Tierney Rocky's Blog

This video says it all. Hot actress. Cute animals. Cheap-shot pain. Sexualized content. I am almost certain that these are the top 4 topics that young adults of today search for online when they are bored: attractive actors, animals, humorous pain, and sex.

With the recent Charlie Sheen extravaganza, it is obvious that our generation is easily amused by cheap entertainment. It seems that all that is needed to grab our attention is exactly what Jennifer Aniston’s ad claims. Although the ad is a slight parody of these advertising tactics it still makes use of them, and as Jen mentioned, is probably getting 100,000 more hits than it would have without her kicking the geek where it hurts.

By the way, how many of you actually remember what the ad was for? … If you forgot like I did the first time I watched it, it is for Smart Water. Although Jennifer is holding a bottle and mentions its tagline: “The purest tasting water there is”, the ad hardly focuses on the product itself but on other recent mainstream concepts as seen on YouTube, including the ‘lip-singing boy’ and the ‘so-high-on-drugs-seeing-double-rainbow guy’; some of the most infamous videos that have earned the highest number of hits. But why does Smart Water essentially divert attention away from itself? Well, it is actually quite …smart! They have carefully positioned themselves around their competition, focusing on the perceptions of the consumer rather than on the reality of the product, as they hit their target market (in this case, most young adults) and differentiate themselves as a water company that does not focus on health or nutrition but on fun, meaningless, procrastination-friendly entertainment – something that we (sadly) actually want to hear about.