Miracle Whip: Genius or Madness?

"We are Miracle Whip, and we will not tone it down."

Thus spaketh some voiceover talent into a microphone somewhere in the world. He read from a script that had been approved by someone who works (or worked, perhaps) at Kraft Foods, or some subsidiary. The approved script had been written by some guy (it's possible that it's a woman, but my gut tells me the odds are that it was a guy) who was working with a tag line that had been put forth within the advertising agency of McGarryBowen, and the tag line was may have been derived from looking at a SWOT analysis of the Miracle Whip product and brand.

Question: "What are the strengths of Miracle Whip?"
Apparent Answer: "It's not mayonnaise. It's got a zing and people love it."

Question: "What are the weaknesses of Miracle Whip?"
Apparent Answer: "Too zing-y for some people. Low adoption rate among people who haven't had it before."

Question: "What are the opportunities?"
Apparent Answer: "Young people. A new generation of people who have been informed about health but are young enough to want to rebel sometimes."

Question: "What are the threats?"
Apparent Answer: "People want us to tone it down."

Of course, that last answer makes no sense. But does THIS make sense?



Let's step away from the Miracle Whip for a second...

Humor is a hard thing to define. Laughing is considered by some a defense mechanism--a way to relieve stress and uncertainty in a healthy way. This makes sense to me because jokes often zig when our brains expect them to zag, or people get hit in the groin with a wiffle ball bat, or satire pokes fun at things that we often have other emotions for (disdain or anger or boredom).

Unintentional humor is much-loved by many. When someone writes or says something that comes out wrong, we often laugh. Sometimes someone attempts to dance or sing or give advice and the result is just... laughable. Intentional unintentional humor is more difficult to do, because it can feel contrived and artificial.

I think that "discomfort humor" is a subset of intentional unintentional humor... anyone who's seen Curb Your Enthusiasm or The Office (especially the BBC version) knows what I mean. It's the kind of humor that makes you laugh while you squirm. Or at least squirm. It's too real and it's just... painful. And painfully funny.

Back to Miracle Whip. Are they being intentionally unintentionally funny? Or at least trying to be?

At face value, it's just a horrible commercial. Hipsters dancing around on a rooftop laughing and having a great time... because of bread spread?

(This reminds me of a video I saw recently on Facebook. I rarely go on boats, but seemingly everyone else in Seattle goes out on the water regularly, and many young women have crazy "Look at us, partying in our bikinis with a few semi-to-full-blown douchebags posing with all ten of us! Woo hoo! It's so much fun. You must be so jelouse! [sic]" pics on Facebook profiles. And, to be honest, while the whole situation is a bit weird to me, the pics often DO make it look like fun. Then I saw the aforementioned video, which was, like, a "between the crazy posed bikini party chicks pics" video (i.e., real life)... the video essentially had all of these people standing around, holding a beer and talking in low voices. Their posture was, as a whole, markedly worse and it made me feel like I was missing out on less in life...)

I used to eat Miracle Whip growing up. I have no antipathy towards Miracle Whip, specifically, or spreadable condiments generally (except relish... I don't trust verbs that are edible). But I seriously doubt that parties spontaneously erupt due to its presence on hamburgers.

So what was McGarryBowen thinking? Did they think that they would position the brand as hip and fun? That's not a bad idea, and I assume that's what it is. My primary question, then, is whether they did it by making a commercial they thought people would treat as hip and fun, or by making a commercial that people would treat as one of the worst ads ever, and thereby having younger people embrace Miracle Whip, who "gets it" from a sense of humor perspective.

I honestly don't know the answer to that.

Here's another one.



It's like a train wreck. I can't stop staring at it. (Actually, I've never seen a train wreck, so maybe I could stop. I know that I purposefully do NOT rubberneck at automobile accidents, both because I might see something that cannot be unseen and because I don't want to contribute to traffic flow issues.)

Genius? Madness? I don't know. I do know that it doesn't make me want to eat Miracle Whip. I guess I just blogged about it, though, which is arguably better than me spending $8 a year on the stuff...