If You Have To Explain Yourself, Then You Are Wasting My Time

The silver lining of the entire family having colds this weekend is we haven't had much energy to keep us off the couch.  Luckily a slew of good NFL football kept us entertained.  Since almost all the TV I watch any more is TIVOd, it's rare for me to absorb so many commercials over and over again.

And two series that stand out as horrible are the new Gatoraid "What is G?" and Bud's "Drinkability" series.  Both do the exact same thing - Take :30 seconds to define something that didn't exist before, and no one cares about.  

First, Bud IS beer in America.  Their sales numbers prove it.  It has nothing to do with Drinkability, whatever that means.  It has to do with nostalgia, habit, price, and availability.  None of those have anything to do with taste.  And they certainly have nothing to do with a made up word.  

The Gatoraid ad is even more perplexing, considering they define the mythical G, but don't bother to even mention their product.  Again, saying that your are a bunch of stuff does not mean you ARE that.  And Gatoraid already is an amazing brand.  When you work up a big sweat, don't you just crave Gatoraid to help you re-hydrate?  It's an amazingly successful product at doing what it says it will.  Why not spend your money reminding of your greatness rather than making up a new reality?

At some point, you run out of resources to keep defining what doesn't need to be defined.  These campaigns  have no legs, and will be gone as quickly as the Carolina Panthers yesterday.