Stupid commercials: Buffalo Wild Wings

I watch commercials pretty closely. I work in advertising, and although I don’t get to make many TV commercials (and I’m so low on the totem pole that anything I contribute seems to get destroyed) I still try to pay attention to what’s being down, and how, and break them down in my head.

There’s many ways for a commercial to get fucked up. From obstinate clients who insist on making it “feel” a certain way (GoDaddy’s spots strike me that way…painfully horrible, while technically well-made) to just badly conceived, written and executed.

Buffalo Wild Wings’ “Overtime” spot falls into the badly conceived and written category. It’s filmed, edited, and produced just fine, and the concept is bearable, but executed so fucking poorly that it makes one wonder if there was a head injury to a key writer, and everyone else just signed off on the shit show.

The basic concept is that people are having so much fun at Buffalo Wild Wings that they want the game they’re watching to keep going. Thus, they think the only thing that could make the game better is overtime. To whit:

This spot seriously makes me think that the people who wrote it have not only never seen a football game, but are actually the propaganda arm of an alien invasion fleet trying to get people to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings because they’ve spiked it with dick-exploding viruses. I can’t picture any NFL fan who would wish for overtime as a pure statement of enjoying the game. If overtime is their team’s only chance of winning, yes, they’ll root for it. If overtime means they score big on a bet, OK. But unless they’ve got a fucking IED rammed up their ass that’s going to blow the second the final horn goes off, no fan, ever, has said “Golly! Overtime would be super!” These fuckers are all in their god damn jerseys, so they’re clearly rooting. The proper reaction for the fan who hears this “the only thing better” comment would be to punch this cock in the face and apologize to the people around him for not punching him harder.

That shit just went awry.

Bonus: These spots are so much worse than the previous Old Spice ads that I am driven to drink.

I’d drink anyway, but because of Old Spice’s failure, I’m drinking really sadly.