For many years, it was deemed unacceptable to put horror characters or themes in product advertising. I had a bunch rejected over the years. They’d have to be super-friendly, cartoony and unthreatening to even be considered in the past (like Count Chocula, for example*). But more recently, due to the extreme popularity of vampires with young people (thanks to the Twilight series of books and movies), it has become more acceptable to use horror characters and themes in ads, even where they don’t belong. Like in a Bing ad, for instance. Perhaps Google would consider a vampire appropriate for an ad for Microsoft’s Bing search engine, because it’s allegedly vampirizing all their ideas and methodology, but for the rest of us, it doesn’t quite fit.
Anyway, I was just recently watching the Spanish horror film [REC], and it reminded me of an old ad I made up for a fast food chain (that was laughed out of the office in a few places). As some of you might know, [REC] is the original movie from which the American film Quarantine was made as a remake. It’s basically an infection-acquired zombification horror movie, a genre of which there are countless examples by now. Believe it or not, [REC] is probably the best one since Romero’s Day of the Dead. Remember 28 Days Later? Yeah, it’s the same idea, kinda, but a lot better (plus an indictment of Catholicism, as in so many recent Spanish horror movies). Oh, sorry, but back to this ad thing.
Yes, it strikes me that now that there are so many zombie movies and (can you believe it?) TV shows permeating the culture at every imaginable level, isn’t it about time we had some zombie ads? I’ve always thought so! So, here are a couple of mine from a few years ago:
McDonald’s:
A zombie hoard is ambling down the street threateningly towards the camera. (They’re not gross, gory zombies; just people acting like zombies with gray make-up on and stuff, limping down the street.) The announcer says: “Today the dead come back to life, and all they have to eat is you! ...Or, for just a buck they could get a delicious McDouble, McChicken, a Small Fries, or any number of treats from our delicious dollar value menu!” The zombies hear that, then turn to the right, and start ambling towards a McDonald’s just out of frame to that side, as the camera follows them going to the McDonald’s. Then the announcer says: “What would you choose?” And then the picture cuts to two zombies in a booth at McDonald’s eating a burger and fries with lots of ketchup dripping off of them. End. (< That was rejected by a few ad agencies a little while ago. But I’ll bet it would be very popular now!)
New Balance:
Over a black screen, the announcer says: “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.” There is a pause, then the announcer says: “So they’ll need comfortable shoes!” Then they show a pair of New Balance running shoes, and then they show a group of zombies strolling aimlessly around a wasteland that looks like the one at the end of the movie The Beyond (1981, Dir. Lucio Fulci). End. (< That was rejected too. I still think it’s good, though.)
* (But what they didn’t know about Count Chocula is that he was marketing sugared cereal to children so that he could earn their trust slowly and then attack them in their beds without suspicion! Kids would think he was just there to tell them a bed-time story, or perhaps to give them a sugary night-time treat, but then he would strike, drinking their blood, or even worse, draining it out into a bowl full of Count Chocula cereal so that he could eat it soaked in the blood of children! {BTW: Count Chocula stays crispy even in blood! Or so I hear from Count Chocula.})
