Commercials of merit have their own narrative arcs, where action, tension, and resolution all come together in 60 seconds or less to inform and entertain the viewer.
COVID-19 has its own narrative arc, and in the following BK spot, the COVID story winds its way to a logical, but contrived conclusion.
https://youtu.be/ARS78eTBia8
My take: If you’re a pandemic survivor, you deserve a flame-broiled burger, not a plant-based alternative.
May You Have A Cooler Full of Hard Seltzer—Yeah Bouy
In this next spot for High Noon—yet another hard seltzer in an already crowded category—a Hemingway-looking character extolls the virtues of life from behind the cash register.
It makes me wonder, is this what happens to you when you go around extolling life’s virtues? Do you end up working as a cashier in a beach town?
https://youtu.be/LpD0cYWRmpk
Diet Coke Has the Rhythm
Now, let’s move to Diet Coke. Just because.
I like the Diet Coke spot. Diet Coke doesn’t dwell in the past or even reference the pain of the pandemic. Diet Coke charges forward into the place where personal freedoms and expressions of individuality have been missing.
House parties and haircuts have been missing. Doing things “just for the fun of it” has been missing.
Diet Coke is right to celebrate the little things that are actually big things.