Monday, September 29, 2003 :::
 
Fuck Quiznos, and their horrible, repulsive TV ads.

First they did this thing where the Quiznos chef is so involved with making subs that he lets his pet parakeet die of starvation in its cage. Turns out this really pissed off a lot of bird enthusiasts, who complained to Quiznos. So, they changed the ad to depict slightly less specific violence- the chef's house blows up because he left the gas on. The parakeet people have a point, I guess... there's nothing funny about a pet starving to death.

So, you'd think the ad wizards Quiznos employs would learn from their mistake of risky advertising. You'd think wrong.

Seen the ad where two guys are sitting at a bus stop having a conversation, one of them is eating a Quiznos sub, then it cuts to a shot of him lying on the ground with his face buried in the belly of a large dog, apparently suckling the nipples of the beast? After this shot, we immediately are cut back to the guy, grinning with his sandwich.

What the FUCK? Is somebody deliberately trying to get fired? Why subject the viewing audience to this sudden and graphic depiction of bestiality, and then have the gall to cut back to a Quiznos sub? Whose been doing the reading about the early 20th century technique of Soviet montage, where the associations between edits say as much as the content of the shots themselves? There's no clearer way to say that Quiznos subs are like performing oral sex on a large canine than to do it with contrast cuts. Best part about this ad, though, is that AFTER the sudden and striking image of the man at the dog's belly, there is no explanation or rationalization for what we have just seen. The audience is struck dumb, horrified at what they have seen, and all that remains is a focus on a particular brand of sandwiches and eating animal muff.

I think Quiznos has now changed the ad- a bunch of puppies lick the guy's face instead of him getting hot with just one big dog, but still. What. The. Fuck.

Here's an essay that examines Kantian theory applied to Quiznos and their socially irresponsible marketing.

::: posted by Andrewski at 12:33 PM