Ok, things just got a little creepier.
I first noticed the repeating ads in July, and apparently now things have taken an extra turn – with (fake) potatoes growing from the ceiling in a nearby CTA tunnel. More info here (thanks for the heads-up, Jane).
They’re spending an awful lot of money to relay information that doesn’t seem all that relevant to me, as a consumer. It’s the equivalent of a company putting up posters saying “We employ 3,529 people.”
My reaction is: “Uh, that’s… that’s great.”
Also – in going back and forth through the repeating ad tunnel for a while now, I’ve realized what makes it so creepy. It’s repetition WITHOUT variation. If you pass by, say, a group of kids wearing a school uniform or see military personnel in a parade… there’s still a bit of variation with each individual. The faces are different, the people themselves will have different hair color, skin color, weight and height.
Seeing these ads int the tunnel is a bit like walking by an army of clones. It’s eerie and a little unnatural that everything is exactly the same.
My friend Mellzah got it right when she compared it to walking around in a first person shooter, where the money ran out when it came time to design the environment.
i read a related article.. not sure where.. but saying how all these big huge brands are trying to say they’re local or organic or whatever because that is what is supposedly cool right now. buying local and organic. i wonder too if they’re trying to remind people that potato chips are made from.. gasp!… potatoes! local potatoes! buy lays!
I can see that, but it just seems like SO much money to spend on that message. I’m just confused as to the why behind all of it.When I think of potato chips, I think of comfort foods and not necessarily local, organic, healthy. I can potentially see the benefits of changing the customer mindset, but that move seems to deviate from how the core customers view the product (as a snack, or an indulgence or a comfort food).Hostess could spend a lot of money telling me that their cream filling comes from local dairy, but at the end of the day it doesn’t make their Ding Dongs any healthier.And? Repeating ads still very creepy.
Agreed that it seems like a weirdly incongruous message: hey, our junk food comes from local farms! What I think is even weirder about this second installment is that the potatoes are growing out of the SUBWAY. GROSS!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t think of a much more off-putting place in which to suggest they grow ‚Äì maybe in the ceilings of a sewage treatment plant?1. When someone is actually paying attention to where their food is grown, chances are they are informed and equally conscientious of what type of soil it is (i.e. not laced with lead and decades of industrial chemicals, as it presumably would be anywhere in and around a CTA station).2. When I imagine fresh delicious snack food, a piss-smelling subway tunnel is not part of that picture in any way whatsoever.This is truly the weirdest ad campaign ever.
total greenwashing. playing off local food trend to buck the (entirely accurate!) image that their chips are unnatural, yet conveying no actual information about where the potatoes are grown. (writing “Our potatoes are grown here in Illinois.” would be marginally better. marginally.) trying to make it go viral, yet unintentionally exploiting the uncanny valley.this campaign probably couldn’t be worse if it tried to be.