have been coming up with quirky food and drink ads that appeal or at least attempt to appeal to young consumers a few that are forever seared in my mind for better or worse are quizno's sponge monkeys [Music] then there's emerald nuts robert goulet commercial which is a classic even if you don't know who robert goulet is the natural energy in just one handful of emerald nuts is enough to keep robert goulet away oh and uh if any of you have home remedies for scrubbing the puppy baby monkey from my mind i am all ears please give me all the bleach and even though in today's episode we'll be focusing on american commercials i'd be remiss if i didn't point out that there are also some international spots that go way more bizarre than anything that were served stateside [Music] so yeah have fun sleeping tonight after that one everybody but what i want to know is why do these commercials work is there a psychological explanation as to why so many brands embrace intentional quirkiness and why is it happening today like why didn't i love lucy commercial breaks feature the likes of little ad or the sponge monkeys or whatever this is [Music] and even though i'm afraid of what the answer might be i'm still gonna go ahead and ask the question anyway now that advertisers have taken these things to outrageously absurd heights where do you go from here like if advertisers are forced to one-up mentos nipple guy then what the heck are the commercials of tomorrow gonna look like so hold on to your seats theorists unless of course that would cause your seat to turn into skittles cause today we're diving into the weird wacky world of advertising that's right friends this type of commercial has become so prevalent that a term was coined to describe it hallmarks of advertising include deadpan deliveries hairy pomegranate meow do i just squirt a little or you can squirt a lot and characters behaving as though their alternate reality is normal so we brought you some sweet zero calorie treats called diet dr pepper that is sweet the sweet defying gravity is that a little sweet it's difficult to pin down the exact moment advertising arrived but many feel it really started to crystallize during the dot-com era of the late late 90s this man right here is my great grandfather he's the first cat herder in our family herding cats don't let anybody tell you it's easy granted a commercial about herding cats may not seem all that groundbreaking to us today but then again we've all been subjected to the advertising formula for more than two decades you gotta consider where it all started just look at the wholesome way that starburst candy was presented back in the 70s starburst fruit juice a burst of refreshing fruit flavor for you tastes like mouth-watering orange lips bit of a different vibe than little lad am i right and the earliest skittle ads featured animated children dancing around discussing how delicious the candy tasted back then there was nary a skittles eyebrow to be seen and check out burger king's mascot from the 70s he did magic he sang he loved kids a far cry from the creepy silent version who randomly appears in people's beds so obviously something changed in the world of junk food marketing but what well for one thing the brand started targeting older audiences in the year 2000 the simmons market research bureau identified the 18 to 24 demographic as the biggest consumer of candy perhaps because marketing junk food to kids on tv back in the 80s was left completely unregulated in the u.s helping to turn those kids into candy lovers for life as a result junk food brands were aging up their marketing right around the same time that american comedy was undergoing a transition of its own in 80s and 90s multicam sitcoms with live audiences were in vogue and big broad comedic choices were the measure of the day and advertisers followed suit in their own content by punctuating their humorous ads with big laugh out loud punch lines well mr miller told me he never drinks milk look at him and as a child of the 90s can i just add a quick side note here tv commercials were huge back then we didn't have memes so we just kind of had to quote a lot of tv shows movies and commercials that other people had seen like the 90s had ad campaigns with so much cultural significance that kids literally wore them on their t-shirts to school [Music] that is not a joke by the way nine-year-olds in my class wore baggy t-shirts promoting alcohol commercials this was an everyday occurrence i had to work a yokiro taco bell shirt in my rotation just to pretend to be relevant ah the 90s i guess he had to be there anyway then the new millennium came around and that's when high-def television began creeping into houses those extra pixels allowed for smaller more subtle comedic choices to be communicated to the audience than ever before in the us television comedy gravitated towards single cam shows featuring humor that was often a lot more meta and grounded and again advertising followed suit remember when that guy lost his arms in that got milk ad in the 90s well here's how characters in the commercial react to that sort of stuff a decade later hey can i discover and of course the internet also rose to prominence around this time which made it harder for ads to get noticed like a lot harder back in the 70s a typical american encountered hundreds of advertisements a day today that number is in the thousands ads are on our social media feeds mobile games heck you probably got served an ad or two before this youtube video today advertising has crept onto everything nba jerseys gas station pumps the tops of taxi cabs inside of taxi cabs the beach i mean not to go all grumpy old man matpat on you but even my navigation apps have started telling me to do things like turn left after the burger king when you pass the mcdonald's so how do advertisers overcome this if they're products in a highly competitive category like junk food or auto insurance it's so easy to use geico.com a caveman could do it what oh no i'm not cool or personal hygiene i'm on a horse [Music] what's an advertiser gonna do to stand out they do something unique they do something off the beaten path they do something odd according to purse setterberg a professor of psychology at the ohio state university memories that stick with us our entire lives tend to be familiar events but with a twist quote you have to build a memory on the scaffolding of what you already know but then you have to violate the expectation somewhat it has to be a little weird and that of course is exactly what advertising strives to achieve the basic scenario is usually one that's familiar to the target audience hanging out in an apartment waiting at a bus stop eating lunch in the break room but the ad becomes memorable when one thing gets twisted to the point of absurdity like say a puppy baby monkey or a briefcase toting lad dressed as though he's from the 1600s or a pinata co-worker what did you think was going to happen stephen did you think you were going to hit me with that bat and little chocolatey candies would come pouring out yes i'm just like everyone else studies have shown that people retain information more effectively when the info is