From Jim Metrock:
It would be hard to call one Channel One commercial the all-time worst. Who could forget the topless ad for Stay Clear? Or the ad for the ultraviolent movie Supernova that actually showed people being killed and gutted on the classroom TV screen? Oh, Channel One executives have made some moronic decisions in what they have advertised to children.
Let me nominate a recent commercial for the Worst category. On Friday, August 31, 2002, Channel One ran the much publicized Pepsi Blue commercial that debuted the night before on the MTV Video Music Awards.
With all the studies that have raised concern about obesity among schoolchildren, Channel One is truly heartless in its continuation of soft drink commercials. Pepsi Blue is the newest sugary drink and will be heavily advertised to teens. Teens and pre-teens are the target market for Pepsi Blue. The company even said teen focus groups picked the color of the new drink.
See the commercial that ran on Channel One.
Now, as irresponsible as it is to promote increased soft drink consumption to schoolchildren, that isn’t the whole story about this commercial. That would only make it a “Bad” commercial.
Pepsi is pushing the envelope with this ad campaign. They filmed this commercial during the shooting of an actual music video. A group named Sev is shown performing “Same Old Song” from their newly release CD.
Sev is known for its very explicit lyrics. Their new CD has a parental warning sticker. Channel One knew what they were doing and they violated their promise to schools to never play music from groups or artists known for explicit lyrics. This commercial ran a full minute which gave this group a great opportunity to sell its trashy CD to kids.
It appears that nobody at Channel One even looks at the commercials, much less screens them in any way.
This is another double-whammy from the Fat Cats at Channel One – junk food and junk music. Friday was the first junk food (drink) ad on Channel One for the 2002-2003 school year. Prepare for more. The Sev/Pepsi Blue ad is the first ad of Pepsi’s launch campaign. It’s been announced that the next one will feature Papa Roach, another explicit lyrics group. Will Channel One run that one too? Will they violate their policy about playing music from offensive groups to their captive audience of children?
What do you think?
