It’s one of those commercials that even though you know you shouldn’t laugh when you see it, you chuckle anyway.
Using a double-play on words, Jennie-O Turkey Store has launched its “Give Your Family the Bird,” advertising campaign to promote its Oven Ready turkey, which the company claims is so easy to prepare that it takes the stress out of holiday meal planning.
It seemed that sooner or later, someone might have used this pun to promote their chicken or turkey products, and now Jennie-O Turkey Store has boldly gone where no other poultry company has gone before.
“This campaign revolves around something many of us can relate to: the fact that a holiday host doesn’t always have time to deal with everything that goes along with getting ready for the holiday meal,” Brent Koosmann, marketing director at Jennie-O, stated in a press release. “Giving the bird — a Jennie-O Oven Ready turkey — is a lighthearted look at a very simple way to take the hassle and stress out of preparing a whole turkey for your holiday get-together.”
So instead of obscenely gesturing to that cousin with the irritating laugh, the grandmother who is way too critical, or the aunt who makes everyone pose for a family portrait while struggling to figure out how to work their camera, just serve them an Oven Ready Jennie-O Turkey, the one woman in the family suggests.
Will ad be effective?
Will this advertising campaign be successful for Jennie-O? It probably will.
The easy-to-prepare turkey should sell itself, but in this day of short attention spans, just talking about the benefits of a product might not quite pull the viewers in. But this commercial makes you do a double-take when you hear a woman with a sweet voice say “give Grandma the bird,” and then you get to see just what that bird is.
Does this ad appeal to people’s immature sides? Yes. It it crude and crass? I’d have to say yes. But does it cross a line? No.
Most importantly, does it get people to talking about Jennie-O Oven Ready turkey? I can’t see how it couldn’t.