paired with humor so there's a definite method to the madness by being funny and weird advertisers are delivering a memorable message that consumers will notice granted it is a difficult line to tow how weird is too weird well we should probably be asking quiznos whose sponge monkey commercials earned them the top spot on business insider's list of the 10 worst ad campaigns of all time this campaign might have had a chance if it came out a few years later but they put this out before youtube was even around they'd waited a bit longer also pulled back on the insane cringe just a smidge they feasibly could have followed in little lads tiny footsteps and popped off for a couple hundred million organic views on social media in our recent food theory on the chicken sandwich wars we discussed how a single clap back tweet by the fast food chain popeyes earned them over 20 billion impressions on twitter worth an estimated 220 million dollars not bad for two words and an ad spend of zero dollars so social media can indeed offer a huge boost to a campaign if you're one of the lucky few so obviously starburst must be ecstatic about the resurgence of little lad right tick tock ads started around 10 cpm which translates to millions of dollars worth of brand exposure from the tick tock hashtag berries and cream alone so let's head on over to starburst's official tik-tok account to see how they're capitalizing off of this once in a lifetime windfall and uh oh they have not they they've done nothing with this no sign of the bears and cream hashtag no nothing and to be fair berries and cream is a discontinued product but also feel like a lot of tick-tockers might not understand that little lad is a starburst creation the little lead clips that have been getting passed around the app don't mention her show starburst at all which you know totally fine but starburst this is your campaign claim your space be a master of your domain don't know what to do well look no further than jack fervor who played little lad or should i say plays little lad because unlike starburst jack is absolutely seizing this moment in time when the berries and cream trend made landfall little lads sprung into action and immediately started an account i mean why not there's the catchy little song a short little dance little lad was made for tick uh hello tick-tock are you ready for baddies and cram i'm going to go out and try and make a new friend to sing the better than cream song with making a new friend should be easy peasy and little lad's been keeping busy ever since collaborating with popular tick tockers even making cameos on ridiculously awesome food channels here on youtube by the way did you know that little lad started a youtube channel and encourage you all to swing by and mention that food theory sent you use the comment theories and cream theories and cream i'm a little lad who loves theories and cream and this is i think a really interesting point about where advertising's headed when we look back at the best commercials from the 2020s and 2030s we probably won't be discussing television commercials anymore a recent survey by common sense revealed that 53 percent of teens and 59 percent of tweens watch youtube the most and just a couple weeks ago tick tock overtook youtube for the average watch time in the us and uk so any brands that want to reach younger demographics are going to have to evolve because ad blocks the thing plus nobody wants to watch a 30 second ad just to get at a 15 second tick tock well not usually anyway there are some exceptions that are well worth the wait now get a bucket and a mob that's the point is standalone ads just don't hit like they used to not when consumers have been bombarded with thousands of ads every single day of their lives today 90 of people skip pre-roll ads and try to avoid sources where pre-roll ads are unskippable that means that brands who want to be seen need to integrate themselves into the actual content babe act like me before you got me this okay switch response hey babe no food first then you talk and as influencer marketing takes over advertising is gonna get replaced not by some new type of humor or formula but by a variety of different types of humor and formulas presented in the influencers own voices influencer marketing isn't exactly a new concept but with television going the way of the dinosaur its moment has truly and officially arrived that's right friends you've seen advertising you've seen advertising now brace yourself for advertising but hey those are just theories theories and cream fairy and cream fairy and cream i'm a little out of lipstick and cream [Music] thanks again to the little ad for dropping by and a huge thank you to our sponsor of today's episode hellofresh based on everything we learned today i feel like for this next bit i should really do something odd that stands out and sticks in your mind sponge pad anyone eat hello fresh eat his toasty maybe i'll add little lads briefcase in there and uh how about puppy sponge monkey lad patch am i doing this right is this humorous to a contemporary audience well i'll tell you what isn't a joke the convenience of having hello fresh meal kits delivered straight to my doorstep each week when you're juggling four youtube channels and a three-year-old routine is essential and recently i've started ordering a larger box each week so i have leftovers for lunch the next day i'll admit it in the past i've had fast food for lunch a bit more often than i probably should because it's so easy but it turns out having hello fresh for lunch is easier and healthier and saves time and money there are so many different meals too we've been enjoying hellofresh for the better part of a year now and every time we get a new box delivered there's something new and different to try inside i am happy to report though that their garlic bread which is already perfect in every way has not changed and is still as delicious as the first ever box we received so here you go theorists go to hellofresh.com and use the code food theory 14 to get yourself 14 free meals and free shipping that is 14 free meals of food delivered straight to your door at no cost to you not even to get the box there in case you're the type of person who responds better to puppy sponge monkey lad pat that's 14 free meals plus free shipping just use the code food theory 14 at hellofresh.com as always we here at food theory appreciate your viewership we appreciate hellofresh for making this episode possible and until next time friends bon appetit

Channel: The Food Theorists

Views: 1,536,968

Rating: 4.9458122 out of 5

Keywords: berries and cream tiktok, little lad tiktok, tiktok, weird commercials, scary commercials, disturbing commercials, burger king, burger king commercial, berries and cream commercial, puppy monkey baby, oddvertising, quiznos, quiznos spongmonkey, mentos commercial, budweiser frog, budweiser commercial, starburst, starburst commercial, food theorists, food theory, matpat, film theory, game theory, eat the menu, berries, cream

Id: wmbWHdOdH0Q

Length: 15min 24sec (924 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021

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