Blackberries and Centrum

So I’m a few days behind, but I just found out about this commercial by Tom Hiddleston for Centrum. The kicker is that the commercial targets a Chinese audience/market, and is meant to be seen from the point of view of his… girlfriend?

Hard to explain. Easier if I just show you:

While most of us in the US are puzzled by this commercial, it apparently has done well with Chinese audiences.

While this is all fascinating in terms of marketing campaigns, and cultural differences when selling products… the thing I really wanted to share was this video that Phil Wang made, in response to the advertisement.

I swear to you – it’s been a long, long while since I’ve laughed this hard at anything from the Internet. I’m talking honest to goodness tears laughter here. I apparently was quite tickled by this:

This was so weird … pic.twitter.com/92nMweuVly

— Phil Wang (@PhilNWang) March 30, 2019

I’m in awe at how fast some things seem to travel. I found out about this ad (and its response) at roughly the same time.

I’m remembering how, maybe 10+ years ago, I came across videos of famous actors and actresses doing overseas commercials. This might even have been pre-YouTube? At the time, it was a huge novelty – something most of us in the West had never seen before.

It was a fairly common thing, but no one in the States ever got to see those commercials. As videos became a more common thing online, those videos started showing up more and more.

Seeing both this commercial and Wang’s response, it made me think back to an earlier era of the Internet. I remember laughing a lot more back then, as a result of seeing things online. I wonder what the difference is and how much of that difference is me, versus the Internet.

[via MetaFilter]

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