Advertising: Friendly's Kids Speak Business
Don’t you love when ad critics flex their pen muscles? Barbara Lippert, Adweek’s advertising critic and editor at large, writes a column today that blisters Friendly’s new television ad.
What can go wrong with a kid that looks like the adorable kid in the Jerry McGuire movie you ask? Plenty, says Lippert.
Yup, it's morning again in this Friendly's spot, and a young Alex Keaton [think back to Family Ties of the early 1980s], complete with shirt and tie (loosely tied) and a cardboard "cell phone" on his belt, has created a marketing presentation to convince his mom, in his own words, that "A real meal can be a real value." Doesn't every 8-year-old child you know spontaneously speak the brief? - AdWeek
Lippert seems allergic to a contrived message that is rather unfriendly to Friendly’s customer base. Or, perhaps the ad critic has grown weary of endless advertising executive presentations, even when delivered in cute little packages.
She continues:
Speaking of the easel, this marketing-Twilight Zone kid has produced some adorable Venn diagrams in primary colors. In his carefully art-directed chicken-scratch, he has deduced that a trip to the home of the Fribble is where "Friendly's," "value" and "mom's happiness" intersect. My head is reeling from this kid's algebraic assessment of women's needs. (His li'l sis remains silent, however.) As another page of his presentation points out, it's "a match made in value." Whatever that means. These kids today and their crazy talk!
…. I know the economy is brutal, and that restaurants like Friendly's have been especially hard hit. So maybe this is so bad it's genius. Perhaps the grandparents of America will start feeling nostalgic for that fabled supply-side, "trickle-down" economy, and get the urge to pump it up by taking the kids to Friendly's for a sundae with sprinkles. Either that, or the kid next moves on to selling a Ponzi scheme.
I gather from the article that it isn’t easy producing a really good commercial, even when you have adorable kids, a droopy-eyed dog wearing a tie, and the topic is to go eat ice cream.
