When I lived in San Francisco, friends of mine used to talk
about Peet’s Coffee, and how it’s so strong, it has support groups, etc. I’ve
also heard it said that it will “wake the dead”. So I thought it might be fun
to have a (joke) ad campaign using this “wake the dead” idea. So here are a few
of possibilities for Peet’s “wake the dead” ads:
A Frankenstein-style mad scientists has a Frankenstein-type
monster (made of dead bodies) on a gurney, ready to be reanimated. He takes a
large cup of Peet’s coffee, and he attaches it to the top of one of those IV
drip stands so that the coffee flows through the tube and into the creature.
The creature wakes up, and the mad scientist laughs maniacally. The announcer
says: “Peet’s Coffee: Strong enough to wake the dead!”
A couple walks through a cemetery. The man accidentally
drops and spills his Peet’s coffee as they walk amongst the headstones. As he
bends down to pick his cup up off the ground, a corpse digs its way up out of
the ground, and says: “Thanks! That’s just what I needed.” The couple help the
dead man out of the ground, he shakes the dirt off of his suit, and goes off on
his merry way. The announcer says: “Peet’s Coffee: Strong enough to wake the
dead!”
A corpse lies on a dissection table in the morgue, and the
coroner accidentally spills a drop of his Peet’s coffee into the dead man’s
mouth. The dead man wakes up and says: “Hey, is that Peet’s coffee? Delicious!
Mind if I have a cup? I’m like a zombie without my coffee.” Then the announcer
says: “Peet’s Coffee: Strong enough to wake the dead!”
Then Peet’s Coffee could sponsor the show The Walking
Dead on AMC, and they could say: “The
Walking Dead, brought to you by Peet’s
Coffee: The coffee that’s strong enough to wake the dead.” Of course, if they
made ads like this, their competition could make ads with all the most heinous
and gory parts of the cannibal zombie movie genre and say: “See all this
carnage? Peet’s Coffee is responsible for the zombie apocalypse and its wanton
disregard for human life! Oh the humanity! That’s why you should drink
(whatever brand of coffee) instead! It wakes you up without waking the dead who then attack and eat the flesh
off of your still-living body.” But then I suppose Peet’s could run rebuttal
ads claiming that the dead are misunderstood and unfairly prejudged due to
cynical horror movies which exploit them for profit, and that they’re just
acting in those movies, but in real life after death, they’re really nice
people.
