Long live the . . . Walmart ad?
Walmart ads don't usually do it for me. Corporation of evil and all that. Their marketing approach is usually one part rah-rah patriotism, one part sentimentalism, and two parts blatant propaganda to prevent another round of employee lawsuits.
But the latest one depends solely on the comic timing of the most excellent Queen Latifah. Have you seen it? A woman is at the checkout, and Queen Latifah comes by, all smiles, and asks her if she's enjoying the gift card she gave her. And then Queen Latifah (can I say just Queen, or is that too familiar?) looks in her cart and frowns. She tilts her head towards the impulse-buy rack, where one of her movies is displayed. The woman (also brilliant in her way), who's been looking incredibly nervous, grabs the DVD and puts it in her basket. Queen smiles her cat-in-cream smile, says something like, Okay, then, and the commercial ends.
Okay, so I've been sick and watching too much TV and there's a self-pity quotient and a boredom element -- but this commercial was pretty much the funniest thing I saw all day. The set-up's not particularly inventive -- it's all in the performance.
I'm not running out to the new Walmart that just opened near me (creeping ever closer, ever closer -- soon I'll wake up and my apartment building will have been incorporated somewhere near the garden department) -- I'm just saying, the Queen has got the goods.
Oh, and she just got her Hollywood star.
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=1471823
posted by Seren @ Wednesday, January 04, 2006
2 Comments:
I think you can say Queen. No one will think you too forward. I, myself, think of her as Queen Dana.
And I love that commercial, even though I cannot bring myself to enter a Wal-Mart in this state. I had to do it in Louisiana -- there's no place else to shop in/near my grandma's three-stoplight-town, but...Wal-Mart. Eew. Still, a funny commercial, even without the decongestants.
I haven't seen the commerical yet, but will look for it. And, uh, I have to confess...my girlfriends and I on the EC kinda like Wal-mart. You can order Snapfish photos and pick them up the same day at Wal-mart. In my defense, it was the only place to buy anything in the Lehigh Valley in the early-90's... I guess I'm showing my valley-trash-roots...har har
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