hunt's pork & beans tv ad - huh? ano daw sabi??? : part 1

unfortunately this tv commercial is not available in the internet. but i feel the urgent and desperate need even to talk about it. i think this ad was first aired just over the weekend.

the commercial opens with a young boy going to the rice cooker, opens it, looks inside, then talks to his mom off camera, saying something like "there is no more rice".

split second reaction, i thought, hmm a commercial for rice? since when did anyone advertise rice? or a rice substitute?

then, the camera cuts to some food preparation and the copy says something like "it's ok if t here's no rice, there is hunt's pork and beans and rice". (shows a food shot of hunt's pork & beans over rice.) then cut to another food preparation, mom voice over says something like "you can eat hunt's pork & beans with bread". (shows a food prep of hunts pork & beans inside a hamburger bun.)

what the hell was that? right after the third line of the ad, i start laughing and tune off for the rest of the commercial!

where in the world is the logic in that tv commercial? first line is "there is no more rice" and the immediate answer to that is "it's ok, there is hunt's pork & beans and rice"??? the boy wanted rice and he was asking the mother what he will do since they have ran out of rice. and that is the answer of the mom? how did that the mom's statement answer the boy's line? it does not make sense! to begin with i thought there is no more rice?

and then the second line doesn't make sense either, "you can enjoy hunt's pork & beans with bread".

i think the point they wanted to make here is that it's ok to run out of rice, you can eat hunt's pork & beans in many ways, not just with rice but also with bread.

but this idea was presented in a very confused and misleading way, it felt like there were missing scenes in the ad, either before the commercial started or scenes after the line of the boy. there is a huge logic gap in there! the logic gap is so huge that i am shocked nobody noticed it.

commercials first and foremost must make sense if not logical. sometimes we get ads that are very creative and incredible that they are not really logical in terms of understanding reality. but they are presented in a logical way that we can accept.

like the coke "angel' commercial, it's a fantasy and therefore not literally logical in our real world, but the premise and story of the ad is presented in a sensible and logical manner. even when it tries to be very creative and out of the box, logic and sense is a very basic and fundamental need in any commercial.

this hunt's tv commercial does not even try to make sense or to be logical. i think i know what happened here. and my guess is it's the client's fault.

i think one of the objectives of the storyboard is to encourage extended usage by telling the audience that hunt's pork & beans can be enjoyed even with bread other than the traditional way of eating it with rice.

they probably shot the commercial using a storyboard that had that storyline. with the lines and visuals in this sequence:

boy: there is no more rice.
mom: it's ok even if we don't have rice, you can enjoy it with bread
(visual of hunt's pork & beans and bread)
mom: it's as good as eating it with rice (shows visual of hunt's pork & beans on rice)

my guess is at post production approval stage, one of the clients, probably the president, a very logical person, objected to the shot commercial. this client was afraid that with the shot storyboard (my own versions of the lines, above), they run the risk of alienating their current users whose eating habit is to eat the product with rice. the president was afraid that there was too much emphasis on eating the product with bread that it will turn off a very large chunk of their current franchise who has the established habit of eating it with rice. and that will mean they will lose market share.

their solution? they inserted the hunt's pork & beans shot and line before the bread visual. but what they forgot to check was - did the audio make sense, was the story being presented logical?

someone in the agency got scared and did not challenge the client. someone forgot to ask about making sense and being logical. if this wasn't the client's fault, who is the ad agency of this brand?

this hunt's pork & beans "rice" tv ad? it's a WAWAM!

more on this WAWAM! ad in the next post...