I've Got This Great Idea for a Bold New Ad
There's like this totally desolate area, except it's not totally desolate. Maybe it's quasi-desolate. Yeah, that's it, quasi. And there's a city with buildings, but there are no people anywhere, and it's all very post-apocalyptic and shit. No one is doing post-apocalyptic and shit these days, so we're being very edgy that way.
And when I said there were no people anywhere I was just kidding. There are actually two people. So there are two people, and these people are very real looking. You know, real. Except they really aren't real because real people are too fat. These people are real looking in the way that plastic is real looking. Plastic makes things possible.
So the girl who is one of these two people looks like she's just had a fight with her tight-ass cunt of a mother. You know, she's pissed and she looks very misunderstood like her mother just grounded her for not brushing her hair in several days. And she's had it with her mother, and so she and her hip-bones escape through the bedroom window and find themselves walking along the streets of this quasi-desolate, post-apocalyptic city.
And the guy who is the other one of these two people, he's been smoking some serious pot. He has dreadlocks, and people who have dreadlocks smoke pot. We don't actually show him smoking pot, that would be illegal, but everyone knows he's been smoking pot. Smoking pot is cool. And he looks like he could possibly have an African American mother and a Chinese father, or something like that. Maybe a Vietnamese father, you know, something very exotic.
Anyway, he's not very upset. He's actually very relaxed because he's been smoking pot. And you get the idea that the guy and the girl would never associate in real life, but since they find themselves in a quasi-desolate, post-apocalyptic city they have a bond. They, like, totally get each other. And this is what it's all about, really. Pretty people getting other pretty people.
And so they're walking and walking and they begin to hear this huge noise in the background. Like, fucking huge. Like a stampede of wild bison or something. And the people watching the commercial know that it really is a huge fucking stampede of wild bison, or maybe buffalo. Either one will do. Whatever, just some huge hairy beasts running like hell.
So these bison are tearing the place up, there are like a gazillion of them. And glass is breaking and things are crumbling, you know, it's a disaster. It's chaos. It's a metaphor for the world we live in, you know. And the people watching the commercial are like, get out of the way, you two pretty people! The huge herd of bison are headed straight for Mr. and Ms. Disaffected, and they show no signs of slowing or stopping to graze.
But the guy and the girl just stop and turn around to face the stampede, like they are totally crazy. I mean, you'd have to be crazy to stand there facing an oncoming stampede of bison at full-throttle, everybody knows that. Those bison are totally going to mutilate those two people and everyone watching the commercial is like, oh my god.
But here's where we pull the switcheroo, here's where we totally fool everyone. You see, what the bison and the people watching the commerical don't know is that the jeans these two people are wearing have created an impenetrable force-field around their bodies! It's totally like magic or something. The bison are diverted around the guy and the girl like water or something like that. And you're totally going, holy fuck!
And the bison are going so fast that they are creating a fierce wind that is blowing gently through the girl's disheveled hair and the guy's dreads, totally like poetry. And she is so overhwlemed that she starts to cry, and we know that in that instant she has forgiven her tight-ass cunt of a mother. And the guy is so stoned that he doesn't really know what the hell is going on, he just knows that it's really fucking cool.
And to top it all off, the real clincher, what will make this the raddest jeans ad ever: we're going to set the whole thing to this really great song, a song that should never be bastardized like it will be in this commercial. And anytime anyone who loves that song sees this commercial, they will want to take a loaded gun and empty it into the heads of whoever agreed to make this monstrosity.
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anna jr. said:
thank you, dooce!
i was seriously confused about why that girl was so pissed and what the hell that guy had done with his hair and why the buffalo didn't trample them.
but now i understand it all. and it was the levi's brand FORCE-FIELD that saved them!
and man, now i REALLY want those jeans even more.
02.09.03 - 12:41 PM / 1Renee said:
LOL! That was priceless.
02.09.03 - 12:48 PM / 2MB said:
Man, I hate that commercial so much (no offense since, you know, apparently it's your idea and all).
02.09.03 - 12:56 PM / 3Alex said:
mmmmm.....bastardized song!
02.09.03 - 12:56 PM / 4ZACH DE LA ROCHA said:
Duuude! Like that guy's not like half Vietnamese and black and stuff - Like it's me, I sold out after the Rage Against the Machine gig and like did this commercial.
02.09.03 - 01:03 PM / 5Scott said:
I hate that commercial, I hate those two people, I hate their stupid jeans, and I even hate the computer generated buffalo.
And I'm also pissed that they used a Stooges song in a Nissan commercial.
02.09.03 - 01:18 PM / 6kindle said:
Yeah, I've seen that ad a few times now. Every time I'm disappointed that those two cunts don't get trampled. Maybe next time..
