Brought to you by lowmank79 of YouTube

Since the reasons why this commercial will never see the light of day again are pretty obvious, I thought I’d share some of the comments it sparked (and keep in mind this is YouTube, so it’s going to hurt a little):

• 68lincoln Ay yi yi yi! I love the Frito Bandito! I remember this commercial, must be mid-1960s? We had cute commercials back then and nowadays we have a bunch of advertisers who are scared of offending every damn minority group, give me a freaking break, or give me some Frito Bandito Fritos! HA!
• pintobeanpintobean This is the same as Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben and the college students GMU and UCSD put on blackface (and the blackface was recent). Its not cute then and it isn’t cute now.
• rolandjamess im not offended, im from san antonio texas and im a mexican american, i thinks its awesome, i also think if youre not mexican then you shouldnt even have enough of an opinion to say anything at all. its an inside joke so shut ya’lls cumdumpsters and get a life! f’n nerds!
• PromiserOfDeath My Manager is Hispanic and he doesn’t have an accent or speak Spanish and he doesn’t look like Frito!
  Not all Hispanics look or speak the same! Everyone is looks different and speaks differently
• carsedbarajas My husband is Mexican and he has an accent and I never judged him in any way whatsoever because of that, in fact, I thought it was cute and I still do, just that today is everybody is so freaking sensitive, people need to get a life ! I love this commercial and I sing it all the time, I remember it as a kid and I can remember collecting the erasers that came in the boxes of fritos, we all make fun of each other for one reason or another and really who cares? You have to love yourself first.

Debates on stereotypes vs. humour aside, the one reason why this commercial will never see the light of day again is simply because the Frito Bandito is advertising directed at children.

I’m actually going to side-step the element of stereotyping — mostly because it wouldn’t do any good.  It’s not like a blog post could change the opinion of one side or the other.  What I’d like to look at is part of 68lincoln’s statement:

“…nowadays we have a bunch of advertisers who are scared of offending…”

In the old days of advertising, you couldn’t reach nearly as many people, and those you did reach had limited means of voicing their displeasure if you offended them.

These days, you can reach the entire world (whether you want to or not, thanks to YouTube and sites like it) and so can everyone else.

Given the culture of the Internet, anything interesting will offend at least one person.  This means as publishers and especially marketers, being inoffensive is no longer an option.

We must:

• Decide how offensive we will be
• Determine what groups may be offended
• Know how we will deal with the consequences of being interesting

Yes, before Flintstones Vitamins (and cereal), we had:

The Flintstone’s preferred brand of cigarettes, posted to YouTube by dragon64leo.

Now granted — this cartoon is very old and they’ve all since kicked the habit.  Besides, just about everyone smoked in media earlier than the 70’s or older.  Of course, the Flintstones didn’t just plug tobacco products, and in their defence the cartoon was aimed at adults – and so were many of the products they plugged.  Shamelessly.

Of course, for the timeline of the Flintstones many shows integrated the advertising directly.  TV was a new medium then, much like the Internet is now.  Advertising then shows how experimental it was. Who knows what kind of laws and regulations will be created for things like social media.  (Of course, with the Internet we have the additional complications of global politics.)

Going back to the orignal case of the Flintstones:  Product placement is not going to go away.  In fact, given that just about anyone can both publish and garner a dedicated following using the Internet technologies of today, I think we’re going to see more.

Advertising Now:  Weebl’s Goos Got Talent. Weebl is one of “Those Internet Sites” which is a post in itself, but in a nutshell:  they’re a small group in the U.K. who do funny Internet things.  They have a significant following, and no matter how much Cadbury is paying them for their “Goo’s Got Talent” plug, they’re getting a fantastic deal given the number of people they’ll be reaching.

(Also given Weebl’s fascination with pie and pork products, there’s a good chance that a hefty supply of cream eggs might have been part of the deal.)

Closing Thoughts

• If publishers (Like Hanna-Barbara or Weebl) can be sponsored by advertisers…
  • And pubilshers can now be any individuals…
    • Will we see a day where individuals are sponsored by businesses?

“Scott’s Facebook Page brought to you buy — HasBean’s Coffee:  Scott drinks waaaay too much of it but it’s organic and fair-trade so who cares?”

Until next time, remember that this blog is brought to you by Response Generators:  Communications and Marketing!

And now for something completely different:

Yes, this was the original Grimace.  While he’s changed a lot since, apparently his intellect didn’t go up any, considering he stole the empty cups from McDonald’s.

You think that’s bad?  Ronald’s first appearance is about 100 times creepier.

There’s no way an ad like this would fly today, although not for any objectionable content (nightmare-fuel E. Grimace aside)  It’s simply not permissible to direct advertising at kids.

Personally though, I think there’s a major advertising opportunity to create a movie called “Return to McDonald Land”.  Just have a bunch of kids return to McDonald Land as adults.  It’d be advertising and cinematic gold even if (or especially if) it’s horrible.

As the long weekend is coming up, no polls this Friday.  (Unless we get a lot of comments, in which case expect an edit.)  Happy Valentine’s Day!