electronicalifornia

Another funny commercial. This time for weetabix, what seems to appear to be some sort of cereal tablets created for morning consumption.

http://www.boardsmag.com/screeningroom/commercials/1748/

It is actually very well done as well as funny.

It also brings to mind a interesting point. British food products seem to have really bad names.

Lets take weetabix. I immediately think of dog treats. Dog treats have names that include something natural and something unnatural. This hybrid usually has a comic effect, however this comic effect if used as a joke at a party of intelligent aristocrats located in loft somewhere in a city with a million plus population, it would recieve a snide remark such as “how clever” or “thats very whitty, Peter” usually accompanied by a simultaneous widening of the eyes and a mocking smile sent to someone else in the social circle. I will re-enact the scene.

Snob 1: My puggy wuggy loves caviar. Oh and he just wont eat any kind. We were once on a trip and he was hungry and so we just picked him up some at the local market. You should have seen the fuss he made. So we had our favorite overnighted from europe.

Snob 2: That is because you purchased a pug and not a bichon like I told you to.

Peter (cutting in): Our lab mix likes to eat bacon. When we are cooking it, he just sits there and begs for it. We always like to say he wants…beggin strips.

Snob 1: How clever

Snob 2: Thats very whitty Peter.

The example used above uses the product beggin strips. Beggin is something unnatural while the strips part is something natural. The same principal applies to weetabix.

The reason this formula is important is because weetabix is not dog food, its a breakfest cereal (for all I can tell). This brings up the importance of word association. Weeta obviously reminds me of wheat and bix makes me think of some sort of highly toxic toilet bowl cleaner solvent (see natural and unnatural).

The question I know many are asking is why would they make this mistake in naming their product?

They obviously have never played the dictionary game (also known as boulderdash). The Jesse Inman Guide to the dictionary game says, word association is the most important tactic for exacting the desired response from your fellow players or in this case your captive audience. Word association slips past the concious mind into the inner-workings of the brain. In this case, the player or audience member fails to posses intelligent thought about the words being said, they instead associate them with other words in their brain and choose a response based simply on a very complex form of the matching game. NOTE: This does not apply to visual aesthetics. Wearing a blouse that has zebra, tiger or cheetah print on it, does not make anyone believe you are exotic or have traveled the world (hence you are rich).

The british are not the only the guilty party, they are simply worse than we are. They are american products that also suffer from an identity problem. Take a certain colorful childrens candy tablet. Skittles could just as easily be a disease contracted by being bitten by an infected animal. To illustrate this, I give you another scene.

Davey: Hey Sammy, whats wrong? You look sick.

Sammy: My dog Bruno started foaming at the mouth and then I went up to him to see what was wrong and he bit me. My dad told me we had to shoot him cause he had skittles and now I have it too.

Davey: Sorry sammy. Would you like one of my rabies?

Sammy: Sure, purple is my favorite.