Marketers Are Idiots - Blue Bunny Edition

Blue Bunny ice cream is made by Wells Dairy in Le Mars, Iowa. I guess they're a pretty big company. They claim that more ice cream is made in Le Mars than anyplace else in the world. Great trivia answer should you ever be asked.

But their advertising is made - and approved by - idiots! I just saw a :30-second TV commercial running in prime time on a national network. It is so bad, I can't imagine the agency proposing it, much less a group of ice-cream marketers in Iowa approving it.

The setting is a TV game show like The Dating Game. I can't recall what they actually called it, but there is a young, attractive blond girl sitting on one side of a screen with a set of note cards in her hand. Typical '60s game show music is playing. She excitedly asks, "Contestant #1. Describe your perfect date."

Cut to a carton of ice cream sitting on a stool. Yes, a carton of ice cream. We hear a voice, presumably coming from the carton that says, "You, me and a spoon."

The girl seems intrigued. Apparently she has no idea that she is interviewing a carton of ice cream. So she asks another question. "Contestant #2, if you had to choose between good looks or great taste, which would it be?"

Cut to another carton of ice cream. We hear a voice in some strange foreign accent. "Fortunately, I don't have to!"

She smiles and continues. "Contestant #3. If you were ice cream, what flavor would you be?"

Another carton of ice cream and another voice. "You're kidding, right?"

At this point the girl just looks confused and the announcer chimes in with some drivel about ice cream that speaks for itself. Get it? The ice cream talks in the commercial, so it "speaks for itself!" Really clever, huh?

This is so lame I can't believe it. If you walked up to a 10-year-old on the street and asked him or her to come up with a television commercial for Blue Bunny ice cream, I guarantee you that you would get something better than this "professionally produced" spot. As I said, what amazes me most is that even one person in the board room at Wells Dairy nodded in approval when this ad was shown for approval. The agency's account executive should be shot.

But then again, marketers are idiots and they think their customers are as stupid as they are. And this is as stupid as it gets!