Buy Brut, get women pregnant

Saw the new Brut commercial last night.  Have to admit that I was not paying attention until the wife said, "Oh, my God!"  Here's why:


Let me get this straight: a man slaps on Brut, and suddenly he is so manly that his wife becomes pregnant!  His goldfish becomes pregnant!  His dog becomes pregnant!  What is Brut made of? Pure testosterone?

Someone must have decided that men's cologne commercials were getting a little dull. We used to have the Gorton's fisherman flogging Old Spice, and the CGI facial hairs still act like Lectric Shave is crack.  And we had Axe, where every commercial was a variation on, "BUY AXE: GET LAID!"  But I don't see as many Axe ads as I used to, and it looks like Brut decided there was the niche for it.

I don't mind an ad that's over the top.  Hell, most of 'em are when you look at them.  But a product that makes a man so studly that he impregnates anything female with sniffing range?  I actually thought this was a joke.  I mean, there are moral and legal implications to consider.  Suppose he had a teenage daughter? Suppose she wasn't teen aged?  You can slap on some Brut and be arrested be arrested for child molestation. Maybe even incest.

And what about when this guy...no, this legion of Brut scented men...what happens when they leave the house? They'll impregnate even female who smells them when they go to work, or the mall, or the beach. (The beach? Oy!)  Can you imagine one of these guys taking a bus to work? A train?  Walking through Grand Central Station, iimpregnating every single female they pass. Can these women sue?  (For what? Forced immaculate conception?)  How about child support?  And don't get me started on the baby boom that's gonna start happening in nine months.

And that's just the humans.  We saw this guy immaculately conceive a goldfish and a dog.  What is the offspring of a union twixt man and dachshund? What about other flora and fauna?  What about the insect world? I used to live in Florida.  Do you know how big the cockroaches get?  Now imagine this guy's house in a few months.  Ecch!

Okay, they went over the top, I went over the top.  So, let's bring it back to earth. Does this ad work for me? No. I don't decide what cologne or after shave I wear, my wife does.  Does the ad work for her?  Hell, no! And i know, in the ad, the wife probably bought the Brut for her husband. Is there anybody in the room that thinks she's gonna buy it again?

And that brings up another question: who is this ad targeted at?  Unattached males, and apparently ones who are so desperate to have sex, that they take the consequences without committing the act.  Like I said, my wife decides what  eau de toilette  I wear. When I was younger, my father wore Old Spice, so I wore Old Spice. When I started shaving, I used his brand of shaving cream and his brand of razor.  When I started dating, I didn't care what my old man said, I cared what my girlfriend said.  If she didn't like my aftershave, then my aftershave was out. Or I was.  It's the same now that I'm married.  And the same for everybody I talked to about this. (They also say I sure do spend a lot of time thinking about weird stuff.)

So, the women control what the guy wears, eats, drinks, and smells like.  And if they don't like Brut (or getting pregnant every time they see him), then the guy ain't wearing Brut. (Or wearing those yellow chinos he's had since his senior year. Buh bye, yellow chinos!)

Am I done here?  My wife thinks I am.

America As Seen On TV

The Commercial Decoder Blog is about commercials that annoy me.  Commercials that just cry out for some snarky comment.  Usually I make these comments to my wife, but she is more interested in me being quiet while she watches TV.  So I decided to start a blog.

Most of the commercials that annoy me fall into a few distinct categories;  commercials that go off message, commercials that reinforce the myth of the Generic American Family, and the whackadoodles.

I'll start with the first. A commercial that goes off message usually has a small gag at the end that is meant to send the viewer off with a smile, and hopefully go and buy the product.  But the gag usually has an unintended subtext that defeats the whole purpose of the commercial. The commercial says one thing, and the gag says something else.

Here’s an example. This is one of the current ads for Nestles Butterfinger candy bars. I’ve got nothing against Butterfinger bars.  Used to love them as a kid.  Them, and Clark bars. Yum.  Anyway…click on the video to see what I am talking about.

Butterfinger Commercial by


Pete, a devious cubical dweller distracts his co-worker, Kevin, with a phone call in order to steal his Butterfinger. But Kevin is onto Pete's dastardly scheme, and speed staples the fiend to his cubical wall.  Nobody lays a finger on Kevin's Butterfinger!  


All well and good.  The basic message is that Butterfinger bars are so delicious that people will do anything to get one, or keep one.  Sure, it's over the top, but that is what makes the commercial funny, and memorable. So next time you're in the impulse aisle of your local supermarket, you might pick one up.


Now, here comes the kicker. A female co-worker walks by, stops, and says in a bored monotone, "You guys are idiots."   It's a funny line to end the commercial with, but look at the unintended message; people who act this way about a candy bar are idiots.  Now, do I want to buy something that makes me look like an idiot? (My wife tells me that I don't need any help.)


And once you see one of these self defeating commercials, you'll start seeing them everywhere.  You'd think that the ad men working in a fifteen billion dollar industry would know better than to sabotage their own commercials.  But I see them night after night.  And I kvetch about them, too. Except now, I do it in a blog.