Ad Nauseum: Red Robin's Commercials Have Been Getting It Done

Red Robin has long been considered the underdog of family American chain restaurants. While it doesn't have half-price appetizers, a section of the menu where everything is smothered in Jack Daniel's BBQ sauce, or a bloomin' onion, it does have something the others don't: a banging selection of burgers. What else? Goofily funny TV spots over the past year or so.

Realistically, commercials only have between 15-20 seconds to try to coax a laugh out of the audience. The easiest way is to employ some kind of bait-and-switch trick where we don't see what's coming at all...a la Red Robin's fugitive commercial. In all honesty, it's stupid funny, but I can't help but laugh at the lummox of a fugitive getting caught in the way he does...like if the CIA could have found Bin Laden with a simple game of Marco Polo.

In this 2nd spot, Red Robin employs that same general idea of the out-o'-nowhere laugh. Booyah is one of those things that got mainstream and overused so quickly (thanks, Stuart Scott) that it almost immediately signifies what kind of d-bag the person is that says it...unless that person is an innocent looking, unassuming, soccer-mom type, in which case it works pretty well if you ask me.