Ad Nauseum: Cliff Paul, Hyundai Block Bullies, and Dr. Pepper Mountain Man

A few weeks ago, the Speed Stick Haircut Guy got a blog post all of his own. Let’s take a look at some more TV ads that have been burned into my brain (for better or for worse) lately…

Anyone who has watched any ESPN lately has seen the State Farm Cliff Paul commercials so many times by now that you almost want to just start calling him Cliff Paul in real life (ala Magic Johnson on ESPN’s NBA studio show). On the one hand, you have to like seeing CP3 sporting a porn star mustache, giant bifocals, and an argyle sweater. On the other hand, if you see these spots enough, for some reason you start to develop the inclination to punch Urkel-Chris Paul squarely in the jaw. As long as Paul keeps nailing postseason buzzer beaters though, he can make whatever kind of commercials he likes.

It’s hard to strike the perfect combination of cute, bada**, and funny, but Hyundai comes pretty close with their latest ad for their crossover, the Sante Fe. The imagery is just so good: a wronged kid and his p***ed off mom; the brothers doing curls and benching 450 in their driveway; the kid doing some serious welding; the kid wrestling a bear; the kid saving a guy 3 times his size from a burning building; the assembled team finishing the block bullies’ sentence at the end. It’s all great, and it shows that for a commercial to be good it almost has to be envisioned and developed like a little mini-movie. The only problem is that you almost immediately forget what the commercial is for in this case, but on an entertainment level alone I give it a 4.5/5.

Dr. Pepper started airing ads for their low-cal version, Dr. Pepper 10, several months ago in an attempt to appeal to men. The action hero and fantasy football wide receiver versions were aiight yet kind of weak at the same time. The different variations of the Dr. Pepper 10 Mountain Man crack me up every time though. A cross between Al Borland, Marty Stouffer from “Wild America,” and Chuck Norris, Mountain Man doesn’t need the technologies of the modern world. Mountain Man speaks the language of the forest animals, can carve out a canoe using his bare hands, and snacks on tree bark. Oh, and he has a sweet, sweet beard to boot. If Dr. Pepper 10 is good enough for this guy, it’s good enough for me…bold flavor indeed.