While watching the Oscars last night, I saw a commercial for the Cadillac SRX Crossfire. It was a pretty cool commercial featuring a beautiful mother, a handsome father, three adorable children, and their nanny. The perfect family. It was stylishly shot with great special effects. The first half of the commercial took place in a kitchen larger than my entire house, while the second half took place in the Caddy.
The music featured in the commercial was The Sunnyside Of The Street by The Pogues which, truth be told, was the only reason I paid any attention to the ad. For most of the commercial, only the intro of the song was played.
Towards the end, the lyrics kicked in. I wasn't really expecting to hear lyrics. Especially these lyrics:
So I saw the train and I got on it
With a heart full of hate and a lust for vomit
Now I'm walking on the sunnyside of the street
The hell? They didn't want to use the "Stepped over bodies in Bombay" or "As my mother wept it was then I swore to take my life as I would a whore" lines instead? Personally, I would've went with the following lyrics:
I know I'm better than before
I will not be reconstructed
Just wanna stay right here on the sunnyside of the street
Much more positive and truer to the image I believe they were hoping to convey. But they decided to go with "heart full of hate and lust for vomit" instead. Now I'm no marketing genius whatsoever nor do I pretend to be. But I would think one would try to shy away from using negative connotations in advertising.
Like the word hate. Because you can't really get much more negative than hate. It's probably not a great idea to use the word hate in your jingle unless you're outright dissing your competitor (like Coke saying, "I hate Pepsi.").
And even worse than hate, the Sunnyside lyric they chose also mentions the word vomit. It might just be me, but hearing the word vomit in a car commercial leaves me with a queasy feeling in my stomach. It's probably not a great idea to use the word vomit in your jingle unless you're outright dissing your competitor (like Pepsi saying, "Coke tastes like vomit.").
And if I was trying to sell a car, I definitely wouldn't use a song where the protagonist spends his time walking or traveling on a train.
So what exactly where they trying to accomplish by using Sunnyside? Maybe they were just hoping the viewer wouldn't be able to understand Shane MacGowan's slurred speech until it got to the "Now I'm walking on the sunnyside of the street" part.
Or maybe they were just trying to market their vehicle to those e-v-i-l upper middle class, Alternadad readin', indie rock listenin', Rebecca Woolf lovin', ironic t-shirt wearin', Babble.com surfin', Bugaboo pushin', babies-in-Ramones-onesies birthin', cocktail playdate hostin', gourmet coffee slurpin' hipster parents the press loves to crucify so much nowadays.
But like I said, I'm no marketing genius.
Song of the day: Common People by Pulp