02.09.03 - 01:20 PM / 7f said:
It took me until the last paragraph to realize that this was an actual commercial you were speaking of. This is what having a TiVo does to you, it makes you impervious to commercials, except that Sprint wireless commercials with all the dachshunds, because wiener dogs are really fucking cute.
02.09.03 - 01:25 PM / 8kate said:
dooce you read my mind (and spruced up my thoughts to make them really, really funny).
the first thing i thought after i saw that shit on tv was a new levi's tagline:
stoned and powerful.
02.09.03 - 01:26 PM / 9Jennay said:
http://urbn.com/cgi-bin/
sgdynamo.exe?CODIV=
0201&HTNAME=mens/index.html
&UID=2003020917342524
I'd do him again...
02.09.03 - 01:39 PM / 10da said:
dooce, was this ad your idea also?:
http://www.vogue.co.uk
/vogue_daily/story/story.asp
?stid=8458
02.09.03 - 01:48 PM / 11Kayjay said:
That ad makes my brain hurt in a serious way...not quite so bad that I start yelling at the TV, but close.
02.09.03 - 01:48 PM / 12Janna said:
I kind of liked that commercial... :-(
02.09.03 - 02:24 PM / 13sjc said:
Devil's advocate: don't a few lads in Scotland deserve a sound thrashing for agreeing to this in the first place?
02.09.03 - 02:26 PM / 14Edsmonkey said:
I wish those fuckin' buffalo would run over the ad execs and the dicksmack at levi's that okayed that lame ass piece of advertising.
I would also like to huck a big steamer of a buffalo chip at those slack jawed nutants they hired for models.
It what reality are they considered attractive?!?!
02.09.03 - 02:48 PM / 15earththing said:
I live in foreign parts and haven't seen the advert. What song do they use?
02.09.03 - 02:51 PM / 16laura said:
levi is one of my accounts at work, though i am not in advertising. monday after the super bowl, all my fellow levi account co-workers were all scratching our heads over that one. bold since 2003? quite possibly the dumbest commercial ever. except for those singing pringles cans.
02.09.03 - 02:53 PM / 17dooce said:
earththing: you can see the actual commercial if you go to levis.com and click on USA.
the song is ìSummerî by a Scottish band called Mogwai.
02.09.03 - 03:03 PM / 18L.A. Grump said:
The worst thing about that ad is that's really fucking long! All that time wasted when I could've been online!
02.09.03 - 03:05 PM / 19Another Laura said:
I think the saddest use of a good song in a commercial was Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" in that VW ad.
02.09.03 - 03:15 PM / 20lee said:
So I was with Eartthing there, in not having ever seen the commercial. And so while I was reading that whole description, I was thinking, "Dude, am I going to have to take away a shit ton of Dooce's cool points 'cause she acutally thinks this lame-ass idea for a commercial is good? She sounds sarcastic and silly, but..." I was so relieved when I discovered that the cool points need not be retracted.
Watched the clip over at levis.com as suggested, just to get back in touch with American advertising. Can't say I've missed much. That girl is far too pouty.
02.09.03 - 03:35 PM / 21Jason said:
I was thinking, "what a dumb ass entry - what is she on?"
Then I got it. Right on.
02.09.03 - 03:53 PM / 22Benjy said:
First, what's the deal with the Bison having the levis back pocket embroidery on it's snout?
That was far and away the worst commercial of the Super Bowl! Didn't make any sense and didn't at all fit the demographics for the Super Bowl. Too deep and all.
02.09.03 - 04:08 PM / 23Janna said:
That's not his snout-- it's the reflection in his eye.
02.09.03 - 04:33 PM / 24PaulDav said:
Let's cut to the chase - the ad sucks. Another case of the 30something Art Director making sure his/her inflated salary is justified.
I've been in Ad work much too long.
02.09.03 - 04:36 PM / 25Xanthan said:
Ok, a Dooce first (at least with me):
You got me to snort water out my nose. Thank GOD I wasn't drinking something more severe! You rock, girl.
02.09.03 - 04:50 PM / 26PJ said:
Also, they've changed the stitching pattern on the pocket from the Levis of years past. Now it looks like stylized cleavage.
02.09.03 - 04:52 PM / 27Red said:
It's the lamest.
Direct your critiques to Bartle Bogle Hegarty-New York: Creative Director Thomas Hayo, Copywriter Anthony Goldstein and Art Director Gavin Lester.
Phone: 212-812-6600
Fax: 212-242-4110
02.09.03 - 05:55 PM / 28Vera said:
I think the two people look really cool from behind because I used to know really cool people with matching long hair like that who I expect to see at my high school reunion, but when you see the girl's face, it's like Whoa. What's with the massive overbite?
02.09.03 - 06:05 PM / 29the propagandist said:
what i can't tell is if the producer has a freudian or a jungian as their therapist.
any suggestions?
02.09.03 - 06:16 PM / 30