Netflix “Pep Talk” Commercial

This is a post in reference to Neil Mannings post about a great commercial done by Netflix. Neil mentions the great effect the commercial had on him, after all he is a hockey player and been in a similar situation before. Although I have never played, which I know is like a cardinal sin to canadians, or experienced a locker room pep talk I still see the humor and effectiveness of the commercial.

Locker Room Pep Talk

To answer his question whether this commercial would have been as effective in other countries, I would reply yes. Although not all countries are as big of hockey fans like us Canadians, I think the sports culture is prevalent in the countries that Netflix is available. One should not focus purely on the fact that it is a hockey dressing room, but more the fact that all people in sports, watch iconic sports movies, and remember iconic pep talks from those movies.

We Are Marshall Pep Talk

For example, the scene could have had the same script but had the players be football, soccer, or basketball players and the humor and effectiveness found in the commercial would still be prevalent to Canadians or anyone else in other countries.

Jaguar “It’s Good to Be Bad” Superbowl Ad

Have you ever noticed that movie villains are always British? Jaguar is hoping you have for their new ad campaign that is taking off. It started with a prime, $4 million dollar ad spot during the Superbowl. The ad has famous British Actors, Sir Ben Kingsley, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Strong who are all notorious for playing bad guys on film. The ad shows these men speaking low and intelligently, as the Brits do, and with an ominous original soundtrack in the background, all you can think of is evil. The ad also sports a high powered helicopter and a two new Jaguar F-Type cars racing towards a destination that seems to be a “high tech command center” in London, where Kingsley ends with the phrase, “It is good to be Bad”.

the villains

To me the ad brings up a couple of ideas, first is that it does seem that British actors are portrayed as the villains. Secondly, the car is stunning. As someone who enjoys cars and is interested in them, the fact is that the Jaguar is always put behind Porsche, Mercedes, or BMW. But should it be?

Obviously this is the goal of the ad, to bring light to a good looking, powerful car for those who want to look “bad”. And having this display of two cars swerving around the streets of London being chased by a helicopter is pretty cool, and shows that their product is a sleek, and powerful like James Bond’s Aston Martin, but te jaguar is a little edgier… and a lot cheaper than the car used by the infamous 007.

In my opinion, the ad is good, it is dark and cool and makes you appreciate that there is more out there than the typical high end cars you see, for now there is one driven by the dark-side.